Category Archives: software

software: fixing scanned photos in GIMP

Posted on 2023-07-04 by skierpage

I received boxes full of old family pictures that were cropped with the old selection tool of “Physical scissors”. Here are my notes on how I scanned them and neatened them up. Scanning Arrange multiple pictures on all-in-one printer’s scanner … Continue reading →

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art: excellent VR experience of the ISS

Posted on 2023-03-30 by skierpage

THE INFINITE is one of the best VR exhibitions I’ve experienced (and I’m lucky to have strapped into Char Davies’ unbelievably great Osmose and the PHI Centre’s Horizons VR greatest hits exhibition, and even the early 1991 Dactyl Nightmare VR … Continue reading →

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AIs making images of music!?!! 🤯

Posted on 2022-12-19 by skierpage

Hi music fans. OpenAI’s Jukebox was generating music waveforms from scratch way back in 2020 (as I wrote). Since then, silence from OpenAI. I suspect half the music in Spotify’s “contemplative acoustic music for yoga/Pilates” and “mid-tempo EDM for hip … Continue reading →

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software: making it safer to run random programs

Posted on 2022-08-29 by skierpage

I was dubious about Google’s new Fuchsia operating system, but it has some very interesting ideas, including capability-based execution. Programs that can do nothing until you grant them capabilities are so much better – I hate downloading some Windows .EXE … Continue reading →

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art: Franz Kline’s best work in years, done by AI

Posted on 2022-07-08 by skierpage

“Painting of a black cat with white markings sitting on a chair” is the best thing Franz Kline has painted in 60 years! Love the coiled energy and the furry tail on the left. This is the best of 9 … Continue reading →

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software: where’s my ARchitect identifier?

Posted on 2022-05-27 by skierpage

One of the oft-touted promises of Google Glass and other Augmented Reality headsets is you’ll look at something and the headset will indicate or say what it is. Meanwhile in the real world, a friend posts great cityscape photographs and … Continue reading →

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software: straightening and animating photos of a TV screen in GIMP

Posted on 2022-03-07 by skierpage

TVs today are computers with a display. Any computer can take a screenshot of its display, there’s even a [PrtSc] key on most PC keyboards to “Print Screen”. My LG TV can take a screenshot of its own screen and … Continue reading →

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software: I can’t share what I see

Posted on 2021-05-26 by skierpage

I’ve now found two visuals that utterly defeat Google’s Android Camera AI: dim saturated orange sky at midday due to particulates high in the atmosphere from distant fires, and a lunar eclipse. Right now the Super Blood Flower Lunar Eclipse … Continue reading →

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music: digitization and the Internet changed music, the Web didn’t

Posted on 2021-04-13 by skierpage

Videos-about-music maker Rick Beato made a stimulating video of “TOP 20 Inventions that CHANGED Music.” It’s entertaining and a pretty good list. Digitization! He left out the underlying technique of digitization. Without it, inventions he mentioned like CDs, PC music, … Continue reading →

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software: NeWS as James Gosling’s best weird idea

Posted on 2020-12-29 by skierpage

Lex Fridman talked to James Gosling, famous for the Emacs editor and the Java language. At 1:47:40 he says “I’ve got this weird history of doing weird stuff.” I was fortunate to be writing documentation at Sun Microsystems in the Programming … Continue reading →

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