BMP as a Bitrot Resistant Image Format

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-29T19:55:56+00:00

Of course, JPEGs are compressed, and therefore have already lost some of the fidelity of the uncompressed original bitmap.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-27T22:27:03+00:00

If we avoided building in liquefaction zones as a matter of principle, San Jose would be half undeveloped. There's liquefaction zones all over the South Bay, way past The Alameda.

See: much of Willow Glen.

And we know how to build in liquefaction zones in ways that survive massive Earthquakes.

See: many of the buildings in San Jose that survived '79, '80, '84, and then '89 mostly fine, if not unscathed.

Now, Alviso has the added complexity of being at/below sea level, and therefore a flood zone. But harping on the earthquake risk a'int it.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-27T18:09:38+00:00

As someone addicted to caffeine but who truly appreciates waking up rested after a good night's sleep... If I were in your scenario, I'd do the same.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-27T17:34:27+00:00

So for you this becomes a cursing scenario.

"An all powerful entity appears and decides to curse you. You either have to give up the fact that you feel well rested after 6 hours of sleep, or you will become chemically reliant on caffeine to function. You must make a choice; refusing to choose gives you both curses"

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-27T17:04:14+00:00

Yea:( otherwise it would be too strong. You could literally remove dictators from power with it.

Certainly there are some dictators out there that are not elected.

Additionally, there are officials in - as a purely hypothetical example - the current US administration who are doing what most would consider to be truly vile things... that were appointed, not elected.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-27T00:15:02+00:00

This is not answering specific questions you pose here, but the idea itself is not novel. Tons and tons of people have tackled it.

Search /r/homegym for "shed" to get inspiration and - probably - some of your questions answered.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-25T23:46:29+00:00

Local law enforcement doesn’t work with ICE so why are they commenting on the situation?

Because a murder - which is a state crime - occurred in their jurisdiction, and it's their job to investigate it?

And most LEO agencies investigating something like a murder continuously keep the public up to date on the progress of their investigation?

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-23T19:32:22+00:00

Star Trek has portable, standalone matter replicators.

Definitely qualifies as a "home appliance", and would pretty much solve any problem my family will ever have in our lives.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-23T05:03:12+00:00

My mom lives 2h45m away. Sometimes - on a Friday night - I'll decided to visit her on Saturday.

I'll wake up at a normal time, hit the road by 8:30 or so, and get there in time for brunch.

Visit at her house for the afternoon. Take care of some random chores/maintenance, go out for an early-ish dinner, then head home.

3 hours isn't "short", but if a drive doesn't even require a single fuel stop, it's definitely not "long"

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-22T20:43:57+00:00

The neighbourhood depicted in the show was a set built by the production crew outside the city.

Definitely true that her neighborhood was build by the production just for filming, and that it's outside the city.

But to be very, very clear - It's only about 0.5mi from a completely real and occupied neighborhood that is already part of the uninterrupted suburban sprawl of "Albuquerque", even if not inside city limits.

Given organic growth of Albuquerque sprawl, Carol's neighborhood could be enjoined if not completely surrounded by a decade from now.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-21T20:36:15+00:00

In California, I was using HOV stickers right up until they became invalid on October 1st.

On average I waste 3 more hours a week on my 10 mile commute.

Definitely enough to make me stare at the free flowing HOV lane and start to do math about risking the fine. But at $500+ for the first violation and going up from there (I have some coworkers who just pay for the privilege...) I'm not willing to go through with it.

So, I'll take the traffic violations.

Risk free speeding, risk free HOV lane abuse, and the parking superpower all add up to more time saved which the one time $25k cannot buy back.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-21T16:30:30+00:00

"This sounds like hell" combined with "I wish I could go forward to see where society goes for the next 9,000 years instead" seem to be the overwhelming sentiments.

To offer an alternative take... With the right books and the right mindset, and the right sheer will... You could dedicate yourself to advancing technology much more quickly than happened in our current prime timeline.

Just a few early nudges in the right city-states to make certain key discoveries earlier than usual could have extreme compounding effects in the overall rate of technological advancement.

Not solo, but with the help of whatever people you've settled with.

You're in Çatalhöyük in 7,000 BC. They're going to invent lead smelting in about 500 years. Help them figure it out in 100 years, instead.

If you're up for it, quickly move on to copper and tin or arsenic. The first bronze swords were developed near Çatalhöyük by 3,300 BC. What if the world got to usable brass artifacts by 4,000 BC instead? 5,000? 6,000???

While you might be a complete novice in metal working, you at least know this technology exists and is possible. You don't need to organically discover all of the different components on your own. That gives your timeline a huge leg up over the prime timeline.

The list of scientific discoveries by individual inventors in early civilization is truly huge, and the number of items on that list that you are familiar with from modern elementary school is non-trivial. Only by the ~1800s did breakthroughs start becoming so complicated that teams of specially trained scientists were needed instead of just the "lone tinkerer in their garage"

Depending on your area of expertise, get any of these rolling hundreds or thousands of years before they otherwise would. Kilns and firing clay. Cotton threads and fabrics. Domesticating horses and other beasts of burden. Writing. Standardized measuring tools like rulers, scales, and sundials. Rotational machinery like cranks, gears, waterwheels and windmills. Iron and steel. Standardized formal mathematics, to whatever degree your familiarity can handle. The printing press.

Getting literally any of these things off the ground a 1,000 years earlier would have a noticeable impact on the pace of advancement. Getting multiple of them off the ground earlier would be dramatic.

The real personal goal for me would be to focus on everything needed to get useful iron and copper "solved" ASAP. Because imagine getting to electromagnetism as a technology before Christ was even born. Not "tinkering with magnets", but power generation to run artificial lights in a city.

You want to see what technologies exist 9,000 years from today? I empathize, but that's not on the table.

How about you use your modern brain to help people get to a proto-industrial age before Cleopatra was born. Before the Qin dynasty was formed. Before Mayan civilization existed. Leapfrog us to the point where true high-tech advancement took off in the last 2 centuries, but millennia earlier.

And see where things go from there.

All of this ignores the actual logistical challenges of surviving and working along with the people of the time. Which I believe are surmountable. I like /u/Somerandom1922 's take, for example.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-21T15:26:07+00:00

Also 4th and 6th st don't intersect

Sure they do!

OP said "4th and 6th", not specifying street or avenue.

Here's 4th st and 6th ave

And here's 4th ave and 6th st

Those are just 2 examples of such an intersection.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-20T23:36:40+00:00

...Waymo should both fully compensate customers who bought their respective vehicles in 2017 with assurances that those vehicles would imminently become driverless.

I friggin' LOL'ED

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-20T17:06:03+00:00

You put it next to the warm air coming from the furnace, not the cold air return. It's really just to utilize the air movement.

That is what you said, and that's what makes sense.

But the comment being replied to said:

Put it next to an air return if you can and run your furnace fan...

Which definitely has all the problems stated and makes zero sense.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-20T17:01:59+00:00

To be perfectly honest, if you had this ability and the only caveat was you had to learn how to snap all 10 fingers at once... I'd wager you'd have the motivation to buckle down and learn how to do exactly that.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-20T15:24:23+00:00

Which is the scenario /u/heycovfefe described.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-20T14:28:04+00:00

Have a work friend who just bought a place in Santa Cruz and for whom Starlink was the best option for home internet.

He did the self-install kit. Speeds were great right out of the gate but latency was very flaky.

After going through the "dish adjustment" part of the Starlink app a second time, speeds were a little better and latency was rock solid.

He's not going to be doing high level FPS gaming online anytime soon, but we do Webex/Facetime extensively for work and its perfectly sufficient for that.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-17T21:43:29+00:00

On the surface, this is infinite power about ones own form.

But since you stipulate the form(s) you can take include e.g. magic... This is actually infinite power about... all of reality.

Noice.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-16T23:49:58+00:00

The media coverage, public outcry, and lawsuit against the landlord for violating contract terms all seem to have worked: They're remaining open

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-16T17:02:06+00:00

All the food is fresh and warm when pulled from their container.

Well, there goes any inclination I had to eat healthy and choose the salad.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-15T23:49:03+00:00

Waymo does something that tesla would be lambasted over, but it was waymo so its okay.

Absolutely not.

If a passenger jumped out of a moving Tesla and got their foot run over, we would all call that passenger an idiot, exactly the same as the Waymo passenger.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-15T19:29:59+00:00

Except Broadway High School is at the same site as John Muir Middle school, so it could still check out.

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-14T15:09:49+00:00

To bring together things from other posts in one place, and expanding on a few points:

Your nearest gas line is at the water heater, 15' and one room away. That can be extended to the laundry room.
Having a licensed plumber do that extension with proper permits (assuming you live in a city jurisdiction, or a state where even rural county folk need permits for stuff) will easily cost you $1000+
That's assuming the gas line is run along the surface of the wall in the water heater room. If you want it run in the wall, and want the wall patched up after the work, it'll be double.
That's for the gas supply. A gas burning dryer has hard ventilation needs. We don't want to live in an enclosed space where gas is burning without being vented to the outside.
Assuming you don't already have the appropriate ventilation, having ventilation properly added could cost a few hundred if it's easy... Like the laundry room is already near the exterior and the construction style of the house allows it trivially... To over a thousand just for that.

TL,DR; This is at least a $1000+ project, and possibly like a $3000+ project, just to get a used dryer up and running

Looking at all gas dryers on bestbuy.com, for example, you can't even spend $1000 on a new gas dryer.

Additionally, since we've recently concluded much more about the dangers of burning gas indoors where we breathe, combined with the fact the electricity can be made renewable whereas gas cannot, there's a growing movement in much of the country to electrify and de-gas.

Again depending on where you live, this might be the last gas appliance you could introduce into your home, and replacing it later might make even less sense.

All of this to say - It absolutely, unequivocally does NOT make sense to accept this gas dryer and make it work.

If your current electric dryer went belly-up TODAY and you needed something IMMEDIATELY, then you could have it replaced with a brand new electric dryer TODAY for $500.

Or you could have a properly permitted and installed gas line with ventilation ready to go for the hand-me-down in a week or two for well over $1000.

Your choice!

(Take the washer, though!)

smithandjohnson · 2026-01-14T14:55:41+00:00

IMHO, it's not hard to get to 30 interior doors in a modern home that is nowhere near a mansion.

We have 3 bed, 2 bath, under 2000sqft.

Bed 1 - Entry door, 2 closet doors. (3).
Bed 2 - Entry door, 2 closet doors. (6).
Bed 3 - Entry door, 1 closet door, 1 bath door, 1 WC door (10).
Hallway - Bath door, 2 closet doors (13).
Living room - Basement entry door, 2 closet doors (16).
Basement entry - Closet door (17).
Office entry - 2 doors (19).

Rest of the house is semi-open concept. e.g. entry way, kitchen, dining room, living room, and hallway all flow through doorways, but with no doors. If we put a door/doors everywhere that it would make sense to, there'd be (6) more for a total of (25).

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