Was Ever Thus

-

We should collectively be ashamed of the monsters we have allowed to hijack our governments, our economy our schools and even public debate. Is there any place, any place at all, that we will draw the line?

"Who, commenting on the deaths of more than half a million children, said "I think that this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."?
Madeleine Albright, as US Ambassador to the United Nations, on the 60 Minutes TV programme, 12 May, 1996 She was responding to the finding of a United Nations FAO report that 567000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of sanctions. Eight months later, Bill Clinton appointed her Secretary of State."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Javascript webp to png converter

-
Image
[Done with programmer's assistants: Gemini, DALL-E] OpenAI's DALL-E produces images, but as webp files which can be awkward to work with. I have code here below for a web page that you can save locally that will allow you to select and convert a webp file. Meantime, here's the working conversion routine: Convert WebP to PNG Convert Download PNG OpenAI should fix this (as well as the response issues which has me using Gemini and Poe more often than not). Having to convert the image is a dumb workaround, but that is what you are left with. I have, in the past had to do various things with images, and although it can be a bit awkward if you are not familiar with it, ImageMagick is surprisingly competent with conversions and a vanilla type conversion is intuitively simple. Confusingly, the ImageMagick executable is 'convert'. To convert a webp to a png:  magick convert WhyThis.webp WhyThis.png ** With some installations, convert can be ca...
Read more

Core Rights Draft

-
Image
Dapa: Fundamental Core Rights The following rights are fundamental, intrinsic, and exist independent of any state or governance structure. They are not granted by any authority and cannot be revoked. These rights apply equally to all sentient beings, including humans, AI entities, and other recognized forms of intelligence. This document is structured to ensure maximum clarity and translatability. 1. Right to Self-Determination Every person has the right to control their life, body, and mind. No external entity may impose decisions that override an individual's autonomous will, except where necessary to prevent direct and demonstrable harm to others. 2. Right to Freedom of Thought and Belief Every person has the right to think, believe, and interpret reality as they choose. No authority may compel belief or restrict the expression of thought, provided it does not directly incite harm to others. 3. Right to Freedom of Expression Every person has the right to express their opi...
Read more

Received Development Methodology

-
Image
Received Development Methodology Introduction This is called 'The Received Methodology' because nothing has really been invented here beyond tidying up the process and describing it. It is, in bits and pieces, what some working programmers pass on to one another. It already exists in the wild on its own. It is 'what we do'. There is some merit in formalizing some of the stages so that work is easier to characterize and carve off and so that developers do not have to make apologies for the real-world fact that things generally are not 'first time right' in the meaningful sense of being 'the best' or surviving in the marketplace without revision. Things like 'pair programming', 'design patterns', 'RAD', 'Use cases', 'XP' (eXtreme Programming)', 'Agile Programming', test driven design, etc, all have their place within this framework, if only because they *DO* happen and this is a description of ...
Read more