Lots of fun stuff this month. This post is shorter this time around because I actually started a link blog. You can find it on my new bookmarks section on the site

This month is a little more political than my prior posts. If you have a comment on my comments or have something awesome to share that I missed feel free to contact me via the email linked at the bottom of the post.

Movies

Monkey Man

My sister and roommate wanted to see this movie. I won’t spoil much, but it is an entertaining movie.

Think John Wick, but with a little more substance. Main character is on the path of revenge, but this aligns him with a hijra community as they overthrow a popular nationalist political movement. It suffers for playing around with being deep without committing to it, but still very entraining and relevant regardless of if you are in India or somewhere else in the world.

It has some commentary on the ethnic tensions in India, trans rights, the power of a charismatic leader, etc, but the movie is first and foremost an action movie. It is great for what it is, but I do feel like there is some wasted potential.

I will say it is very violent so it isn’t for everyone, but if you wanted Indian John Wick killing fascists then this might be the movie for you.

Cool Projects

Leaky Homepage Ring by Melon

Melon has an amazing website I think I highlighted before. They have created a web ring that consists of a script that floods member’s websites with a water animation. Users can clear it by clicking on the water multiple times, revealing the website. It is annoying, but also a part of what makes the web an interesting place.

Filament Colors Library

This is an amazing library of 3D print filaments. The site gives color machine, easy searching, and many other features that could be useful for 3D printing.

The creator provides the site for free as a hobby project and only makes money off it via affiliate links.

zoxide

This is a tool I started using earlier this month. zoxide is like the cd command, but better. It smartly jumps to a directory using some simple rules and fuzzy search. If I want to go to my techtea website directory from my home directory I can just type cd techtea and it will jump me to ~/projects/hugo/techtea/. As you can see, I replace cd with it so I don’t mess with my existing workflow.

I will be honest, I don’t live in the terminal like a lot of Linux users so a lot of these tools are not as useful to me as some other folks. I still love using them when I am using the terminal and they make the experience a lot smoother, but I can take or leave them usually.

Braille Training Cell by 3D Printy

3D Printy created an awesome 3D printed tool to help aid in training people how to read braille. This is an amazing project and demonstrates how 3D Printing can help make the world a better place when good people use the tech. He has a video explanation here.

3D Files:

Braille Training Cell - 4.5MM
Braille Training Cell - 6MM

Blogs

Why blog anonymously by Frills

Frills shares her reasons for blogging anonymously. I generally agree with her reasoning and maybe it was a bad idea to use my name on everything I make.

My threat model lets me be somewhat comfortable with my real name being out there. Your milage may vary however.

Friday Facts #408 - Statistics improvements, Linux adventures by raiguard and Klonan

This is a blog post from the company blog of the game Factorio. While I don’t like linking too often to corporate blogs, Factorio is an amazing game and their blog is equally amazing.

You can ignore the game specific stuff and read raiguard’s comments on how their native Linux code works. It gives some insight into why so many games target Proton/WINE instead of Linux directly as well as Factorio’s own technical debt.

Really interesting read. Also GNOME really needs to start supporting standards, Factorio might try to support their broken implementation of Wayland, but you can’t expect everyone to do so and we really need the biggest desktop environment to be friendly to devs and users alike.

Search is dead — long live curation by Cory Dransfeldt

Cory Dransfeldt says what many have said before, AI is not the answer and search engines are completely broken.

Human curation has always had a place on the internet and now it looks like it will be the only way we can find trustworthy and valuable things.

Towards a quieter, friendlier web by Cory Dransfeldt

Cory Dransfeldt talks about his principles of living on the web. A lot of stuff that just sounds like sound and reasonable things, but a lot of people seem to have not gotten the memo. Give it a read.

Not everything is on the Internet by Ruby Klover

Ruby Klover gives a small list emphasizing that not everything is on the internet.

Remember that it is very true, the internet lacks a lot. Please share the amazing things you know as it just might not be on the internet yet..

YouTube

YouTube is my default time waster and I’ve been trying to cut back on all that infotainment junk, but there are still a lot of good things on the platform.

What is the “Correct” Speed Limit? by Not Just Bikes

It is 30 KPH (18.64 MPH).

It is no secret that speed kills people. It also causes traffic, increases pollution, and generally makes life worse.

In high populated areas we need to lower the speed limits and redesign roads for multi-modal transit and people first. Not Just Bikes talks about research that suggests that 30 KPH is the right speed in many situations in an urban environment.

How Anarchy Works by Andrewism

Andrew Sage talks about his political views on anarchy. This is a very political video and might not be for everyone, but Andrew talks about the shortcomings of all forms of archy including democracy.

To him “Free Association” is the best tool for people to accomplish common goals and live free.

Personally I do not think anarchy can work on large populations due to the inability for large groups to find consensus, but on a local level it could be a way to improve freedom and equality between people. Maybe it is a side effect of living in a society that has been politically and economically divided by capitalists and authoritarian politicians. Maybe Andrew’s idea is workable on a larger scale if we throw away the societal anti-anarchy bias we have been trained to have.

Andrew’s anarchy has some overlapping ideas with left libertarianism and some forms socialism, but there is no single source of authority. In this vision free association and the rules of the commons would in theory help create a society that is far more equal and free than anything governed by a central authority.

Andrew is a humble about his ideals and admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but in his opinion government (especially government under capitalism) has lead to problems that he doesn’t think can be solved by more government. Instead he thinks trying to tackle these problems through an anarchist’s lense can help find answers or at least get us closer to the answers we need.

Making a cheap, open source 3D space mouse with Arduino and 3D printing by Teaching Tech

Teaching Tech shows off an open source 3D space mouse that costs about $20 AUD. For those who don’t know, there is a specialty mouse for 3D CAD and model work called the Space Mouse. It is unfortunately prohibitively expensive. There have been many attempts at an open source version of it, but this is probably the closes one yet.

If you do any 3D model work you may want to take a look at it. It is really neat.

The cloud is over-engineered and overpriced by Tom Delalande

Tom Delalande talks about how proprietary services like AWS and Azure are generally not needed and lock you into an over complicated ecosystem that presents itself as easy.

He then demonstrates how to create a functional web service using simple open source tools like git, docker, and NixOS.

In a world where AWS, Azure, and other centralized services control large amounts of the internet it is becoming increasingly important that we remember that simple tools are all it takes to break free from these services.

It’s Finally Working! 5-Axis 3D Printer Upgrades by Engineer Unleashed

Engineer Unleashed has been working on a 5-axis 3D printer and it is now functioning. He goes over how the system works and some future ideas and improvements he plans to make.

It is a really cool project and I look forward to seeing how it develops. Non-planer printing could be a real game changer and solve many problems 3D printing currently has. I’m sure there are a lot of other things this tech will bring about when it becomes more accessible to more people.

I Built the Most Powerful Blow-Lamp I Could by Fraser Builds

Fraser Builds covers the history of the blow-lamp and makes his own.

It is a really amazing how technology progresses. Things are lost, rediscovered, and innovated upon.

In any case Fraser Builds discusses how innovation in glass blowing helped propel the scientific revolution and then proceeds to make a thermoscope and a simple distillation device.

Really cool stuff.

The Most Misunderstood Parable of Jesus by ReligionForBreakfast

Dr. Andrew M. Henry from Religion for Breakfast discusses the The Parable of the Good Samaritan and the relationship between Jewish and Samaritan groups. Many people who know me know history and religious studies are a bit of a hobby of mine. It is one that I neglect a lot, but historical and religious/culture literacy is important for a functioning society.

The Parable describes a man who is dieing on a road side. A Jewish priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Then a Samaritan comes by and takes care of the man.

Many believe that there was strong destain for Samaritans in Jewish culture at the time, but Dr. Andrew M. Henry argues that there is evidence that the tension between the groups was not so much that we should assume the Samaritans were universally hated. Instead of interpreting the Samaritan as an outsider to the Jewish ingroup, the Samaritan should be seen as another member of the overall Israelite culture.

Basically the understanding of the story is more complicated than “ethnic tensions”. I will not go into details here as the video makes a good argument.

If you grew up in an American Evangelical Christian church or currently go to one you might notice a lack of deep understanding of the culture behind much of the Bible. This lack of religious literacy is likely a factor in why many are pushed away from religion in general and how the american republican party co-opted christianity in america, but that is a polarizing topic for another post.

Linux Video Production: No Adobe or Windows for 14 Days by ExplainingComputers

ExplainingComputers shows some proprietary software that can replace an adobe workflow on Linux.

I’ve been blessed to not have to touched an Adobe product in a long time, but a lot of creatives are unfortunately shackled to it. I’ve used entirely open source software to replace everything I need, but these tools might not work well for a professional user. Fortunately there are tools that are available for Linux that have commercial support and are far cheaper than Adobe’s subscription. I still wish for Kdenlive and GIMP to catch up to the professional world, but in the meantime there are proprietary tools to fill the gap.

Check this video out if you are a creative who needs Adobe and has already tried the open source alternatives.