smurthys

davidaugust, 2 months ago to random

🦴📎

smurthys, 6 months ago to india

Today is "deepaawali" aka "diwaali", the #Hindu festival of lights. 🪔

Technically, today is the first of the 3-day festival, especially in South India. The middle day (tomorrow) is often considered the festival day. That's the day people (merchants more so) pray to "lakshmi", the goddess of wealth.

It is customary for people to deck up homes with lights, and maybe also light fireworks, during the festival.

Best wishes to all who observe this festival. ✨

#diwali #deepavali #festival #india

smurthys, 1 year ago (edited 8 months ago) to programming

A serious question for C and C++ programmers:

What are the benefits of using C over C++ for greenfield projects, setting aside build times and such.

In other words, is there anything that can be done in C that cannot be done at least equally well in C++? Is there something that can be done in C that just can't be done in C++? What are the dealbreakers?

(No language wars please.)

Boosts appreciated: my sphere of influence is quite small. 🙏

#c #cpp #cplusplus

smurthys, 8 months ago to random

Sure you do 🙄

#sarcasm #slogan #framed #homeDecor

smurthys, 8 months ago to Flowers

Visited a botanical garden with friends. Awesome display of nature.

More pictures as time permits 👇

#botanicalGarden #botanicGarden #botanical #botanic #flowers #hibiscus #photography #amateur

Closeup of a pink hibiscus flower on its plant
A white hibiscus flower with red stripes, on its plant nestled among green leaves
Closeup of a white hibiscus flower with red stripes

smurthys, 13 days ago to pakistan

"Temperatures cross 52°C (125°F) as heat wave hits Sindh, Pakistan."

The picture shows the Tuesday-Friday forecast for the town of Mohenjo-Daro in Sindh.

https://us.cnn.com/2024/05/28/asia/pakistan-heat-wave-sindh-climate-intl-hnk/index.html

#heatWave #Pakistan #ExtremeWeather #news

smurthys, 5 months ago to NoStupidQuestions

Portable monitors the kind you attach to laptop, phone (mostly Samsung Galaxy, which I have). I wonder what ppl's experience/opinions are.

Amazon is littered w such monitors for $100-$300, depending on day, features. Eg https://a.co/d/eysO0gy

I've been thinking of buying one for travel and for my wife's use at home, but I'm not sure how well they work: Which usage modes does it (not) work well? What to watch for if buying?

💬 🔄 🙏

#question #askmastodon #askfedi #monitors #technology

smurthys, 7 months ago to india

In 1990, 6 undergrads in India pooled Rs. 42K to buy a PC/AT to overcome lab issues at the college. At Rs. 16.5/USD, that was $2550 then; $6K today adjusting for US inflation.

Whichever way you see it, that's a lot of money esp in India, more so for students who also had to pay for boarding, lodging, books, tuition.

Still the best investment those students ever made. Plus they shared that computer with 100s of others: college mates and locals alike. 😀

#tbt #throwbackthursday #India #nostalgia

smurthys, 3 months ago to random

If you're wondering why #KatieBritt has been trending or why that person shows up in your TL:

Katie Britt is Alabama's junior US Senator and gave the official GOP response to POTUS Joe Biden's State of the Union address last night.

The senator's speech was weird, like a very long SNL sketch, or a demo tape by a Hollywood wannabe showing range.

The full 17-minute speech: https://www.c-span.org/video/?534120-1/republican-response-state-union-address

A selection of online comments:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/even-maga-hated-katie-britts-speech/ar-BB1jyzU7

#SOTU2024 #psa #uspol

smurthys, 3 months ago to random

Perfect. No commentary required.

From: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, March 6th, 2024

https://youtu.be/64LHDtMAns8?t=524

#uspol #comedy #latenight #colbertlateshow

smurthys, 4 months ago to Futurology

For those who see "in" group and "out" group:

1. There's always an "out" group to discriminate against, illtreat, and abuse.
   2, Everyone "in" group will eventually be in the "out" group.
2. Remaining "in" group forever requires continuous realignment.

#discrimination #society #people #bias #prejuidice #bigotry

smurthys, 8 days ago to cricket

Fellow Americans, if you go to a Cricket match at a stadium and come in possession of the ball during the match, you are required to throw the ball back on to the field. And quickly.

You don't get to keep the ball. It ain't baseball.

#Cricket #T20WorldCup #psa

smurthys, 1 month ago to cpp

I spent ~hour yesterday fighting an issue with my C++ code, only to later figure out it's a possible GCC bug, because Clang accepts the same code.

The issue is that GCC does not permit a constrained type parameter in a template template parameter of an aliased template. See the simplified code with the issue.

A cursory search of GCC Bugzilla does not readily show any related bug. I'll look carefully but lemme know if this is a known bug (probably is). 🙏🏽

https://sigcpp.godbolt.org/z/bGTnM3v1q

#cpp #gcc #bug

smurthys, 21 days ago to llm

I just finished a productive Copilot session on a complex programming task. I came up with much of the algorithms, and wrote a lot of the code, and had to guide it a lot throughout, but credit where due, Copilot did make small but meaningful contributions along the way.

Overall, not a pair programmer but someone useful to talk to when WFH alone on complex tasks.

Enough for Copilot to earn a ✋🏽. And I like how it responded to that. It has got that part down. 😉

#Copilot #LLM #programming

smurthys, 3 months ago to hiking

Hiking considered dangerous. ⛰️🥾🐍

#hiking #signs #warningSign #warnings

smurthys, 3 months ago to climate

96°F (35.5°C) high in mid-February
37°F (3°C) low in mid-March
Breaking a 70-year rain record in between

Awesome accomplishment humans. Keep it up. 🙄

#climate #climateChange #weather

smurthys, 2 months ago to photography

Blooms on an Empress tree.

#photography #amateur #flowers #nature #spring #bloomscrolling

smurthys, 28 days ago to HashtagGames

I kneed dough. 🥟💰

#PunAnything #HashTagGames

smurthys, 3 months ago to superbowl

At the store y'day, I was next to 2 shoppers chatting abt Super Bowl. One of them said he is a 49ers fan and I said "good luck tomorrow", you know like civilized ppl do.

Not that guy tho'. He rudely retorted "I don't need luck, we're going to cream them". All I could do was SMH and say I was being courteous but the guy just walked off.

I hope that guy sleeps well tonight knowing he might have brought this on himself. 🙄

#SuperBowl #SuperBowl2024 #nfl #KansasCityChiefs #courtesy #49ers #people

smurthys, 1 month ago to Camping

Moved the weekend to Tuesday-Wednesday to camp at a state park. No computer/Internet, but do I have the right book to relax or what? 😀

Lots of wildlife of course, especially cardinals one of which visited our campsite.

(posting this at a break in civilization)

EDIT: added a picture of our camping stove, because pleased with how well it works for it cost us ($40 at Costco, $4.50/cylinder at Walmart).

#camping #forest #hammock #nature #birds #cardinal

Cover of a book held up by someone (not visible) inside a blue hammock. The book cover is red with a portrait of three people dressed like US revolutionaries from late 18th century (think Washington crossing Delaware). Book title is DAVE BARRY SLEPT HERE A SORT OF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
A male cardinal perched on a tree branch in a forest.
A black camping stove on a silver picnic table in a forest (trees in the background). A steel pot with blue handles and lid on, is on the stove. Two coffee mugs with no lids, a small steel thermos with lid closed, and a glass bottle of "SPROUTS Organic Instant Decaf" on the table to the left of the stove.

smurthys, 5 months ago to random

A log of my significant walks and hikes in 2024. 📓 👇

My 2023 significant walks and hikes 👉 https://hachyderm.io/@smurthys/110147253810174154

chris, 2 months ago to random

Nobody: Hey Chris, does searching for really specific words actually work on Mastodon?

Me: Apparently yes! I was trying to remember the type of Apple my columnar tree was. I went to my web view and in the “Search or Paste URL" box I typed (no spaces after @ which I have used here so it would be visible):

from:@ chris@ mstdn.chrisalemany.ca “columnar”
It immediately (<1s) returned yesterday's post followed by the post I made back in August with the variety! Blushing Delight! Woot!
#AskMastodon

ianRobinson, 3 months ago to cricket

India need 192 in the last innings to beat England and win the Test and Series.

On paper they should. Unfortunately they are not playing on paper but rather an unpredictable and deteriorating pitch.

25 minutes play left today. England should open with spinners and get as many overs in as possible.

#Cricket

smurthys, 2 months ago to nature

The walk to the grocery yesterday (~5km roundtrip) brought joy from a variety of blooms along the way. Particularly this fresh, rich, and healthy wisteria sprawling the length and breadth of a perimeter wall.

It was like someone carefully touched each flower-cluster with a radiating highlight color.

#nature #flowers #bloomscrolling #spring #photography #amateur

Purple and white wisteria flowers on an orange brick perimeter wall.
Closeup of purple and white wisteria flowers.
Closeup of purple and white wisteria flowers. Orange brick perimeter wall in the background.

smurthys, 1 month ago to photography

Spotted a yellow-crowned night heron and a black rat snake on yesterday's neighborhood walk. (I think that's what they are, but open to being corrected.)

Saw them both within 100-150 ft of each other, on the 6th km of an otherwise uneventful 7.5km walk. 😀

Snake video 👇🏽 (none of my clients were able to attach both videos to this post).

#photography #amateur #videos #wildlife #heron #snake

Video of a grey heron sitting on a tree branch and then flying away towards a backyard, eventually settling down by a creek.