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Projects
Here’s the stuff I’ve made that I’m most proud of.
Diary
Here’s my latest posts to the free fediverse, some rambling, some ranting, mostly just commenting on stuff I’ve read lately. Some of it gets syndicated to Twitter but mostly not. The best of it reaches my monthly digest email.
Tue, 29 Oct 2024 01:15:23 +0000
Tonight's mission included just staring at the night sky for a minute.
Seems to be impossible in vr. The character never really looks up, just the vr view.
Had to play on flat screen to do it, and I've only played in vr. No idea what buttons do what. Nearly killed me just to look at the stars.
Mon, 28 Oct 2024 10:57:30 +0000
Spent most of the weekend playing #NoMansSky attempting to go through this new "expedition" and get that sweet looking space-ship.
Only got about half-way though. Spent far too long trying to build a mech-suit to go collecting storm-crystals, but it was all a waste and I ended up just flying the ship around looking for 'em and jumping out to weather the storm for the few seconds it takes to collect 'em.
Which means I still ain't done the worm-monster-murdering or the fishing-trip.
Think it has to be done by the end of next weekend if I'm to get that sweet sweet spaceship.
Fri, 25 Oct 2024 01:32:33 +0000
My actual favorite Desktop Computer software program ever written is still Blender.
It's fast and manages incredible levels of complexity with a UI that is better than any window-manager I've ever used and an API that's just "you can type python into the window here" levels of integration.
Amazing.
Blender is to video/audio/3d-polygon-modelling as Vim is to text-editing.
It's the actual top of the list of my free-software-real-money-donations list each month.
I like blender more than I like almost all of the actual people who are likely to read this.
It's one of the few projects not yet infected by corporatism or capitalism or enshitification or in-group squabbling.
But, man, that's a lot of videos in your youtube RSS feed during conference week eh?
So much stuff going on.
I actually literally can't keep up.
Fri, 25 Oct 2024 01:02:00 +0000
Erin's xoxo talk was really all of it great but the kernel is just before 14m.
"There is a pretty strong belief in many quarters that because of corporate predation and and human nature, no many-to-many social system can ever be anything but corrosive
The Dark-forest theory of the internet... posits that the public internet is now so hostile to authentic human sociability that all real interaction has to go underground - into group chats, private slacks, and discords.
This is happening both because the platforms themselves are extractive surveillance monsters, and also because they've incentivized so much predatory Player-Vs-Player behavior...
In this light, retreating into private spaces is obviously wise and protective.
But my fundamental discomfort with that conclusion is that when those of us who have found our friends [online] all retreat into private spaces, we're slamming the doors on everyone who hasn't gotten there yet.
Leaving them out there to get eaten....
The answer can't be that we cede everything above ground to the billionaires and demagogues and predatory forces they've arrayed around themselves...
So there's only one option: we fix the fucking networks.
👏 👏
Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:26:16 +0000
Exciting to see that Blue Sky is taking more money from vulture capitalists, and getting deeper into debt in order to grow their user-base of eyeballs they can sell to manipulative data-brokers and corporate advertisers!
> "we’ve raised a $15 million Series A financing led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat of Darkmode, co-creator of Kubernetes Joe Beda, and others."
https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-24-2024-series-a
This news surely will lead to exciting features and not at all to the inevitable enshitification of the service because I'm sure all these corporate interests are not interested in the least in extracting value from the users of the service!
Did you know you can follow me on bluesky through the bridge to the actual free un-owned distributed federation of anarchic communities on a network not owned by extractive capital?
It's true!
Look here's the bridge!
Wed, 23 Oct 2024 22:19:58 +0000
Top level play going on at Improv tonight. Penultimate session of the course. Then after the show, the group breaks up, just as it starts to really gel. Seems like the next level has to be a different night with a different ringmaster, so probably almost entirely a different group.
Need to find a steady troupe really instead of these 8 week courses. Only one more of these 8-weekers before we run out of levels and it's all just varieties of "advanced". Maybe some folks in that final group will wanna go steady. Figure it out after the summer.
Tue, 22 Oct 2024 18:36:50 +0000
Something weird about my computer. The overnight render-job was taking nearly twice as long per frame as usual.
🤔
Plus it's slightly longer show than usual.
Wasn't even gonna be finished by 10pm.
So I finally did the work today to make it possible to rent some AWS GPUs and render it on the cloud.
Hopefully the last late episode, for from the next show I can render it on four machines overnight instead of just one.
Now there's no limit to how long they can be. Bwahahha.
Fri, 18 Oct 2024 22:36:13 +0000
Those books can be read online or you can get lulu to print you a copy:
* https://dalliance.net/dreamsheep
The tarot cards you can get at:
The tentacles movie:
Maybe I should print a DVD of the newer starship stuff or something. Seems weird how old everything on the display-shelf is. It doesn't mean I'm past-it!?
Fri, 18 Oct 2024 22:03:32 +0000
It's more striking in person that it seems in the photos I can take.
A corner of the room is glowing, way more so than the posters because it's insides are lit in a way the poster's aren't.
Fri, 18 Oct 2024 21:56:06 +0000
The "magic home" wifi-led-controller I had lying around seems to be an updated version compared to the few already scattered around my studio.
The reverse-engineered (not by me) control for the old ones didn't seem to work with the new one 😞
Turns out to need an extra word written to the byte-stream written to port 5577. Dunno what that word means. I send a zero.
The presence of the extra zero does not break the old controllers, so who cares.
Fri, 18 Oct 2024 21:53:22 +0000
Instead of doing the things I hoped to do today, I have made some sort of trophy case / shrine.
The top shelf of my bookshelves is now surrounded with a strip of LEDS to light it's interior.
This makes it a display shelf, so instead of all the junk and boxes and the to-read queue which used to be there, it seemed to need some thing face-forwards. A display-shelf.
So on the shelf now, my work, from right to left:
* Word Cloud Tarot deck - Original Edition
* Photo-book of holiday in Africa
* A DVD of my movie: Tentacles, After The End.
* A copy of my pocket-book, "Do Dream Sheep Bleat?", black and white with a penguin on the cover.
* A copy of my book "Yes, the conspiracy really exists, and furthermore it's all your fault!"
* A copy of the photobook from my trip to Iceland
* A wordcloud tarot deck made in partnership with @IamHappyToast
Thu, 17 Oct 2024 21:37:12 +0000
I dunno what Matt Automattic is so mad about anyway, How can "Wet Pussy Engine" possibly violate any wordpress trademarks.
What did you think it stood for?
https://www.404media.co/automattic-buyout-offer-wordpress-matt-mullenweg/
Thu, 17 Oct 2024 17:37:36 +0000
The car-club tell me that I put "premium" petrol into the car and they don't normally allow that but they'll let me off this one time and refund me anyway.
TIL: There is such a thing as premium petrol?
In what way is it better I wonder? I guess you must presumably get more miles per liter? But if the car-club don't like it then presumably also more pounds-per-mile.
🤷
I told 'em if they need a special type of petrol then they need to label which types are allowed coz all it said was "unleaded" and I dunno how you tell premium-petrol from pleb-petrol.
It was the closest of the pumps that said "unleaded".
They're pushing the electric cars, pointing out there's free charging.
I'm not against the electric cars at all, but I can't plan around them. Who knows if it'll be 5% or 100% charged when I get it, if I'll have to spend an hour waiting for it to charge before I get to the destination?
Car-club electric cars are gonna need a charger at the parking-spot so I can be sure it'll be charged when I get it.
Thu, 17 Oct 2024 00:21:07 +0000
All this and Podcast's too.
My attention to my RSS reader has waxed and waned over the years but it's not been zero since way before Google Reader.
I host my own with TTRS these days so that nobody can shut my reader down.
There's always been so much more there than I can read, so many feeds get neglected.
People who say they have a blog or a podcast and that blog or podcast doesn't have a RSS feed?
Nah mate, what you have there is a website or a page on a corporate directory. Without RSS is just isn't a blog nor podcast.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/
Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:12:41 +0000
Drove up to Banbury for lunch with the folks again.
They finally replaced the closest car-club car that's been gone for ages.
Automatic gearbox which is nice. Car has no key-slot. Just a button with stop/start written on it.
It turns on the screen after one press, and turns the screen off after another press. 🤨 🤔 But how to start the engine?
Had to call 'em to ask. Apparently the trick is to be in Neutral, and hold the brake pedal, and press the start button all at once.
That works, but then in the car to drive back: "Start/Stop button error, consult manual!" 🤨
I turned it off and on again a few times and seemed to work eventually.
Took a while to figure out how to open the petrol hole too. There's a button under the dashboard.
I like the 360-view parking cameras though. See the car and it's surroundings as though from a helicopter, like playing grand-theft-auto-1.
🚗
Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:40:16 +0000
Linked-in's data-protection officer has responded to my request and suggested this link to request data-deletion.
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1342613/
I have asked for the whole account to be deleted, explained that I don't trust their scammy spamming organisation with any kind of passport upload, and requested that the only data they retain is a do-not-send on my email address.
Fingers crossed that will work 🤞
Sun, 13 Oct 2024 19:21:23 +0000
Thanks for the two new controllers @revk - the USBA ones (i assume new style?) are more compact and easier to work with.
Though they have a URL that links to a 404 page (usba dot revk) and for some reason get stuck into a reboot-loop if configured properly, but powered from the machine I flashed them from. That confused me for ages till I just plugged 'em into a battery instead.
Also confusing was the suggestion I'd have to do some gluing which apparently was already done.
Sun, 13 Oct 2024 19:17:20 +0000
Added some LED strips. Planning more software to control these things but for now they're just synched up to the same firework loop.
Probably add another strip behind the main door-mirrors later.
Looking pretty funky in there, especially with the main overhead light set to cycle colours too.
Wed, 09 Oct 2024 22:10:22 +0000
Linked In write to me, telling me they're gonna start uploading into their AI and I should opt or or delete the account or something if I don't want that.
They will not let me log in unless I upload a passport photo.
I have written to their data protection officer asking to be forgotten instead.
I would sooner sue them with lawyers than upload any data more data to their spamming servers.
Amazing how hard it is to find a way to contact them when you don't have access to an account, but they have to provide a way to contact the data protection officer. It's the law.
Wed, 09 Oct 2024 09:51:04 +0000
This week the corporation of london tell me that I can probably have a garage on the estate by the end of the month.
Asked for one of them years ago.
Was thinking a micro-camper could go in it when it came up.
So I spent a bit of yesterday looking at all the tiny microcampers the like of which would fit in a standard domestic garage and also I wouldn't feel terrified trying to drive.
Seems like really this means the smallest of the vans, the cars designed to carry a family of seven.
All the already-converted ones have some flaw of course which makes them less than perfect. Wrong type of sink or bed in the wrong place or whatever.
Meanwhile, the camper-converted ones seem to be selling for around 8 grand more than the unconverted ones, while also companies are claiming they'll do the conversion for more like 4 grand.
So it seems like you could make small amounts of money by buying the cars, paying a company to convert them, and then selling them as campers.
Not interested in doing that, but does seem likely to be the best route to getting a camper of my own I really like. Design it myself. Buy the car and pay for a conversion to my design.
Now the only trouble is I don't know anything about cars. The Renault Kangaroo seems like it's about the right shape. Probably not the electric version given the range and charging time and the length of journey a camper typically does. But definitely not diesel either given the Ultra-low-emission requirements of the city I live in.
🤔
Bookmarks
A list of the last few things I’ve enjoyed reading/watching or sometimes bookmarked to read later. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed here or follow the little robot on the fediverse that toots them out as I bookmark them.
Call Jonathan Pie - Call Jonathan Pie: US Election Specials - American Dream: Part 1 - BBC Sounds
Johnathan Pie's US election special episodes are pretty good fun.
Gaza: Britain’s seventh genocide
Mark Curtis is surprised that people are surprised that Britain might support a genocide. He details how that is the normal position of the UK ministers: "High moral principles are largely espoused only for the cameras and complicit journalists, who regularly parrot them as though they are important to Whitehall planners. In reality, the UK is concerned about the law and rights only when it comes to enemy states, as a means to pressure and isolate them for public relations purposes."
Pluralistic: You should be using an RSS reader (16 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
"this is how social media used to work, before it was enshittified. You can single-handedly disenshittify your experience of virtually the entire web, just by switching to RSS, traveling back in time to the days when Facebook and Twitter were more interested in showing you the things you asked to see, rather than the ads and boosted content someone else would pay to cram into your eyeballs."
Owen Jones: My verdict on Keir Starmer's first 100 days
Perhaps the leadership will be helped by a Budget which will be forced to offer some answers to mounting crisis: but the refusal to overturn a failed economic model means that won’t last. Labour is assisted by a shambolic Conservative party, but one poll put it just one point ahead of its only recently crushed opposition without even a change of leadership. You cannot rule out this government disintegrating completely in office.
Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions | George Monbiot | The Guardian
Monbiot on the government's 20 billion quid for carbon capture in the fossil fuels industry: "The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, talks of a fiscal “black hole” of £21.9bn. But this is a real black hole: a long tunnel into the rocks, down which £21.7bn and more will be poured. A more reliable and cost-effective means of sequestering carbon would be to bundle up the money (roughly 1,100 tonnes in £20 notes) and shove it down the pipe."
The Busy Worker’s Handbook to the Apocalypse | by Sam Hall | Medium
"Climate change will cause agricultural failure and subsequent collapse of hyperfragile modern civilization, likely within 10–15 years. By 2050 total human population will likely be under 2 billion. Humans, along with most other animals, will go extinct before the end of this century. These impacts are locked in and cannot be averted. Everything in this article is supporting information for this conclusion." - well argued and detailed reference on the state of the climate and it's depressing.
A Very Peculiar Triumph - Craig Murray
Murray on Assange's first public statement after his release: "...I looked over at the applauding media, and thought how Julian had been slandered and traduced and his case entirely misrepresented for over a decade. I recalled how he had been wrongly represented for years as a sexual offender and as a lunatic who smeared excrement on walls."..."Oh well … “there is more joy in heaven at one sinner that repenteth”. If the mainstream media are now willing to give positive coverage to Julian’s thoughts, that will be a good thing, as indeed largely happened over this event. His words on the assassination of journalists in Gaza and on the programming of targets in Gaza using AI were an excellent pointer towards where his thoughts are trending.
People said this experiment was impossible, so I tried it - YouTube
Some great slow-motion video of the thermite reaction in Veritasium's video here.
IN FULL: Julian Assange makes first public statement since prison release - YouTube
Julian Assange's first public address since his release, giving evidence to a European parliamentary assembly. Journalism is not a crime, it's shocking and chilling what they did to him. #assange #media #law
The Internet’s AI Slop Problem Is Only Going to Get Worse
NYMag examining the state of AI slop drowning out the internet: "In the nearly two years since, a rising tide of slop has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap."
‘Everyone In Gaza is Sick, Injured, Or Both’ – Israel’s 2.1 million Victims – Media Lens
Media Lens once again contrasting reporting of terrorism done by Israel to the terrorism done by the IRA and Muslim organizations: "It is difficult to overstate the importance of these incendiary appeals for war, and more to the point, the impact on our psyches when these appeals for urgent ‘action’ are almost completely absent, as is the case now on Gaza. No newspaper editor would dream of calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza."..."We are trained to recognise a major crisis by the level of alarm sounded by corporate media. As with the evolving climate change catastrophe, it is all too easy for the lack of media alarm to persuade us that things are ‘not that bad’. Perhaps the climate isn’t really collapsing, or the problem is under new management. Perhaps the suffering in Gaza isn’t actually that bad. Otherwise, we would surely have heard more outrage from the ‘humanitarian interventionists’. Assuming we live in a basically sane society that is not drowning in moral and intelle…
...Will Save Your Life Next Week - YouTube
Kurzgesagt's video is trying to safe your life by looking at their audience's behaviour: 3 of you will die this week because you looked at your phone while driving. Stop it! Check your speed and your balls and your mental health. Apparently I am way over the average age for this advice though.
Pluralistic: What the fuck is a PBM? (23 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
State of the US health system by Cory Doctorow: "the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot"
Why Scientists Are Puzzled By This Virus - YouTube
The things going on in our bodies are just dizzyingly complicated. Here's Kurzgesagt talking about the friendly viruses in your body.
How the war on Gaza exposed Israeli and western fascism
Johnathan Cook talk about how Israel's war on Gaza exposes their genocidal lust."Whether intentionally or not, Hamas tore off the mask of that deception on 7 October. The pretence of an ideological rift between western leaders on the right and a supposed “left” evaporated overnight. They all belonged to the same war party; they all became devotees of the genocide party.", "All have clamoured for Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” – in truth, its right to continue decades of oppression of the Palestinian people – by imposing a blockade on food, water and power to Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants. ","All actively approve arming Israel’s slaughter and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinians. All have done nothing to impose a ceasefire apart from paying lip service to the notion.", "All seem readier to tear up international law and its supporting institutions than to enforce it against Israel. All denounce as antisemitism the mass protests against genocide, rather th…
Prepare for Execution - DYNAMO DREAM - Ep1 Pt2 - YouTube
Ian Hurbert's latest is like he scripted the whole thing to be as difficult to shoot as possible and then went and excelled at every shot. So beautiful. The only point of that coat can be the make the lighting harder. #film #cgi #watching
Stumbling and Mumbling: Playing by the rules
StumlingAndMubling on Labour's apparent rules:1. Accept the media's framing of economics. 2. Don't challenge the power of capital.3. Increase profits.4. Don't engage with the left.5. Let money talk.
The End of Western Pluralist Democracy - Craig Murray
Craig Murray on the state crackdown on anti-genocide protestors: "Palestine has the legitimate right of self defence against the illegal occupation."The occupying power Israel has no right of self defence. That is the plain position in international law."Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated."IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences."Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance."
How might LLMs store facts | Chapter 7, Deep Learning - YouTube
3Blue-1Brown video on Multi Layer Perceptrons, the other layers that aren't attention layers in a transformer AI like GPT.#maths #video #ai
Why Ukraine Suddenly Decided to Invade Russia - YouTube
Strategy analysis of Ukraine's counter-attack back into Russia.