charlesroper

tags	ffmpeg video-encoding hevc amd-amf wsl-interop powershell
date-created	2026-03-17 22:45:53 +0000
date-modified	2026-03-17 23:09:58 +0000

FFmpeg HEVC Hardware Encoding (AMD AMF)

Also see [[FFmpeg AV1 Hybrid Encoding Pipeline]]

This note details the optimal hardware encoding pipelines for compressing video to HEVC (H) using an AMD Radeon discrete GPU.

charlesroper

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

By Douglas Adams

This is a copy of the original article by Douglas Adams. Some minor elements have been tidied for reading clarity. Full details of these changes are at the end.

This piece first appeared in the News Review section of The Sunday Times on August 29th 1999.

A couple of years or so ago I was a guest on Start The Week, and I was authoritatively informed by a very distinguished journalist that the whole Internet thing was just a silly fad like ham radio in the fifties, and that if I thought any different I was really a bit naïve. It is a very British trait – natural, perhaps, for a country which has lost an empire and found Mr Blobby – to be so suspicious of change.

charlesroper

Digital agencies serving charities, social justice, and civil society

A curated, UK-leaning list of digital agencies serving charities, social justice, and civil society.

Full-service & product/web build

• Torchbox – employee-owned; Wagtail CMS creators; deep nonprofit track record. ([Torchbox][1])
• Reason Digital – builds sites, apps, and tools for charities; impact-focused. ([Reason Digital][2])
• Fat Beehive – charity website specialists; long-standing sector focus. ([Fat Beehive][3])
• The Developer Society (DEV) – UK not-for-profit co-op working exclusively with charities/NGOs. ([The Developer Society][4])

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Volunteer Your Skills

Volunteering

• DataKind UK – volunteer data & digital projects. ([DataKind UK][1])
• Digital Candle – free 1-hour advice calls for charities. ([digitalcandle.org.uk][2])
• CodeYourFuture – volunteer to teach/mentor. ([CodeYourFuture][3])
• codebar – coach at inclusive coding workshops. ([codebar][4])
• AbilityNet “ITCanHelp” – accessibility-minded tech support volunteering. ([abilitynet.org.uk][5])
• Reach Volunteering – skills-based volunteering marketplace. ([reachvolunteering.org.uk][6])

charlesroper

Alt text (concise)

Line chart titled “US Unemployment Rate” comparing U-3 (unemployed) and U-6 (under-employed) from Dec 2016–Dec 2022. Both series are steady and slowly falling through 2019, then spike sharply at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (U-3 ~15%, U-6 ~23%) and decline through 2021–2022. By late 2022 U-3 is ~3–4% and U-6 ~6–7%. U-6 is consistently higher than U-3 throughout.

Extended description (for complex image)

• What the chart shows: Two lines: an olive line for Unemployed (U-3) and a blue line for Under-employed (U-6), plotted as percent of the labor force on the y-axis (3%–23%) across time on the x-axis (Dec 2016 to Dec 2022).
• Series meaning (context):

charlesroper

{
  "adventureParty": {
    "name": "Dragon Slayers United",
    "members": [
      {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "Aria Stormblade",
        "class": "Ranger",
        "level": 8,
        "skills": ["Archery", "Stealth", "Tracking"],

charlesroper

Modern CLI Tools for *nix and Windows

A collection of CLI tools I use (or have used). Most can be installed using your *nix distro’s package manager, or with Scoop on Windows. If you’re not already using Scoop, it's definitely worth trying.

✨ Other lists you might find interesting

• modern-unix – A collection of modern/faster/saner alternatives to common Unix commands. Most work with both *nix and Windows.
• A list of new(ish) command line tools – Julia Evans

charlesroper

<#
    eza-completion.ps1
    ──────────────────
    Native tab-completion for eza on PowerShell 7+

    Drop this file in your $PROFILE directory and source it:

        . (Join-Path (Split-Path $PROFILE -Parent) "eza-completion.ps1")

    Make sure the following PSReadLine options are set:

charlesroper

Summary of Andy Masley’s AI articles

A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

Here’s a detailed summary of Andy Masley’s post “Why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment – a cheat sheet”, which distils his core arguments, data points, and rhetorical strategies:

---

🧭 Main Argument

charlesroper

How much bandwidth and CO₂e does an adblocker save?

ChatGPT o4-mini-high; 2025-05-17

On average, studies show that a heavyweight ad- and tracker-blocker like uBlock Origin saves around a third of the data you’d otherwise download – and in concrete terms:

• Bandwidth saved per page load
  In a diverse set of real-world tests on hundreds of popular sites, the average bandwidth saving from ad- and tracker-blocking was 899 KB (with a median of just under 500 KB and a 95th-percentile of 2.76 MB) (Brave). This corresponds to roughly 25–34 % less data transferred compared with no blocker (arXiv).
• CO₂e saved per page load