Recent content on Ian Darwin's Web Site

 
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
 
 
— Charles Darwin
 
 
 
 Canadian/Ontario/Regional Organizations 
 
 
 There is a sometimes-confusing panoply of organizations working to protect the natural world.. 
 
 
 
 
 Ontario Nature (formerly the Federation of Ontario Naturalists);
150…

 While 3D printing was originally invented by commercial interests,
consumer-oriented or desktop 3D printers are another story, literally.
Their origins can really be traced back to
 the RepRap Project ,
founded in the UK by university professor Adrian Bowyer.
RepRap was intended to produce self-replicating printers (the 'rep' part of the name)
that anyone with tech…

 Anything that can bring light into some lives in these dark times is a good thing.
Creating a miniature world with an operating railroad inside it brings joy,
both to the maker and to those who observe it.
It lets you be in control of something that will behave in a sane fashion more often than not.
You can find model railroads in many places - it’s an international hobby.…

 I’m excited that the fifth edition of my Java Cookbook has been released!
As you’d expect it drops some old material to make room for new capabilities
right up to Java 23 and much of Java 24, also including some third-party APIs such as using
AI LLMs from within a Java Application.
You can order it on paper or in ebook form from a variety of book sites listed on
 the…

 Another year, bringing fresh challenges for the world:
Ongoing warfare in Ukraine and Gaza (those are just the two that make the daily news),
massive wildfires in California,
a rapidly changing climate worsening fires, floods and hurricanes,
and a new administration taking over a deeply divided United States of America.
Isn’t there any good news? 
 
 
 Sure.…

 pdfshow is a standalone viewer specificially for PDF versions of slide decks,
that is, a presentation tool for slideshow PDFs.
I wrote it because I sometimes teach from PDFs and was tired of general-purpose programs
like PDF Annotator and Adobe Reader, which have too many modes,
controls, etc. and aren’t really optimized for showing slide decks. 
 
 
 You can view…

 Today, 2024-03-19, was marked by two important Java items: 
 
 
 
 
 The full public availability of Java 22, a release with a lot of upgrades; 
 
 
 The announcement that there will be a JavaOne event in March, 2025,
to mark both Java’s thirtieth birthday and the release of Java 24,
which we expect to be an LTS release incorporating many of…

 Sometimes (often?) you may click on a link that looks simple but turns out to look like this: 
 
 
 Typical Link with Tracking (really all one line) 
 
…

 
My review of the DELACK 3D printer enclosure 
is now live on medium.com.
If you like it, please 'clap' for it (rate it) and follow me on Medium. 


 Our cell phones have become a prison to many of us, prompting
Dipika Joshi to
 cartoon the situation 
(Facebook login needed to view; there’s a cartoon of a person in a cell phone with jail bars
over the screen, and the text below reads 'People are prisoners of their phones.
That’s why they’re called Cell Phones').
But it’s not funny for most of us; many people do…

 List of stuff for sale cheaply, most are awkward to ship so I’m pitching this mainly to GTA (Toronto area) people,
but for the smaller items, offers from anywhere are going to be accepted.
Details at https://darwinsys.com/forsale for those who don’t need to buy everything brand-new with overnight delivery. 


 From my personal space, a batch of items that I’m no longer using.
They’re now listed on
 Facebook Marketplace 
and on
 eBay .
Some are listed on both; more will be dual-listed when (if) I get my
eBay uploader working. 
 
 
 Meanwhile, please mail me as firstname dot lastname at this web domain to
check availability or if any questions or problems.…

 As 3D printing gets more popular, even mainstream, the 'build volume' of new printer models is increasing.
This specification is the size of the largest model you can print on a given printer.
 
Sovol’s SV06 retails for US$400 and has a volume of 300x300x340mm. 
 
 
 On a more commercial scale,
 Creality’s CR-M4 has a volume of 450*450*470mm, and costs $1099.
…

 Security often seems like a joke: there seem to be more, and better-funded,
bad actors than security practitioners.
What can the average person do?
One thing would be to just stop using computers and smartphones.
But 99.783281% of the two people I polled on that question wouldn’t go near that approach
with a six-foot Pole.
Next best thing? Stop using Microsoft…

 It’s common for non-technical people to assume that Java and JavaScript are alike,
but it’s rather more
like Tom and Tomato, or Pot and Potato.
Or as one (Java-leaning) wag based in the USA said,
JavaScript is to Java as George Burns is to George Washington :-) 
 
 
 To be more precise: 
 
 
 
 
 Java is a strongly-typed, compiled computer…

 Mike O’Dell once quipped that 'nobody’s armchair is a good predicter of the future.'
Nonetheless, we do try to predict it, from the comfort of our armchairs.
So much of what we now take for granted on today’s personal computers and laptops
was simply unavailable when I wrote this.
I’ve uploaded my attempt to predict, in the early 1980’s, what that decade would bring.
Some…

 I recently needed to make minor code changes to an Android app that was part of the
 code examples collection from the
 Android Cookbook .
I found, to no great surprise, that the build tool configuration files were too old
for the modern Android Studio (any version beginning 2021 or later) to recognize.
I wound up making the following changes to get things…

 Long, long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, a new technology was invented for downloading research papers.
Its creator prophetically named it the 'World Wide Web', which in today’s busy world takes too long to say.
So we called it www , which some people initially pronounced 'double-u double-u double-u', until they too got tired
and started pronouncing it 'dub dub dub.'
Why…

 For mobile developers:
My favorite
 ORM tool for
 the Flutter all-platform app toolkit 
recently got a new name and a new version.
The package was originally called Moor because it was vaguely inspired by 'Room',
Google’s Android-specific ORM.
However, it transpired that
 the term 'moor' 
has derogatory connotations in some circles,
so the author chose…

 Unlike laptops from most manufacturers, the Framework Laptop 
was designed from the outset to be sustainable; this lightweight, stylish beast is field-upgradable and field-repairable.
In the company’s own words:
'Proof that designing products to last doesn’t require sacrificing performance, quality, or style.'
I agree with the claim and with their corporate direction. 
…