If there was a stick beauty contest, this would for sure be a winner.

Such symmetry!
Such character!
Such versatility!

Truly, a stick among sticks.

Say I agree with your distinction - or restriction. There was still software written for, and programmed into, general-purpose, Turing-complete calculating machines long before there are CPUs.

So let’s look at the technical details of the word. The term “Software” was coined in 1958 by John Tukey. The computers in use at that time were machines like the IBM 704, the PDP-1, and the UNIVAC 1107; these are all vacuum tube computers that contained no silicon microchips and no CPUs. Even technically, the term “software” predates silicon and CPUs.

Non-technically, I disagree with your premise on the basis that it’s often been argued - and I agree with the argument - that humans are just computers with software personalities programmed by social conditioning, running on wetware and a fair bit of firmware. And there’s increasing evidence that there’s no real CPU, just a bunch of cooperating microorganisms and an id that retroactively convinces itself that it’s making the decisions. Even if the term “software” wasn’t coined until 1958, software has been a thing since complex organisms capable of learning from experience arose.

Unless we’re all living in a simulation, in which case, who knows if software or hardware really exist up there, or whether there’s even a distinction.

Software is a necessary component, just like screws are a necessary component in an engine. Screws don’t exist only in engines, have existed since long before engines, and can be used in other ways. Just like software.

Software is algorithmic instructions. We wrote and executed algorithms by hand long before we had calculating machines; and when we did get computers that could run more complex algorithms, they didn’t have CPUs. They had vacuum tubes (there were even simpler programmable purely mechanical computers before even vacuum tubes). CPUs didn’t come along until much later; we’d been writing software and programming computers for decades before the first CPU.

And even if you try to argue that vacuum tubes computers had some collection of tubes that you could call a “CPU” - which would be a stretch - then it still wouldn’t have been made from silicon (rocks) as in the OP post.

But before the first calculating mashing, people are writing algorithms - what software literally is - and executing them by hand long before we had calculating machines to do it for us. Look up how we calculated the ranging tables for artillery in WWII. Algorithms. Computed by hand.

The word “computer” literally comes from the word for the people (often women) who would execute algorithms using their brains to compute results.

I’m a little offended that this utterly skips over software, as if a CPU would do anything without the component that was invented before any CPU.

Software without a CPU is still useful. The reverse is not true.

Hugo isn’t a server, per se. It’s basically just a template engine. It was originally focused on turning markdown into web pages, with some extra functionality around generating indexes and cross-references that are really what set it apart from just a simple rendering engine. And by now, much of its value is in the huge number of site templates built for Hugo. But what Hugo does is takes some metadata, whatever markdown content you have, and it generates a static web site. You still need a web server pointed at the generated content. You run Hugo on demand to regenerate the site whenever there’s new content (although, there is a “watch” mode, where it’ll watch for changes and regenerate the site in response). It’s a little fancier than that; it doesn’t regenerate content that hasn’t changed. You can have it create whatever output format you want - mine generates both HTML and gmi (Gemini) sites from the same markdown. But that’s it: at its core, it’s a static site template rendering engine.

It is absolutely suitable for creating a portfolio site. Many of the templates are indeed such. And it’s not hard to make your own templates, if you know the front-end technologies.

It depends on how you want to write. If you want to use a web interface, WriteFreely is decent. If you like your text editor, Hugo is fantastic.

:shrug:

It’s trivial to host yourself, and super light on resources. Personally, I don’t use it; for blogging I write markdown and rsync it over to the server where Hugo picks it up and turns it into a blog. Now that I think about it, I should probably go shut my WriteFreely down. I have a few pages on it, but I hate web app interfaces, so I didn’t put much content in it.

Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought it’d be limited to some nationalities, although maybe there’s some truth to it.

I worked with two Turks (both living in the US, but under what circumstances I don’t know; I believe one was nationalized, and the other on a work visa) at the same time in 2016; one was radically supportive of Erdoğan, and believed the coup was real; the other thought he was a dictator and that the coup was a false flag meant to allow him emergency powers and a crack-down.

I say “radically” in the first case because she’d get agitated and angry about any criticism of Erdoğan; the second would discuss it as if he were in a debate. I have no doubt his beliefs were just as passionate, but he’d argue his points, not just declare things.

ANYWAY, that’s the extent of my experience. I lived in Munich for two years and, as an American, was vaguely aware of the immigration tension, but this just after reunification and the West Germans were still coming to terms with the impacts of that. And my friend circle was urban college students, so I swam in the most liberal of waters.

I love my country; I love its culture, I love its language, I love its ecosystems… I just hate its repressive government?

It’s usually either that, or: I love my country, but I can work here in an entry-level job and still send enough money home to support my extended family.

Anon hasn’t yet heard a valid reason for this because they’ve never asked and, honestly, don’t want to know because then they couldn’t feel superior.

True, good catch.

I’m sure you’re right.

Just FYI, despite what media companies would like you to believe, making copies of media you own for your own use is not piracy. It’s allowed by law under fair use.

What’s disturbing is that there’s a market for it. May be what you meant, but the demand side bothers me more than the supply.

Yeah! So the ideal tool would be both a toaster oven – a small oven – and have the ability, a setting, to circulate air in the same way an air fryer does, right?

Oh, yeah. It’s been a long while since I’ve lived in that environment. You’re probably right that most cheap stand-alone stovetop/oven units don’t have a convection setting.

I’ve considered one if those as well; convection heat does make a difference, though, and that’d be nice to have. It seems to me that convection is the thing that turns a toaster oven into an air fryer.

This is the big thing. So many times we want to heat up some left-overs and that would turn soggy in a microwave, but heating up the oven to reheat a few square inches of food is a vast waste of energy.

These take up a lot of space, though. I think one of those double ovens, where one is only tall enough for one tray, would be ideal. Convection, of course, but I haven’t seen a built-in without a convection mode in years.

The past three houses I’ve lived in have had convection ovens; I thought convection mode was fairly common by now.

Or, as the quote I know better know: France is a lovely place; if only it weren’t full of the French.