Gotta keep 'em alive. :) Always fun to stumble upon these.

Some site-related updates since last y'all: I've updated the PHP version on CDB! Finally. From 7.4 to the latest and greatest.

I had some script-related issues with the upgrade, as I knew I would have, but sorted 'em out quicker than I thought I would. I tried an update years ago and that time things did not work so well, but something must've changed since then. Plugin authors must've done some work on making their plugins compatible, otherwise the scenario's the same...

There was one particularly weird issue with corrupted dates in the library, which I by the way ought probably integrate with the main site someday. All those posts could be in categories and subcategories here instead, and I'd need one less copy of WP to keep safe and up-to-date.

Anyway two post dates were just missing, and causing errors, of which the source was difficult to trace. Finally I figured it out, sorted posts by date to find anomalies, found two of them, updated the dates and all was good! Not sure what changes were made between PHP versions to make this an issue only after the upgrade, I wouldn't have found out without.

And why did those dates corrupt in the first place? Did two posts just never have dates - how would that happen? You can't post a post without.

I had to remove some outdated plugins and functions as well, though nothing you'll notice. Updated a few theme files too...

It's possible additional errors from less commonly used scripts that still rely on deprecated functionality will find their way into the error logs at a later time, but if I haven't had any errors yet they can't be that big an issue. It seems I'm pretty capable of fixing 'em myself if such things do occur, which is cool. Didn't figure I'd be one this proficient in this kind of thing.

Confidence boost +0.4 countermeasures.

On the main site the upgrade was simpler. I had just one function that needed adjusting, and suddenly previously incompatible plugins and dependencies all work again! All updates went well. Security's hopefully tip top again, and as a bonus the site should load faster - performance seems to increase with every new version of PHP too, though I'm not sure I'm actually noticing any difference on the site in that regard...

It's possible the newer versions of WP have been getting a bit more bloated too, and so other long overdue updates cancel out the potential benefits of all the more optimized PHP performance.

It's been a long time since I updated the core at this point. Would've been interesting to compare hardware use before/after.

I'm working on a better cache though, whenever time comes to implement that you should notice a more notable difference.

Right now I basically have no cache. I fear the wrong things get cached. Admin type stuff. But the more I learn the easier it gets to get a grasp on what's what and what's not there.

Aside from PHP I do still have some ongoing jQuery issues. I know the culprit, a stat-related script I use and will need to replace eventually.

For now I simply changed plugins for jQuery migration help in WP, hid the automatic notices on incompatibilities in both front and back-end, and until a future time at which I delve into other plugin alternatives, and remodel the current stats page, this is how it'll have to be...

Maybe I can edit the jQuery code in the plugin itself. It's possible it works just as well with a newer version. Time will tell. Clocks and all.

Otherwise, life-wise? I'm not wise yet but...

I was lifting weights in my room the other day, when suddenly I saw blue lights in the distance. Fetched a pair on binoculars and got to witness some kind of accident first-hand from my window! They had closed down the road a few kilometers off, with five police cars, two firetrucks and at least one ambulance on the scene.

There was a big rig parked on one side of the road, and maintenance vehicles on the other, and a long line of traffic waiting to be let through... and a bunch of people in reflective vests doing a lot of talking.

Nothing happened. They stood there. They talked. The blue lights flashed, the traffic stood still, leaves rustled in the wind... and that was all.

My impatience grew, I resumed computer dues, and forgot to check back and follow the process - next time I looked they were all gone.

We took a walk past the site that night and saw nothing at all. Not a trace. Not a wreck. No broken glass or twisted metal or blood stains on the field or anything. Wonder what that was all about...

Occasionally you do see an emergency vehicle or two speed by in a blue haze from our house - from the upper floor the view around us is pretty much unobstructed, with green fields and lower-level housing around us, but this was definitely the biggest thing I've witnessed thus far.

And it's still a mystery as to what it was! Gosh.

Hey have you ever heard of cow magnets? Courtesy of Tom Scott's newsletter.

This last meal video with Steve-O was surprisingly wholesome too, and enlightening. Worth a watch. Like the Leonardo Da Vinci thing, and happiness, and life and all... dude.

Last week we had some rain and glum weather early on, but the sun is fierce now. Spring in full. Summer soon. This my fuel. I go boom.

I'll be finally/hopefully/very probably taking this year's first flight up to the farm next Tuesday, so maybe no recap then... maybe after.

That's all for this Tuesday y'all. Have a ball.

/withdrawal

My schedule spiraled out of control yesterday.

It'd probably help if I had a schedule in the first place. That required control.

I have notes. I have a calendar on the wall on which I write down things I need to do, but I don't follow it religiously.

It's not the Bible. It's just a calendar. Like a simile sinner I stray from the teachings of discipline it could ideally provide me with...

Into the murky depths of reaction videos I go, and I do not return until the day is over, and so today I am on a different path! Today I am publicly distancing myself from this unfortunately (because it makes it addicting) self-validating content that occasionally takes over my day completely.

I've been discovering Boston, and Dire Straits. I've been revisiting Lil Dicky and specific classic tracks I enjoy like Johnny Cash's Hurt, Kansas' Wayward Son, Lynard Skynard's Freebird, The Animal's House of The Rising Sun and Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.

I've been revisiting them in the eyes of others. In a growing, and mutual appreciation of the art. But it all started with Ronald. The latest Falling in Reverse cinematic, with an unexpected Tech N9ne cameo, that somehow made its way into my feed earlier this week, and blew me away!

I saw Black Pegasus had reacted to it. I wondered how they'd reacted to it; if they'd be prepared for the Tech N9ne cameo in particular, and that was that! That's all it takes. It's like a whiff of second-hand smoke and suddenly you're taking a crack at that nicotine puff puff habit again (which btw I never have - my guilty pleasures and poisons are purely digital).

Spiraling out of control, further down the rabbit hole...

I don't want to waste my time no more though. Not on reactions. Thus this post. Thus I'm laying off the reaction videos for... well, we'll see.

For however long a span of time I can manage before my discipline wavers once more.

Ideally it won't waver. Never and never again.

Speak more later. See more then.

When I got up this morning I hadn't planned on spending it learning about water towers, or about the unexpectedly complex mechanical contraption you might find in a common water fountain.

I also wasn't planning on stumbling upon the first stopmotion film I've ever seen made in wool - or that wool for that matter could be made to seem this refreshing.

If it is wool? It at least looks like a natural material. I hope it is...

Here we are anyway, or rather here I am, all thanks to Tom Scott's re-occurring email send-outs regarding the interesting things he stumbles upon (or is notified about) on the web each week.

I signed up a few months ago now - you can do so too here.

I'm suddenly reminded of the daily Morning Brew digest I tried earlier.

It was fun too. It gave me a quick daily summary of interesting things going on both in the world and on the Internet, and some of them were equally interesting. Though usually not. The intended audiences overlap slightly, but Toms is definitely the more technical of the two.

I eventually gave up on the Brew because I felt like I just spend too much time reading content that was albeit interesting oftentimes also unnecessary. I just didn't have enough time for it. Maybe I still don't, but I signed up this new sendout anyway.

It helps that a part of it's video material, that doesn't require you read. Some doesn't even require you watch it, you can just play it in the background and listen.

Even if water towers do be unexpectedly visually appealing.

And the fact that the first one they show is one that has Ryan Gossling standing right in front of it seems a crazy coincidence considering I just watched The Fall Guy at the movies yesterday, and it just might be my favorite movie of not just this year but possibly this decade! Or a few years prior. The decade thus far. I can't recall another movie that felt wholesome, layered and just brewed to perfection the way this one was.

If the movie I typically watch is by comparison a bland, watery Americano (if you live in the US you may consider this a 'standard coffee'), this was like a Double Macchiato, with whipped cream and freshly ground coffee beans straight from Ghana... or wherever you get your coffee from. Colombia? I'm not sure really. There's bound to be some in Africa too.

Wherever coffee comes from the movie was amazing, and that coincidence was cool, that's all.

The coffee actually does hold some relevance too. You'll see if you see it.

As for that newsletter I now find myself spending time on occasionally instead of the Brew, it also fortunately gets sent out just once a week, and tends to have not much content at all, just a few links. Just few enough that I stay subscribed, even though I don't always partake in all of them.

I've gotten better at that not-partaking-in-all-of-them thing.

Years ago I'd feel compelled to absolutely click on and read EVERYTHING that came my way. But no more. That just is not sustainable.

I just recently remembered a content creator on YouTube I used to follow religiously for a while too, yet somehow forgot all about. Eliott Hulse.

He spoke about getting stronger, and better in all facets of being.

He gave out random live advice that I at the time soaked up like a sponge. Everything from managing relationships to diet, to the one lesson I remember maybe most of all: That if you wear sunglasses, you're trying to hide.

He had a phase in which he walked around with sunglasses on, then dropped a video in which he apologized for being so weak. For doing things he wasn't proud of, and he realized he'd been wearing those glasses since he didn't want to look his viewers in the eye anymore. But then he got back on the path again, and off went those glasses...

It was something along those lines anyway, and ever since I saw that particular video I haven't looked at neither content creators nor people with shades on the same.

Though eventually I started making an exception at least for Casey Neistat, for whom sunglasses definitely seem to be more so both functional and an aesthetic. As they probably do for plenty of people - but not for for example Theo Von! Have a look at some of the podcasts he wears glasses on and see if Eliott's got a point there.

In the case of Neistat though those shades let him give the impression he's speaking directly to the viewer, even when he actually has to glance at a script or similar off screen.

You can't see the eye movement behind the tint, and so you feel like you're constantly connected when he at least aims the glasses directly at you, which is a very much intentional trick of the trade he crafted, and one that gave me all the more respect for his sunglass-wielding practices after I learned about it.

He has a video on that. Good stuff.

I haven't seen a Neistat video in some time either btw, which may be a good thing, considering I get on these random content creator subscription binges, and end up following people for an unhealthy amount of time, no matter how much good advice they might be offering.

Right now I'm on an Olivia Alexa and Kiun B binge for the most part. Learning about relationships and/or life in Yakutsk every once in a while when new things appear in my feed... and serpentza for breaking news from China that we for some reason never get in the mainstream here.

That and a select few music artists/channels, friends, and melodysheep, cause he uploads rarely but awesomely when he does.

I catch up on Hot Ones content too occasionally, though I'm not subscribed, and follow a fair few pods without official link to their channels, and then of course there's Dom Tomato, and random Red Bull craziness you just can't not see, and other parkour videos, and reaction binges occasionally with mainly Black Pegasus and MrLboyd, though I really don't want to subscribe to that type of content...

I do still spend way too much time on YouTube, I realize as I type this, even if I feel I'm a lot more careful about what kind of content I watch.

I don't waste time y'all! Only essentials. Like dogs jumping over creative obstacles or those two Japanese otters taste-testing sparkling water.

As for Elliott Hulse, of course I had to check his online presence real quick now that I'd been reminded, and it seems he's still doing good! He's almost up at a million subscribers now, and seems to be on a path to 'make men strong again', which I don't recall his motto being before...

If you skim his videos he's gone through quite a few phases. He jumped off entirely for a couple of years, from 7 years ago to 5 years ago, and I believe it's in the earlier phase of his being on YT that I was subscribed.

The new him seems different. He doesn't just look older, he looks worn down, his videos seem a bit more click-baity, for a while they seemed unexpectedly religious too. Maybe he's still lost after all; still trying to find his way too. But aren't we all? That's not entirely a bad thing. As long as we're still going and getting somewhere all is good.

If I have time some day maybe I'll watch up a bit and see the progression. Seeing the overview, and going by titles over content, I kinda feel like I'm the wiser man now. The pupil transcended the master.

Though where am I in life really? Nowhere near where I want to be either.

Aren't we all just making that journey! To the best place possible; slowly but surely to be the best possible version of ourselves.

I believe whatever advice he gave out back in the day was good advice though, so hopefully the new advice is the same. The old advice was - if not wise - then strengthening. It was the motivation I needed to further myself as whatever type of person I was back then.

This turned into an unexpected deep-dive and nostalgia session hmm... on how I find myself spending time on things I didn't expect to spend time on occasionally. And now this too! Writing a long-ass post. But it almost wrote itself. Occasionally I need to write out.

The movie White Out btw... had I seen it? I catch a glimpse of... some kind of screening. Some kind of memory. A trailer maybe. It was on my watchlist, but did I play free... oh yeah I did.

It wasn't as awesome as the trailer promised, but maybe I ought see it again too, I don't remember it at all...

Speaking of wasting time on unnecessary things.

The potential for pastimes are endless.

Even if you review a movie though it doesn't mean that time was time you spent well! It's still a movie. And life, it keeps on moving.

I'm up early today anyway, relatively, lettuce make the most of today.

Well this was pretty cool!

Saw the old classic Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at the movies yesterday, and I just realized this is probably why they're showing it!

May the 4's be with y'all. Course.