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I posted this in a different thread, but I'm posting it here to emphasize the importance of what I believe we all need to know.
Each and every one of you is part of a vibrant community. I believe it's vital for you to know that as a united community, you have the power to determine and control what happens. Remember that. I assure you, it's the truth.
Post is as follows:
I used to be part of a website just like CodeProject.com for 15+ years. Instead of coding enthusiasts, the website was made up of a community of aviation fanatics. I had so many friends in that community, and I still have many of those friends to this day.
What I'm seeing here is a carbon copy of what I experienced many years ago. I was an active member of a vibrant online aviation community. The site was massive. We had millions of active members. There were less than a half-dozen people who operated the site. It was far more work than they could handle, and they decided to accept an offer from a media company who wanted to buy the website. It transformed those half-dozen overworked owners, and operators into instant millionaires. I'm very happy for them -- all that work they put in over so many years paid off as it should have. That's about the only good thing that happened as a result of selling the website.
When the transfer of ownership became official, it decimated the community. Tens of thousands of members just abandoned the site. What was left was a cauldron of anger and backlash. The new owners of the website didn't understand how the aviation community worked. They had no idea how to foster the community. Out of panic and frustration, the new owners came down hard on the community. They were hemorrhaging money, and were desperate to keep the site afloat. Their heavy-handed policies were inconsistently enforced. People who were in charge of moderating the forums were corporate drones who demonstrated no people skills. They had no interest in aviation. They clearly enjoyed abusing their power over members. They were outright rejected by the entire aviation community, and rightly so. It became a clusterf*** of dysfunction; a complete nightmare for everyone.
Several members attempted to gather together and launch their own aviation website. They managed to gather enough funding to make a go of it. Sadly, they just didn't have the knowledge, experience, and skillset required to succeed. Their hearts were in the right place, but that was all. Their endeavor crashed and burned before it even started. The start-up funds were mishandled. This caused members of the group to become hostile toward one another. Decades-long friendships were destroyed, and the divisiveness quickly eroded the tightly held-bond that they once shared. It was ugly. It was really ugly! I watched it all happen.
Several years went by. Nothing improved. One day, we all got the news that the CEO of the company was killed in a plane crash. He had taken off from an airport in Santa Monica, California. Early in his ascent, the engine cut out. He didn't have the altitude, nor did he have the time to attempt restarting the engine, nor did he have the option to return to the airport. He crashed into an airplane hangar killing him instantly. I will never forget how the website's crippled aviation community reacted to the news. A huge wave of exuberance, celebration, and sense of retributive justice erupted within the website's aviation community. It was shocking, but certainly not surprising.
Having been a part of that website's aviation community, I experienced it all myself. I learned from history. I make a point of remembering history. If you forget history, then you are bound to repeat it.
The red flags are everywhere. It seems to be happening all over again. No one here deserves to undergo such anguish and suffering. I'm watching this carefully. I only slept for 3 hours last night. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling while deep in thought. It's been on my mind all day today. I'm not going to let such a thing happen again.
I can't say what the future holds. What I can say is that the future is in the control of every member of this community. It's absolutely vital that this community unites behind the cause to preserve itself in the face of adversity and existential crisis. In unity, it's every one of us who has the power to decide what happens. 
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Steve Raw wrote: A huge wave of exuberance, celebration, and sense of retributive justice erupted within the website's aviation community.
That right there sums up everything that's wrong with the Internet. 
Their online hangout going to crap is apparently more valuable then someone's life. Have zero respect for these types.
Jeremy Falcon
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Just food for thought, let's not glorify in any way shape or form those hateful, overgrown children that would celebrate someone's death over stupid crap. Seriously. Using an example of disgusting behavior is not a great way to invigorate anyone but the disgusting.
These days you can just start a subreddit for crying out loud.
Jeremy Falcon
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Wordle 1,212 3/6*
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Having got 3 out of 5 on the first row it was just a case of trying combinations.
modified 1hr 20mins ago.
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This is awesome. I'm rendering an SVG image using my library, on a little ESP32, and also rendering TrueType text from a 120KB font file. I posted the result earlier, but I was curious how much memory it was using.
To that end I created a little heap watch dog to run on the 2nd core while my parsing and rendering was taking place.
It's taking less memory to render the tiger and the text than it would to load the equivalent JPG or PNG (which take at least 32KB needed for Huffman decompression)
static size_t max_mem = 0;
static size_t min_mem = (unsigned)-1;
static void mem_task(void*) {
while(true) {
size_t mem = ESP.getFreeHeap();
if(mem>max_mem) {
max_mem = mem;
}
if(mem<min_mem) {
min_mem=mem;
}
taskYIELD();
}
}
Max memory available: 302.25KB
Max memory used: 22.93KB
Unless I'm doing something wrong in terms of monitoring, this is very encouraging.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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We deserve better than this WTF is going on
Whats going on
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I harken back to when I mentioned not too long about how the site has been neglected over the years. Either CP doesn't have the budget to staff up this place or they don't have the desire. It's made obvious by the lack of site updates. Of course, as usual I got arguments by those who know little of the web when I say this. But, that's not the only tale tell sign.
Their business model hasn't evolved in years either. At least from what I've seen. And sure if it ain't broke don't fix it. But, if it's not staffed then it's broken. And I could again elaborate as to why, but again, I'm tired of arguing with people that have zero experience. And, I'm sure recent economic changes haven't helped either.
All of this is to say, the only surprising thing here is that people are surprised. There have been forum thread bugs forever, people don't ask or answer questions in the forums for months. I mean... how many signs people need? Why is this a shock?
Now, does this mean CP will die? Not necessarily. It's still one of the best self-publishing sites out there. It does mean it's at an inflection point though. It also means, only a handful of people use the lounge and the vast majority of the peeps that use this site do not. (This is where someone argues that staff should visit the lounge as if I haven't thought of that).
P.S. Sorry if I sound jaded, but y'all already know I'm grumpy and poopy.  Let's just say years of arguing online with those who never leave the computer room to experience life or learn got to me.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 4hrs 5mins ago.
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Oh and I said it before and I'll say it again, personally the only thing I care about is Chris' happiness. What he built is amazing but he's more important than CP... if that makes sense. I'm glad he's finding new journeys and a passion for health. More peeps here should follow his lead the way I see it.
The deciding factor on whether someone else picks up the CP torch is revenue. Someone new coming in won't have the emotional attachment to it we do.
Edit: Oh, and I say this as a dude who's been here since day 1... check my user ID... it's 104. I remember before we had user IDs and they got assigned. So, this site has been a part of my life too. But, I'm still happy for Chris and hope he finds what he's looking for.
Jeremy Falcon
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pk and all,
Maybe a bit more info? I read the part about Chris adjusting his focus, and we have to respect that. I'm chronically anemic at this point in my life, but I'm not dead yet. In my own life, I have found that work is the LEAST stressful to me, so there may be other issues we don't know about. That said....
Maybe it's a time for a group hug sort of thing. Businesses like CP don't happen from a meeting where everyone agrees and its kumbaya. It comes from passion, a huge amount of hard work (x3), and no, we're not going to do that decision making.
A lot of us here are old-farts that have retired and run hard all of our lives. Looking at you Hankey  . Can we preserve the culture? That's what makes CP. God forbid it would ever look like stack*******. Is Chris looking to sell?
Charlie Gilley
βMicrosoft is the virus..."
"the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"
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pkfox wrote: We deserve better than this WTF is going on
I don't know of anyone who knows what's going on. With that said, I think it's important that we avoid jumping to conclusions without possessing the knowledge required to form a rational conclusion.
I don't have the knowledge to assert what I think is happening, but I would like to share with you a vague guess that may be of some insight.
Is the site being sold to a third party? My guess is that it's within the realm of possibility. If a transfer of ownership is what's happening, it's possible that one or both parties involved in the transaction are bound by written agreements that legally prohibit the disclosure of information regarding the transfer of ownership.
I've bought and sold business assets many times in the past. For whatever reason (there could be a million different ones), legal agreements require one, or both parties of a transaction to withhold disclosure of information to third parties. Often, it has to do with trademark and branding interests. Sometimes it has to do with keeping important information from competitors. Whatever the reason for non-disclosure of information may be, it's very common for those involved in a transaction to keep a lid on things. Keep in mind, I'm only guessing, but the point I'm trying to get across is that we don't have enough information to assert that the reason behind the secrecy is to spite us. It may just be in the interest of either party in a transaction.
For now, that's what I'm going to guess. It's just a vague guess, and nothing more. Hence, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to those dealing directly with the situation at hand. I think we should choose the high road on this one unless we have solid reason to believe otherwise.
Who knows, maybe all we need to do is ask. It may achieve something more sound than discussing suppositions in a public forum, IMHO.
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A number of people have asked, but to no avail. Hence the speculation and feelings of abandonment. If it's a sale, the current situation does no one any good. It's not like all the details have to be shared. If it's that the site is no longer viable and it's being shopped around, same thing.
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Dear Mr. Cunningham, @davidcunningham9
Can you please enlighten us what the future of codeproject will be?
Thank you very much in advance.
Yours sincerely
An non-essential member of codeproject
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Probably out watching Fonzie do stunts on his motorcycle. 
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I only posted this because of a hint/request of an 'insider' - deeply hidden in messages- that this might help
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I know there's tons of utilities to do that, but I've grown to mistrust random software from random sites, so I hesitate to try everything under the sun.
For years now, I've been using some software that shall stay nameless, but suffice it to say they have disappeared a few months back (I just learned), and their trialware needs to get a key from a live site to function, so it's out.
One alternative I've found after a short search is https://www.bluraycopys.com/rip-blu-ray/convert-blu-ray-to-iso/
I know nothing of these guys, but the software seems as straightforward as it needs to be. I want to put in a disc (DVD, Blu-ray, whatever) and rip it to ISO. Just a straight copy. Don't ask me endless questions about how to process this or that, which I wouldn't know how to answer properly. Again, just a 1:1 copy please.
Anyone can vouch for this, or something else? Again, I'm NOT trying to do any sort of conversion to MP4, MKV, using this or that codec, none of that. Just produce a standard ISO that I can mount and play. If the original disc is 50GB, so be it, I want the ISO to be 50GB.
[Edit]
And save me the piracy concerns. These are commercial discs, and I just paid nearly CAD$300 for a 4-disc set with taxes, import and shipping fees. I own these, and I'm not gonna let a scratch ruin them for me.
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dandy72 wrote: I know there's tons of utilities to do that, but I've grown to mistrust random software from random sites, so I hesitate to try everything under the sun.
Complete tangential side note, but why not use Windows Sandbox or a VM for stuff you don't trust?
Jeremy Falcon
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It's my understanding that some rippers look at the drive's firmware and may or may not work if you're going through a virtualization layer.
I can't say for sure whether that's the case (even generally speaking) but I just want to remove as many obstacles as I can from getting in the way.
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dandy72 wrote: and may or may not work if you're going through a virtualization layer.
If it doesn't work in the VM, do not install it in the host OS
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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dandy72 wrote: And save me the piracy concerns. These are commercial discs, and I just paid nearly CAD$300 for a 4-disc set with taxes, import and shipping fees. I own these, and I'm not gonna let a scratch ruin them for me.
Pretty sure personal backups are completely allowed for most copyrighted discs. Whether or not a company attempts to prevent that because they want to be the arbiter of copying is another question. But, legally speaking you're good to go.
Jeremy Falcon
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I had zero doubt about that.
Like I said, these are expensive discs and part of a limited lot. Even if it weren't legal in this country, I'd still be looking into backing it up.
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Oh, to actually answer the question... I've used anyburn before with success. But, it was in Linux. No ransomware popped up yet. YMMV on a Windows box.
Jeremy Falcon
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AnyBurn looks pretty good. Linux shouldn't be an impediment - even though I have it running primarily in VMs, I have some spare laptops where I can just blow away the OS at a moment's notice, and my reader is external/USB so I can connect it to anything.
I'm already in the process of ripping my discs with the one I had linked to, but I'll retry later with AnyBurn so I have an alternative, should this one not work, or also disappear eventually.
Thanks for that.
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I've been using PowerISO for small things occasionally over the years, but just the other day I bought a license so I can make larger ISOs.
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Thanks. I remember PowerISO from many, many years ago, but didn't realize it could rip commercial discs. Or maybe it wasn't a feature at the time.
I'll add it to the list to try - thanks 
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