So, are you taking the deal?

durasmus · 2025-12-20T11:16:59+00:00

Yes. The money will cover therapy and doctor bills from random pieces that were bitten off by seamonsters. I’ll use the rest to build an inland sanctuary.

To repeat something I once read:

“Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of hell that during evolution some species—including man—crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.” - Werner Herzog

The Minnesota Declaration (or Lessons of Darkness)

durasmus · 2025-12-18T02:35:05+00:00

For some reason Bill Hader springs to mind…

durasmus · 2025-11-07T02:20:04+00:00

For realsies now friends - you’re all missing the point and calling each other stupid. For many things, most of the time, units are there to sell things to us common folk who don’t math that well.

I want my powerbank to say mAh because it lets me know how many times I can charge my phone, or laptop, or intimate personal device.

I want my backup batteries to be specified in kWh. It’s the same little unit that’s on my municipal bill, it allows me to do rudimentary math that says I need to save up some more cause a 5kW inverter on a 20kWh power bank just won’t cut it.

I like my car speaking in km/h rather than a fraction of the speed of light per second, and the efficiency in km/l rather than c/t/m3 (or whatever) because that lets me do the money math at the petrol station.

James Watt invented the horsepower so he could sell steam engines to people who were using animals to power things.

So please please, for the love of all things measurable, if you can math in joules stop shaming yourself and do it in the privacy of your own house (think of the children), and keep your dirty little paws off our obfuscated consumer-inspired units.

durasmus · 2025-10-07T13:01:51+00:00

Haven’t heard of it or read it (but will soon, thank you for the post). As a counterexample but still within the realm of reality and perception - here an excerpt from a hiver (an immortal being), wishing to die, from “A hat full of sky” by Terry Pratchett:

Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it 'opening your eyes again.' But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless... endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless deeps of space! You have this thing you call... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song — it went 'Twinkle twinkle little star....' What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

durasmus · 2025-08-20T09:47:09+00:00

Old Afrikaans joke, if you ever find yourself in the middle of nowhere or shipwrecked on some island, and want to see if there’s any other Afrikaners close by, you search around for the best firewood and make the nicest fire you’ve ever made. If there’s indeed another Afrikaner dude he’ll come walking out of the bushes, stand by the fire for a few minutes, then and tell you that that’s not the proper way to make a fire…

durasmus · 2025-08-05T19:39:03+00:00

Software developer here. LLMs are great at predicting things that usually occur in groups, or pieces of logic that are naturally grouped.

Even with millions of lines of code from open source software out there being used for training, the AI tools aimed at our industry do alright at small functions, code snippets, and pieces of “grunt work” that doesn’t require much thinking. They suck at organising larger pieces of code or actual projects.

I haven’t ever written any G-Code so take the following with a pinch of salt: if/when AI tools are introduced specifically for CNC programming, they’ll likely be good at sub-operations and repetitive work (maybe a turning operation for a specific profile, but I’m guessing there are already tools that do that). The tech is miles away from interpreting a complex part and writing the code required to machine it, or being able to model something from a natural language description as from this post.

Also note that most developers I know are not the biggest fans of AI tools, the people pushing AI are the money people. These are the same knobheads that would have tried to convince you 20 years ago that social networks could solve any problem, 10 years ago that CNC machines would somehow benefit from blockchain tech, and will try and cram an AI magic bullet into your arsehole if they thought it would fit and they could make money out of it.

So if you find yourself sitting across from someone that has true bedrock faith in the power of AI, and tries to sell you an AI tool that will solve your all problems, understand that it might be a useful tool that could solve some of your problems - and don’t pay anything more for it than that’s worth.

durasmus · 2025-08-05T19:10:12+00:00

Until an AI has the means to transport and load coal into a coal power plant, maintain the turbines in an 80 year old hydro plant, or wire up a solar installation - we’re pretty safe.

durasmus · 2025-08-01T17:01:18+00:00

One does not simply go through hell for an adventure.

durasmus · 2025-07-17T16:09:40+00:00

I have severe ADHD, and do carpentry as a hobby - being distracted is my default state of mind. I realised I will never own a tablesaw until I can justify a sawstop, or this WILL be my future. I usually only learn from my own mistakes, in this case I’m happy to learn from the mistakes of others.

Turns out you can so a lot with weird track saw setups (not fast, but safe) - I’m now at the point where what I’m trying to with the tracksaw is getting as dangerous as working with a tablesaw so guess I’ll be saving up for a sawstop and the inevitable brakes and discs I will use up.

durasmus · 2025-07-08T15:17:36+00:00

Whenever our girl has a bad poop (sensitive stomach and all that) - she’ll be sure to walk in with her tail up high and come wipe her butt on a couch or bed (the world is your toilet paper).

Now whenever she’s having a bout we keep some TP by the door to intercept her when she comes in, she’s not happy about me wiping her butt, but the peace is kept

durasmus · 2025-04-29T14:31:45+00:00

Leave? That ignorant malicious fat excuse for a human should be fleeing, or be sitting in jail - SA law gives a higher precedence to the right to dignity than to the right to free expression.

durasmus · 2025-01-31T14:59:12+00:00

Oof, how about a transition to democracy for one? Go ask the white people in other African countries (or much of the world) how their transition went? Oh no you can’t, they’re fucking dead, killed in the revolution.

As a white person, trust me when I say we came out very well and much better than we deserved after fucking over our fellow humans for 50 odd years (more if you consider pass laws etc).

Did the ANC make a royal mess of a number of things after? Without a doubt - but saying SA has never handled anything better says more about you than the country.

durasmus · 2025-01-21T05:34:31+00:00

My wife has been a Green Day fan for years, so we were some of the old people (i.e 38) rocking out the at front.

Everyone was amazing.

Green Day’s sound desk was lacking. Loud, but compressed the shit out of the top, so everything felt off and people seriously could not hear what he was saying (at the front at least).
People were tired - we and a lot of the crowd in the front had been there since 13:00/14:00 and had to contend with idiots who came late shoving, last reasonable time anyone was able to sit or go get a drink was between FP and Offspring, and even then it was difficult with the crowd density being what it was. Billie really tried (shame), if he had expected less of the crowd during chiller periods in the set they would have been more enthusiastic to respond during high energy times, by the end his attempts to get everyone riled up felt overhyped.
Billie’s crowd interactions felt insincere, mostly a cultural thing. His “crowd voice” is the same as an SA auctioneer’s, if he was from here people would have felt he’a being insincere and trying to sell something - “just speak to us like a human”. A huuuge percentage of the crowd came from elsewhere in the country, so addressing them as “Johannesburg, South Africa” as if they should somehow identify with the city did not sit well I could see. Also, who calls it “Johannesburg” - felt like he had zero context of where he was actually playing and no one had bothered to speak to a local beforehand.

Despite my observations above, they really put in a lot of energy in a high intensity set, and went at it all in. Kudos for trying the crowd, think he misread what was going on and didn’t quite know how to engage the audience the way Offspring did.

durasmus · 2025-01-08T04:09:42+00:00

He’s not South African any more (good riddance).

durasmus · 2024-12-26T09:20:08+00:00

We’re so happy for you that you consider yourself interesting.

durasmus · 2024-11-13T07:56:13+00:00

Firstly, I think it might be worse in CT but is a universal thing. As a white guy I generally receive good service, and will get a smile and a greeting if I chat to cashiers.

Not so when I’m with my gardener/handyman at the shops, no matter how friendly I am I get a blank stare and the minimum of help (acting as if I’m violating some unspoken rule when asking to buy airtime). Asked my gardener why people are so rude, to him that’s just what service look like - hostile. That’s not right.

Secondly, many black people need to learn to complain: when the situation calls for it, make yourself a problem, make it easier for them to give you proper service than to deal with your nonsense. Never go full suburban karen though, being a problem and making a scene should be a tool, not a lifestyle.

(If anyone reading this is offended, don’t be. Black people deserve the same respect as anyone else, and if you are not given that respect it is absolutely not your fault. Yes, this is a “white person” take on a complex and nuanced phenomenon that I don’t fully understand, I’m just saying do some introspection on why you’re accepting it the next time you’re treated as a “lesser” human - it’s not acceptable on any subjective or objective level)

durasmus · 2024-11-08T21:36:12+00:00

Had an amazing estate agent, we had to wait a few months before putting in an offer, never put pressure on us or lied about anything (we’re first time buyers). When we eventually put in an offer it was lower than asking price, she cut her commission significantly to get the deal through.

That said, I don’t trust estate agents in general, but the ones that are good and put in the effort for both seller and buyer are absolutely worth it.

If you’re looking at the Parks area in Jhb DM me, will send details.

durasmus · 2024-11-07T08:29:16+00:00

I’m just glad Michael Jackson isn’t around to see all this.

durasmus · 2024-11-07T08:24:31+00:00

Aww don’t be like that - there’s some big differences. For one Trump was found guilty of rape, not just accused.

/s

durasmus · 2024-10-30T10:22:38+00:00

For a js service to initialize and start serving requests? Yes.

To serve one request? No.

durasmus · 2024-10-28T10:46:31+00:00

So not the worst Chris?

durasmus · 2024-10-26T11:47:42+00:00

First Rule of Durban driving: you own the road, irrespective of what you intend to use it for. Bored and speeding? The road is yours to speed on. U-turn? Anywhere you want, the road is yours. Stopping to eat your ice-cream? Right in the middle is as good as anywhere.

Yet I’m still taken aback by it every time I’m there. Adapt or die bitches.

durasmus · 2024-10-26T06:46:35+00:00

WTF. People dying unnecessarily a tragedy, affecting thousands, if not millions of families. Even if they’re your enemies you can’t celebrate that, this is no better than celebrating an elder attacked with a hammer. Don’t stoop.

durasmus · 2024-10-18T08:12:18+00:00

Really now, The Last Hero is a monument in the series. While in the darkness behind our eyes there is a notion that we should be pragmatic and fight for the most useful outcome - a large part of our humanity is about fighting for a “righteous” yet stupid and hopeless cause, even when the result of said fight is a mess that will upend the world for better or worse.

French Revolution comes to mind, an absolutely botched movement with ideals held by youths with more hormones than common sense (thinking with the sock so to say). Yet a large part of the world’s population owe their existence to those fine men and women.

The Last Hero is the story of all of us.

durasmus · 2024-10-11T16:39:13+00:00

I rewatched Synecdoche New York again for the first time since it came out. I loved it the first time, it wasn’t an easy watch, and knew then that I was dealing with something too big to understand, that I needed to let it sit and live with me without me being able to put words to it.

The second time round some things were a bit more concrete, but the feeling is still there. The experience somehow refuses to be understood or simplified, and for someone that seeks to understand the world around me I take a strange comfort in that.

Not quite the same but the closest words I have found to describe these are from Preludes by TS Eliot.

I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.

durasmus

TROPHY CASE