[22:44] I finally found a decent purpose for the checkbox hack: 4ways2:)
[19:46] I got the MIDI keyboard I mentioned before. It is an iRig Keys 37 in case you are interested, running just fine on Ubuntu 16.04 and LMMS 1.1.3 and not too expensive either. This will be fun!
[21:20] Data bending is "the process of manipulating a media file of a certain format, using software designed to edit files of another format". The outcome is glitch art.
[21:19] There is an ethical ad blocker that will not exactly block ads but rather block the user from accessing websites displaying ads, hence not allow users to leech content without giving back a little income. I'm hard-pressed to argue against this approach, admittedly.
[20:22] The wikipedia article on fax art reminds me of a relative of my brother in law who faxed an entire roll of toilet paper to someone else a while ago of whom he knew that their fax machine was set to auto receive, auto print. :D
[19:07] Climate change is everywhere, as it seems. Hell just froze over.
[19:06] Kalashnikov is developing a hoverbike. Not in the way xkcd envisioned it, though.
[17:53] Poka-yoke, which means "mistake-proofing" is a concept in manufacturing that aims to prevent mistakes by design. Examples are cars that need to be set to Park or Neutral when starting the motor to avoid unexpected movements or ATMs that ask users to remove their chip card prior to giving access to the money so the users don't forget to take their cards.
And whenever I come across this topic, I also think of one of the more famous quotes about Unix:
Unix was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.(Doug Gwyn)
[19:38] Boingboing found Industrial robots playing traditional instruments, made by Nigel Stanford.
[19:38] If you want another reason not to trust scripts embedded on any given website, here it is.
[19:31] I'm still at daggers drawn with my iPhone. Currently it behaves much like Windows did a few years ago: I literally have to reboot this thing every now and then to keep it functional. This just has to be a prank.
[18:41] CellF is a neural synthesizer, the first of its kind according to the website. Really fascinating. (The sound is somewhat reminiscent of Merzbow.)
[17:31] Interested in photos of bitcoin mines? Here's more.
[19:41] Wordcar put The Seeker back in my mind.
[19:09] Ever been on a road trip with a car that collected words along the way to write prose? Here's the source code and part of the output.
[19:00] We already know how hjkl came to be the cursor keys in vi. Now let's get to how WASD became standard in pc games. (via)
[19:19] Apple announced iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Following the lead of Microsoft they are the second large tech company to skip version 9 of their flagship product. This is beginning to seem a little weird.
[16:26] Billund table is a Lego Mindstorms based device that draws sand art. More info on the project.
[16:26]
As technologists, we have long since come to terms with the fact that some technology is just a bad idea, even if it looks exciting.(Sergey Bratus, Anna Shubina)
[16:25] After The Million Dollar Homepage, here is howmanypeoplepaidadollartoseehowmanypeoplepaidadollar.com. The astounding thing is that this actually pays, apparently. Big time, as it seems.
[16:36] Tesla remotely updates vehicles, temporarily extending range to help escape Irma. (There is much work needed to actually own your Tesla.)
[15:09] Pranayraj Vangari wrote one Wikipedia entry per day over the course of one year.
[15:07]
If there’s one thing the latent sysadmin in me loves, it’s tearing out a perfectly functional existing production system and implementing something new from scratch!(Lee Hutchinson)
[20:12] Dinky Wiki is somewhere between a wiki and a CMS. The author himself is using it as a blog among other things. Also found a link to this set of wiki principles on his site.
[20:08] Embedding content from other servers, domains on your website is a bad idea. Yes, I know this article is about abandoned domains, however I consider third party content of this kind unfavorable either way. (via)
[20:14] Game recommendation: Fran Bow. Really weird, but great in its way. I did not like the visual style in the beginning, but then ended up playing the whole thing, because I just couldn't quit.
[20:42] Binary data visualization and an explanation of several visualization modes.
[17:14] And while we're talking about bash: how to make bash scripts work in dash and a Bash Reference Manual
[16:57] printf appears to be the successor of echo, recommended by POSIX. Here is why. Very detailed.
Even though gmb is not conform to POSIX (bash itself isn't, by default) I guess I'll replace echo with printf. This article above very much recommends it.
[16:45] Ted's Linux MIDI Guide makes me want to buy some audio equipment, plug a keyboard into my computer an toy around with LMMS again. Seriously, I think I have to spend some money.
[17:06] Windows is starting to resemble Linux. Recent case: I tried to copy/paste an image from the Windows 10 builtin image viewer. Turns out the file is removed from the clipboard as soon as the application is closed. I had the same problem years ago on Xfce and had to install a clipboard manager. Some weird quirk of X or something. Redmond finally catches up.