March 2023

Saturday 2023-03-18 – Link List

Blogging Intensifies Link List for Saturday 2023-03-18

18-Mar-2023 – Trump says he expects to be arrested on Tuesday

Brief Summary: “Prosecutors in New York are considering charges over alleged hush money payments to an ex-porn star.”

18-Mar-2023 – DOOM Ported to a Single LEGO Brick

Brief Summary: “By now you’ve all seen the tiny LEGO brick with a working screen in it. The work of one [James “Ancient” Brown], it was truly a masterpiece of miniatu”

17-Mar-2023 – Could you train a ChatGPT-beating model for $85,000 and run it in a browser?

Brief Summary: “I think it’s now possible to train a large language model with similar functionality to GPT-3 for $85,000. And I think we might soon be able to run th”

17-Mar-2023 – A simple Python implementation of the ReAct pattern for LLMs

Brief Summary: “A popular nightmare scenario for AI is giving it access to tools, so it can make API calls and execute its own code and generally break free of the co”

17-Mar-2023 – FCC now requires cell carriers to block scam texts from sketchy numbers

Brief Summary: “The FCC is cracking down on the relentless deluge of spammy, automated text messages. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeRegulators in the U”

17-Mar-2023 – Thwarted hacker asks security firm to reimburse gas fees

Brief Summary: “File this one under “the audacity”.On March 17, blockchain security company BlockSec observed an attacker trying to exploit a vulnerability in the NFT”

17-Mar-2023 – Persona 5 is getting a promising-looking mobile spinoff

Brief Summary: “Mobile spinoffs based on beloved console games can sometimes be hit-or-miss. But based on an initial pair of trailers, I’m cautiously optimistic about”

17-Mar-2023 – Microsoft Is Testing a Built-In Cryptocurrency Wallet For the Edge Browser

Brief Summary: “Microsoft appears to be testing a built-in cryptocurrency wallet for Edge, according to screenshots pulled from a beta build of the browser. Ars Techn”

17-Mar-2023 – Godot Arrives In the Epic Games Store

Brief Summary: “The open-source, cross-platform Godot Engine has arrived in the Epic Games store. “Starting today, you can choose to use EGS to download the engine an”

17-Mar-2023 – Space Station Science Highlights: Week of March 13, 2023

Brief Summary: “Crew members aboard the International Space Station conducted scientific investigations during the week of March 13.”

17-Mar-2023 – SETI@home Is in Hibernation

Brief Summary: “Comments”

17-Mar-2023 – Windows Weekly 820: Mustard Can Solve Any Problem

Brief Summary: “Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss Windows 11 version 22H2’s Moment 2 release, all the new AI things, Microsoft Word, developer news, Xbox, and much more.”

17-Mar-2023 – Venus’ Volcano

Brief Summary: “Maat Mons, a volcano on Venus that has shown signs of a recent eruption, is in the black square near the planet’s equator in this annotated, computer-“

17-Mar-2023 – Chibi Godzilla no Gyakushū Anime’s Trailer Streamed

Brief Summary: “Series of shorts premieres on April 1”

Friday 2023-03-17 – Link List

Blogging Intensifies Link List for Friday 2023-03-17

17-Mar-2023 – Donald Glover has shared a new EP, ‘Swarm’

Brief Summary: “Donald Glover has released a new EP, ‘Swarm’, in conjunction with his new horror series of the same name.

The EP features the fictional music of p”

17-Mar-2023 – Taylor Swift has shared four previously unreleased tracks, including ‘Lover’ outtake ‘All Of The Girls You Loved Before’

Brief Summary: “Taylor Swift is getting ready for her Eras Tour, which kicks off tonight (Friday 17th March) in Glendale, Arizona, with the release of four previously”

16-Mar-2023 – Amazon Kills Kindle Newsstand

Brief Summary: “Amazon announced today that it has stopped selling print and Kindle magazine and newspaper subscriptions and will shut down Kindle Newsstand.
The post”

16-Mar-2023 – TextSynth Server

Brief Summary: “Comments”

15-Mar-2023 – Show HN: Learn Python with Minecraft

Brief Summary: “Comments”

Thursday 2023-03-16 – Link List

Blogging Intensifies Link List for Thursday 2023-03-16

16-Mar-2023 – Fortnite to expand creation tools with Unreal Engine 5 editor

Brief Summary: “From Save the World to Create the World.

16-Mar-2023 – Epic’s Unreal Editor for Fortnite is finally launching on March 22nd

Brief Summary: “Image: Epic GamesEpic Games is finally sharing more details about the Unreal Editor for Fortnite, which will let creators use tools from Unreal Engine”

16-Mar-2023 – Persona Accolades Trailer Released, Series Gets Big Discounts On Every Platform But Switch

Brief Summary: “Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royale receive high praise and low prices    The Persona series has been on a roll lately, with Pe”

16-Mar-2023 – Minecraft’s main Bedrock edition now available via ChromeOS

Brief Summary: ”
Minecraft’s cross-platform Bedrock Edition is now available to play via your ChromeOS browser.

This early access version is currently being rolled o”

Ending My Experiment with Flask

I really like Python, but I have one major gripe with it. It’s a pain in the ass to actually share any projects. Python can’t easily be packaged into an executable, and it doesn’t really work well on the web. I had some vague high hopes of building some Flask based web apps, and I may revisit it at some point, but even just trying to share some of the projects I made during my Python class had become a cumbersome pain to manage.

I had originally set up the blog project over on JoshMiller.net. A domain I have, and don’t really want to dump, but don’t really have a use for. I also do not need another blog. “Traditionally” I would use that domain for “personal blogging” but that’s what this site is for, and I’m happy with the state of things here. The Flask blog was also extremely basic and would require a lot of code work to make workable, with things like image management and an RSS feed and some sort of theme system etc. I could probably do it, but…. why?

One thing I’ve learned after working on many fruitless projects over the years. It’s ok for a project to be kind of pointless, but it’s not ok for it to just be completely pointless. There are plenty of much better platforms for blogging, and frankly, all of them are “Just use WordPress”. Another angle is learning how to run sites with something besides Apache, but that tine would be better just learning Nginx.

Anyway, part of the point was to take the base Flask Blog app, and integrate other Flash Apps into it. The problem is, all of the ones I have built are designed to be stand alone apps. They often reuse some name space so i can’t just copy/paste the code in. Then things start to get screwy with modules and imports. The code itself is also not super reusable. Flask can host HTML code, but it’s all very specifically laid out and structured. I can’t just drop the same code into a folder somewhere and run it on a straight Apache instance.

What does work well for this, is JavaScript. Which is basically entirely intended for web based use. Most of the ideas I have had for projects would be much better suited running as JavaScript sites that are much more portable.

Anyway, all of this is mostly to say, I have disabled the Flask Blog I had hosted on JoshMiller.net and rolled it back to the broken landing page I was building. I don’t really care about this site anyway. Hell even the landing page concept is redundant because I’ve got a nice little Github Page serving that purpose.

Wednesday 2023-03-15 – Link List

Blogging Intensifies Link List for Wednesday 2023-03-15

15-Mar-2023 – [Fanatical] Flash Deals: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint – Ultimate Edition (-83% ~ $20.99/£17.49/€20.99) & Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (-55% ~ $20.24/£15.74/€20.24) | Spring Sale: Frontier Developments & Foundry Deals an

Brief Summary: “Hello, GameDeals! Flash Deals Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint – Ultimate Edition Title Discount USD GBP EUR DRM Metacritic HLTB Tom Clancy’s Ghost”