artandtechnic

artandtechnic , vor einem Tag an Random Englisch

I see that Google and friends are back on their scraping bullshit.

The IP addresses that Google complained bitterly about being blocked, are attempting to scrape my site… and not just from Google’s domain.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Tag

The img2dataset github project mentioned in several of the user agents is “interesting”:

https://github.com/rom1504/img2dataset

foone , vor 11 Tagen (Bearbeitet vor 10 Tagen) an Random Englisch

designing my next keyboard PCB is going well

EDIT: There's a typo in the alt text. It's supposed to read "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll design a keyboard.' Now they have two problems"

artandtechnic , vor 4 Tagen

@foone This sounds like the PCB needs to be updated to “three problems” 😂

foone , vor 13 Tagen an Random Englisch

guys I know you want to show off how stretchable your product is but could you please, please, not do it like this?

artandtechnic , vor 13 Tagen

@foone 😂

foone , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

You're never gonna believe this, but it turns out I'm gonna need to build a new keyboard

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat

@foone Sounds like its time for a Stream Deck.

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

Cute User Agent, kid.

Here’s 5¢, go buy yourself a real scripting language.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

@foone That’s legitimately hilarious. 😂

foone , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

Terrible idea: an author writes a book, but instead of releasing it, they train an LLM on it, and release the model.

So readers can ask the LLM to generate text based on it, but can never know the original text.

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat

@foone This is a pretty solid idea. Very Portal (1986)-esque.

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

Got on one of the toll highways this afternoon to make my way back to the thrift store I’d discovered last weekend… and found myself immediately stuck in traffic. After noticing that there only seemed to be traffic in a single direction - southbound - it hit me: this is Urban Weekend (a.k.a. Urban Beach Week).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Beach_Week

The wikipedia seemingly hasn’t been updated since 2013, so it omits that weekend’s overwhelmingly violent, criminal history.

Thankfully, I wasn’t going that far.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

It took me about 90 minutes to make my way through the densely packed shelf of VHS tapes. The picture is from when I was finished with it, so it’s “more organized.”

This was a deeply unpleasant experience as the place is cramped, and difficult to move around in (in a dangerous kinda way). It was also hot, smelled of sewage from the toilet, and had flies indoors.

Ended up bringing only 12 tapes back with me; while I’d meant get 13, I’d only realized I’d forgotten one when I saw it in this pic.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

@foone Nope, but I’ll add it to the list! 😄

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

@foone Oooh, added to the list! Next time I’m in California, I’ll need to make it a road trip.

I haven’t been in the Silicon Valley area since ’96 … which is probably too long. 😂

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

One of the VHS tapes that I purchased yesterday was selected entirely on the basis of its label, which claimed that it contained (bootlegged) recordings from 1977.

Since I’m perpetually on the look-out for recordings from that year, so that I can acquire samples of the Line 20 Nielsen SID signal, you could say it grabbed my attention. 😂

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

Of the various recordings on the tape, only one appeared to have the Nielsen data signal, so I made a point of digitizing it: an excerpt of an NBC news/entertainment program, “The Land of Hype and Glory.”

UGA catalog listing (seems incomplete):
https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/28218

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

Although I ended up having to manually tune my SID decoder’s solution, it was able to decode the data without issue.

The following timestamp data originated from the very beginning of the recording.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

Once I had an authoritative calendar date from the SID data, I then proceeded to search contemporary newspapers for the program.

I soon discovered that 1977 was thewrongyear. 😂

Searching for the actual program name, I discovered that it actually aired in 1978 (see promo below).

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

According to the TV book, the program aired at 10 p.m. on January 10, 1978.

So, you might wonder, why does the SID data say that it was transmitted at 1:03 a.m. on January 11 ???

Well, that’s because the original videotape recording was made on the west-coast of the United States. Since the SID system only represents the current time in terms of the EASTERN time zone, if you adjust by three hours, you have the correct east coast broadcast time.

artandtechnic OP , vor einem Monat

@foone Yeah, super weird choice.

foone , vor einem Monat an Random Englisch

Properly photographing a 3.5" floppy disk for archival is annoyingly complicated. The label has THREE sides!

I've already built an automated system to take a picture of the front of a disk, but really I need to take THREE photos if I want to get the whole thing.

That means either three cameras or I need to rotate the disk 90° and then 180°, which is going to really stress the limits of my mechanical engineering skills.

artandtechnic , vor einem Monat

@foone Looking good!