New avatar

So, first things first: I’ve changed my avatar. Blame Hive account@roelandp - he asked me for my logo, and since my "company" is just me (that’s quite a company, if you ask me), the only thing I had was my old avatar. Ironically, the older the avatar is, the younger me you see there - which is kind of the opposite of me you see here.

The idea for a new one was simple: simple, and grey.

I’ve used a latent diffusion model for initial image synthesis for the base idea, then GIMP and Inkscape for fine tuning.

Old avatar: the origins

So yes, it is actually me you (barely) see here.

It’s a part of an old photo.

Not that old.

Also it wasn’t really that grey.

We were visiting Angkor, Cambodia.

I was wearing my usual grey outfit.

And that was the original photograph.

Witnessing Angkor, Cambodia, 2016.
(Photos by: Hive account@dobranoc)

Mirror

When it comes to the mirror, it's about time to try the new versions of the software we are developing.
I just started the conversion using 98880088 blocks from mainnet (courtesy of Hive account@blocktrades and Hive account@thebeedevs hardware resources, using CI/CD pipelines).
The old instance (p2p consensus nodes and simple API) is still running, unfortunately, the full API is no longer available due to an unfortunate chain of events, and bringing it back now would slow down the initialization of the new one, which should happen in a few days.

Note to self:
I should remember to use a custom value for the TOTAL_NUMBER_OF_BLOCKS_TO_PROCESS variable while running the mirrornet conversion, otherwise, it uses a default that is too far in the past. Also, let's schedule a mirrornet hardfork 28 (yet another) for September 1st 14:00 UTC, shall we?

Coordination on https://openhive.chat/channel/witness because otherwise I would be repeating similar content over and over again about mirror instances in my posts, which is simply boring for most people here.

Older mirrornet related posts for quick reference:

• 2022-04-30 Hive Mirrornet (a.k.a. Fakenet) is up and running!
• 2022-08-05 Preparing Hive Mirrornet (a.k.a. fakenet) for the release candidate testing
• 2022-08-20 Full Public Fake/Mirror API [WIP]
• 2023-10-14 Mirror, Mirror on the Hive
• 2025-01-19 Breaking the mirror, building a new one

HiveFest

HiveFest 2025 is near.
I’m going, and I hope (some of) you are going too. ;-)
(I still don't have tickets, but I hope to fix that part soon)
See the deal I’ve made with SkyTeam Airline Alliance - Official partner of HiveFest for discount codes for airplane tickets that might work for you. To be honest, for some itineraries it works amazingly, for some it’s so-so, for me it didn’t help at all. YMMV, DYOR.
Have you been to HiveFest before? How many times? Are you going this year? How about other IRL meetups?