Microblog
post-1633452030
To get my digital vaccine certificate for covid-19, I have to use a government website protected by Google Recaptcha 🤦 This hits me particularly hard since I evade Google tracking, so I get forced into doing free labour to help Google train their self-driving cars. It's infuriating. Why don't they just implement a simple rate-limit if they are worried about bots?
post-1633007442
"The Single Most Productive Thing You Can Do" #sleep #productivity
post-1632814900
This season of Formula 1 is the best I've ever watched. If you're not watching, you're missing out. The next Netflix "Drive to survive" is going to be epic!
post-1632814771
So true: There's still no beating "git push heroku" for deployment. #devops
post-1632054182
Book recommendation: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. #novel #fiction #scifi #space
Project Hail Mary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary
post-1627811814
"A practical philosophy of health, wealth and happiness"
Happiness
https://nav.al/happiness
post-1627455191
Surely, the mother of all unboxing videos: unboxing a quantum computer!
IBM Quantum System One assembled in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPMY4oP3Qgk
post-1627114689
I recently discovered the Coc plugin for vim, which brings VSCode-like smarts to vim. I can finally use #vim full-time instead of #VSCode, which has become bloated and slow over time. Coc has a marketplace with a large breadth of language support. In a like-for-like comparison, vim uses 500Mb less RAM (including language server) than VSCode for Python or Java editing (with intellisense), and is much faster. I also managed to set up vim for editing and uploading #Arduino and #esp32 code by integrating with PlatformIO.
Conqueror of Completion
https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim
post-1626770375
A fairly compelling argument for publishing documents as PDF files rather than as HTML pages. #goodread
lab6 Issue 0 (PDF)
https://lab6.com/0
post-1626169502
I blogged about how I create audiobooks from epubs and the like, using text-to-speech.
Creating audiobooks
https://tobykurien.com/creating-audiobooks/
post-1625762762
Really cool online browser multi-player games to play with colleagues during lunch break:
https://shellshock.io
https://blocktanks.io
https://smashkarts.io
https://sidearms.io
https://krunker.io
post-1625386633
The "Physiological Sigh" provides instant reduction of anxiety and stress and is easy to do, although you shouldn't undo it by resurfacing the anxiety to test if it worked! #neuroscience
post-1625207794
Sampler is an amazing text visualization tool for the terminal. I was able to make a smart-mirror type of dashboard really easily with it. #text #console #dashboard #diy
Sampler
https://github.com/sqshq/sampler
post-1622647512
"Over a month ago, I came to the realization that my smartphone was having several negative impacts on my mental health... In a desperate attempt to regain some control, I ditched the smartphone."
gemini://tobykurien.com/articles/2021-05-23-digital-declutter.gmi
Digital de-clutter
https://tobykurien.com/digital-declutter/
post-1622645776
TIL: there's Android ransomware that works not by encrypting your files, but rather by showing a system modal window that cannot be dismissed by the user until the ransom is paid. Latest variants use machine learning: "TinyML model is useful for making sure [the ransom note] would appear less contrived and more believable" #android #malware #ransomware
Mobile randsomware
https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/10/08/sophisticated-new-android-malware-marks-the-latest-evolution-of-mobile-ransomware/
post-1621786017
A great talk arguing that software is in fact getting worse, because of more complexity. (via alex.flounder.online)
Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
post-1621669924
Photos from a recent trip down to Port Edward, KZN South Coast. A really beautiful and relaxing place for a holiday. #photo #kzn
post-1621362863
And here's a gorgeous screenshot of khal in action, if you're still on the fence about #cli PIM tools. #commandline #pimutils #khal
post-1621358358
Instead of installing and configuring a heavy GUI app for my calendar and todos, I've discovered the command-line based pimutils. Once vdirsyncer is configured, I can use khal and todoman. Very simple, powerful, portable, and lightweight. #opensource #commandline
pimutils
https://github.com/pimutils