What You've Done Today - Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

[CopingMarlinsFan]

Had a good day at work at Taco Bell, saw an old doggie friend at the drive thru named Oakie.

[Azdeus]

9 hours ago, Raithe said:

On the matter of reading age-ranges, I can hold my hand up and cheerfully admit I've gotten into heaps of trouble with friends with suggestions of reading for their kids. I am apparently heavily biased by the things I read at those ages, which most people apparently don't consider appropriate for their kids at the same ages.  I'm not sure if that says anything about what my parents allowed me to read, my grasp on reading, or current trends in parental viewpoints.

I read tonnes of fantasy books, Tolkien ofc, some weird post apocalyptic pocketbooks, a bunch of western books, Stephen King, Jules Verne and a book series called Deerfoot. I've been told that the only thing I read that was mildly appropriate was the Jules Verne and Tolkien books. My sister refused her kids access to my Tintin or Asterix collections

And apparently, Stephen Kings Misery isn't appropriate for 11 year olds somehow.

[Gorth]

49 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

I read tonnes of fantasy books, Tolkien ofc, some weird post apocalyptic pocketbooks, a bunch of western books, Stephen King, Jules Verne and a book series called Deerfoot. I've been told that the only thing I read that was mildly appropriate was the Jules Verne and Tolkien books. My sister refused her kids access to my Tintin or Asterix collections

And apparently, Stephen Kings Misery isn't appropriate for 11 year olds somehow.

Wot? Dang... when I was 11, my favourite books form the school library was by someone named Alistair Maclean. I especially remember Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. Good stuff

(these were all Danish translations in case anyone wonders)

I did struggle with The Silmarillion though. Took me quite a few more years to get through that one and appreciate it

I have shared the story in the past, I think, how I got into reading Tolkien in English. Bought this adventure game "The Hobbit" from a publisher named Melbourne House. I was hopelessly stuck and the only help to find in the game box was a paperback edition of The Hobbit. I read it and worked out why I kept getting killed by the goblins in the caves (you have to fool the three trolls first, keeping them out in daylight, then raid their cave and get "Sting", which provides a light source

[Raithe]

The first book that freaked me out and I couldn't finish first time reading was Dracula when I was 8. Harker's descent into madness was just a bit too disturbing at the time.

To be fair, my parents started me on Enid Blyton when I was 4/5, then I rolled into expanding interests. Arthur C Clarke and JT Edson Westerns got started when I was ending first school and rolling into middle school, so that would have been that 7-10 age period. I was about 11 when I went through Shogun for the first time. Similarly, I was going through Alistair Maclean, Ian Fleming, and Robert Ludlum around that period.

For some amusement to the audience, I actually picked up the Dragonlance Chronicles at a car boot sale when I was about 10, and a week or two later I actually go the first 5 books in the Gor Chronicles at another car boot sale thinking they were similar. They had the epic fantasy covers after all.

[Gorth]

I liked Enid Blyton as a young teenager, never dug the Clarke stuff

But the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant? Yeah, that’s where I got off the bus. Despite several genuine attempts including when I got to my late twenties, it was just more work than rewarding for me. So I ditched them for good halfway through the second book

[Azdeus]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

Wot? Dang... when I was 11, my favourite books form the school library was by someone named Alistair Maclean. I especially remember Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. Good stuff

(these were all Danish translations in case anyone wonders)

I did struggle with The Silmarillion though. Took me quite a few more years to get through that one and appreciate it

I have shared the story in the past, I think, how I got into reading Tolkien in English. Bought this adventure game "The Hobbit" from a publisher named Melbourne House. I was hopelessly stuck and the only help to find in the game box was a paperback edition of The Hobbit. I read it and worked out why I kept getting killed by the goblins in the caves (you have to fool the three trolls first, keeping them out in daylight, then raid their cave and get "Sting", which provides a light source

Being that my school was out in the boonies we didn't really have a library but a "book bus" came every other week to take our orders and they also had some assortment of books that they brought with them. They were surprisingly nonplussed by me asking for three books about firearms and a couple of fantasy books.

I've never read Silmarillion, I never could get into it, it wasn't really that interesting to me. But I have read both the black and white books from Robert Jordan though

[CopingMarlinsFan]

4 hours ago, Azdeus said:

I read tonnes of fantasy books, Tolkien ofc, some weird post apocalyptic pocketbooks, a bunch of western books, Stephen King, Jules Verne and a book series called Deerfoot. I've been told that the only thing I read that was mildly appropriate was the Jules Verne and Tolkien books. My sister refused her kids access to my Tintin or Asterix collections

And apparently, Stephen Kings Misery isn't appropriate for 11 year olds somehow.

I always had a warped perception on reading and age. I did a book report on Goldfinger when I was a freshman in high school. 

[Serrano]

I made a website for a fake Chinese takeaway using React/TypeScript and a lot of input from ChatGPT 4o. It turned out pretty well, I think the new version of GPT has a much longer memory as I asked it to generate a bunch of images and it managed to keep the style consistent which it hasn't been able to do before on this scale. I also uploaded a photo of a menu from the local takeaway here and asked GPT to create arrays for all of the menu catagories including a name, price and description and it managed it. Such a time saver.

https://golden-dragon-aberfeldy.netlify.app/

[Gfted1]

14 hours ago, melkathi said:

The problem is, she wants to skip the "get to know one another" and "see if we actually like one another part", because that is a waste of time. A commitment to having kids. Then the other stuff.

Basically already planning us moving in together and our holidays and stuff.

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Serrano said:

I made a website for a fake Chinese takeaway using React/TypeScript and a lot of input from ChatGPT 4o. It turned out pretty well, I think the new version of GPT has a much longer memory as I asked it to generate a bunch of images and it managed to keep the style consistent which it hasn't been able to do before on this scale. I also uploaded a photo of a menu from the local takeaway here and asked GPT to create arrays for all of the menu catagories including a name, price and description and it managed it. Such a time saver.

https://golden-dragon-aberfeldy.netlify.app/

No char siu?

You don't want me as a fake customer at your fake restaurant

[CopingMarlinsFan]

2 hours ago, Serrano said:

I made a website for a fake Chinese takeaway using React/TypeScript and a lot of input from ChatGPT 4o. It turned out pretty well, I think the new version of GPT has a much longer memory as I asked it to generate a bunch of images and it managed to keep the style consistent which it hasn't been able to do before on this scale. I also uploaded a photo of a menu from the local takeaway here and asked GPT to create arrays for all of the menu categories including a name, price and description and it managed it. Such a time saver.

https://golden-dragon-aberfeldy.netlify.app/

This both fascinates me and terrifies me.

[Gfted1]

You know, Ive never eaten duck.

[Serrano]

39 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

You know, Ive never eaten duck.

You're missing out, it's delicious. It has it's own flavour, it's not like chicken or anything.

[Serrano]

2 hours ago, CopingMarlinsFan said:

This both fascinates me and terrifies me.

It’s definitely an interesting time in tech. I’ve been studying JavaScript for the past couple of years in my free time hoping to switch into web or software development. The rise of AI tools have been both a blessing and a curse. I don’t have any friends or contacts who actually work as programmers but a lot of the YouTube channels have been buzzing for at least six months now about how programmers are coding themselves out of a job, it’s too late for new developers to get into the industry because they’re about to replaced with AI ect. I don’t know how true that is but right now certainly I and a lot of other people are finding it hard to get work coding.

Hopefully a lot of that is just fearmongering and people trying to write catchy headline for views though. There are plenty of other YouTubers, articles, LinkedIn posts ect saying that the job market will recover and that AI is just a tool that will help and change the way developers work, but that developer roles will likely evolve in the coming years.

Regardless  I think a lot of the stuff we’re seeing is really cool and it’s getting quite impressive what even common AI tools like ChatGPT can do. Career prospects aside ChatGPT has been a huge help to me when coding for all kinds of things like help with designing how a website might look, image generation, copywriting, advice on libraries ect. It’s not at the point right now where you can just tell it to code an entire website and it’ll be able to do that but it can definitely assist with coding so long as you know your coding language well enough to be able to modify and fix any problems.

Edited June 16 by Serrano

[Sarex]

On 6/16/2024 at 9:59 PM, Serrano said:

I don’t know how true that is but right now certainly I and a lot of other people are finding it hard to get work coding.

It's not true at all. At least from what I'm seeing now. The AI story may have been a tad bit oversold.

Edited June 19 by Sarex

[Gorth]

7 minutes ago, Sarex said:

It's not true at all. At least from what I'm seeing now. The AI story may have been a tad bit oversold.

My own anecdotal experiences based on 30 years working as a developer, generalists always have it rough. Little demand and low pay. Specialists (I'm one of them) are typically in high demand and considerably better pay. The challenge is, the specialist areas in demand changes over the years....

[Malcador]

There will always be a need for COBOL developers

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

There will always be a need for COBOL developers

 

Kobolds are stealing our jobs!!!

[majestic]

All this talk about age appropriate literature reminded me of a "recent" post I made about an illustrated book I read when I was really little, so I went and looked it up. Turns out recent means five years and three months ago.

It was originally written because the author bemoaned the lack of decent literature for children and was intended as a gift for his three-year-old. It contains the usual child favorites, really, like girls burning to a cinder, thumbs being cut off with giant scissors, a child starving to death and a kid who had nothing better to do than to go outside during a raging storm being blown away clinging to his umbrella, never to be seen again.

I guess it is pretty positive. Only two of the kids die, one gets maimed by a dog, one maimed by a tailor and the one blown away by the storm could technically still be alive, although it seems somewhat unlikely.

Why are we not allowing kids to read Asterix again?

[melkathi]

Gott sei Dank, nun ist's vorbei mit der Übeltäterei.

[melkathi]

And to combine the subjects discussed here:

Maybe we should let kobolds write the children's books.

That way they don't steal dev jobs in IT, and we get less violent, more age appropriate children's books (possible about invisible tiny red haired troublemakers (Hurrah, hurrah)).

[Sarex]

On 6/19/2024 at 2:46 PM, Malcador said:

There will always be a need for COBOL developers

Believe it or not TACL is still used too.

[BruceVC]

On 6/16/2024 at 7:55 PM, Gfted1 said:

You know, Ive never eaten duck. 

What? You have never eaten famous duck dishes like Peking Duck?

Please do me a  favour, take your wife out  this weekend to  a local Chinese restaurant and order Peking Duck to share. Its a great experience with pancakes and hoisin sauce and you make your own little pancake meals. Its a fantastic social meal like a Cheese Fondue

Here are 5 restaurants in Chicago that serve Peking Duck (hopefully they still open )

https://stevedolinsky.com/top-5-peking-ducks-in-chicago

 

 

 

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

What? You have never eaten famous duck dishes like Peking Duck?

Please do me a  favour, take your wife out  this weekend to  a local Chinese restaurant and order Peking Duck to share. Its a great experience with pancakes and hoisin sauce and you make your own little pancake meals. Its a fantastic social meal like a Cheese Fondue

Here are 5 restaurants in Chicago that serve Peking Duck (hopefully they still open )

https://stevedolinsky.com/top-5-peking-ducks-in-chicago

 

 

 

I'm probably not stopping by Chicago anytime soon, but duck breast in orange sauce is delicious

 

 

 

 

[BruceVC]

55 minutes ago, Gorth said:

I'm probably not stopping by Chicago anytime soon, but duck breast in orange sauce is delicious

 

 

 

 

Absolutely, Duck l'Orange and similar dishes are delicious 

I always love to find how certain ingredients compliment a main meal like orange and duck

But you must have lots of excellent Chinese restaurants where you live in Oz? I assume you have tried Peking Duck ?