Back to writing Kitchen island table or I built a table without sufficient tools, knowledge, or workspace . I moved into a new place, where the kitchen does not have very much countertop area to work or to hold permanent appliances. I wanted to find something that would match these requirements: Needs to fit next to the stove, max size about 2ft × 5ft. Needs to be standing countertop height, not a…
Back to writing [today_i_did_this] 28-400 A couple of years ago, I bought this bottle of shampoo. I have been reusing it and refilling it ever since. I particularly like the translucent, frosted plastic more than a crystal clear bottle or an opaque one. I think it's a pretty effect. In fact, I've bought several pieces from a range of home goods that follow a white + frosted color scheme to keep…
Back to writing [film] [introspection] Ghost Dog and selective philosphy When I saw Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai for the first time, it went straight onto my list of "tip top favorites". It's a rare kind of movie. Ghost Dog uses the popular, fast-paced, domestic genre of mafia hitman to deliver slow, contemplative, foreign philosphical messages. I've recently rewatched it, and although it…
Back to writing [photography] [introspection] Further thoughts on hobby photography Table of contents Introduction EDC Black and white Subject matter / subjects matter / subject matters Originality What if everyone just has poor taste Street photography Privileged eye, outsider eye Videography Money and recognition Zooming out Website, portfolio, gallery Instxgrxm how Fuji dial slip-ups Conclusion…
Back to writing [today_i_did_this] [photography] Ricoh GR carrying bag In May, I bought a Ricoh GRIII. I'll write more about that in my next article. Today, we're just talking about how to carry it. The GR is famously pocketable. Indeed, it does fit in a jeans pocket. But the thing is, you really have to devote the entire pocket to it, because it is somewhat of a tight fit on its own and I…
Back to writing Pointing devices Table of contents Introduction Mice Microsoft Mobile Mouse 3000 HP M859PU Vogek VKM42 Gamepad + JoyToKey Graphics tablets Wacom Bamboo XP-Pen Deco 03 Trackballs Elecom Relacon Kensington Slimblade Pro Dual-wielding Introduction (§) Here is a list of computer pointing devices I've used throughout my life. I'll try to keep this updated. Why? I dunno. I feel like I…
Back to writing CSS for printing to paper Table of contents Introduction Sample files @page @media print Width, height, margin, and padding Element positioning Multi-page documents with repeating elements Portrait / Landscape mode Data source Essentials cheatsheet Introduction (§) At work, one of the things I do pretty often is write print generators in HTML to recreate and replace forms that the…
Back to writing [electronics] [today_i_did_this] Mediasonic Probox fan replacement I have a Mediasonic Probox for file storage. After 3.5 years of use (purchased May 2020), one of the fans has gone bad: The stock fans are labeled YLTC DFS802012H, 12 Volts, 0.23 Amps, and measure 80x80x20mm. For my replacement, I chose the Arctic P8 because it seems to have a good reputation for being quiet, and I…
Back to writing [electronics] Auto-off power banks The essential parts of a USB power bank are: A battery. Charge controller to receive USB input and safely charge the battery. Protection circuit to prevent the battery from being excessively discharged. Voltage regulator to convert the battery's voltage to 5 V for USB output. Artist's rendition: But the majority of power banks on the market go the…
Back to writing [photography] [today_i_did_this] Blacked out lens markings My camera lenses have white lettering printed and etched into the front describing their properties. I decided to paint over it. Why: I like stuff that is debadged or debranded and I think it will look cool. I think / assume that the white lettering is distracting and catches attention, which is bad for candids. I don't…
Back to writing [today_i_did_this] Notes on paper Table of contents Introduction Habits Scanning Some pages Introduction (§) Over the past few weeks, I have been scanning my notes and homework from school using the nice professional scanners at my workplace. These notes have been sitting in my closet for several years because I don't want to keep them, but didn't want to throw them out until…
Back to writing git.voussoir.net Github has been bothering me. I don't like their drunk-on-buzzwords marketing copy or the advertisements they're placing above my work . If I give someone a link to my work, I want to feel proud of it. So, I installed Gitea on my server and uploaded everything to git.voussoir.net . This was easy because I have no investment or dependency on github's issue tracker,…
Back to writing [introspection] [life] [photography] Pseudonymity and the point of no return A conundrum. As usual. I must warn you this article is a self-contradictory stream of consciousness mess. I was raised in the era where "don't share your real name online" was a standard rule. Pseudonymity practically paramount. I'm not old enough to have taken part in myspace, but I am old enough to have…
Back to writing [journalism] Slamming and blasting Patent Community Slams USPTO's Rush to Retire Software Systems Apple slams Android as a 'massive tracking device' in internal slides California Slams San Francisco for 'Egregious' Barriers to Housing Construction NewsGuard and US Gov Sued by Consortium News; Musk Slams 'Scam' FBI boss slams 'unprecedented' Chinese cyberespionage and IP theft…
Back to writing Youtube re-encoding videos Table of contents Introduction Worse than I remember... barely Better than I remember Meager plotting attempt Conclusion Introduction (§) Today, I re-downloaded a video that I already had a copy of. I was surprised to find that the video stream lost 33% of its bitrate. The bitrate was down from 600kbps to 400kbps, even though both files were labeled as…
Back to writing Ross's Game Dungeon quote catalog Table of contents "I'm sorry everyone" "I'm not sure I've seen something like this before" "I'm sorry everyone" (§) Verbatim Date Game Reason Forgiven? 2014-10-12 Revenant Part 2 Lame ending ✓ Will try better next time 2015-10-17 Construction Bob Lame ending ✓ Bought the game as a service to all of us who want to see what's behind the curtain of…
Back to writing E Unibus Pluram (1993) In the early 90s, David Foster Wallace wrote an essay called E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction . It was published in the June 22, 1993 issue of Review of Contemporary Fiction . In honor of its 30th anniversary since publication, I've done a narration of it. FLAC, about 328 MiB: Wallace's writing is extremely dense — I would not recommend…
Back to writing Storm delays ALL FLIGHTS ON HOLD DUE TO LOCAL WEATHER CONDITIONS: CLOUDED THOUGHTS. HAZY VISION. ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE. INSTRUMENT MALFUNCTION. INNER TURBULENCE. TAXIWAY CONGESTION. COPILOT ABSENCE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. View this document's history 2023-05-18 Add storm_delays.md. Contact me: writing@voussoir.net If you would like to subscribe for more, add this to…
Back to writing Slightly obsessed with GPX Table of contents Trackbook trkpt Hardware upgrade NMEA ingest Trackbook (§) In December 2020, I downloaded an app called Trackbook by author y20k. This records your GPS position while you walk, hike, drive, or bike, so you can see where you went. GPX is a standardized XML format for storing these tracks. There are quite a few Android apps for recording…
Back to writing the stuff of fiction time travel, teleportation free healthcare for every nation intercontinental zettabit link rat submerged in air you can drink zero latency, faster than light stardate eternity, fish taught to write launched in a second, stopped on a dime arriving at noon, malacandran time journey to mars, the center of earth without spacesuits, for whatever it's worth total…
Back to writing [photography] Sharing photos with friends and strangers Table of contents Introduction Process Introduction (§) In the previous episode , I said that taking pictures of friends and family was the most worthwhile thing I can do with photography at the moment. In this episode I will detail how exactly I'm going about giving these people copies of the pictures to keep for their own…
Back to writing [photography] Some early thoughts on hobby photography Table of contents who what when where why how Conclusion who what when where why (§) Over the past three years I have been taking more and more pictures. Up until now, it has always been with a cell phone. I was growing increasingly unhappy with the low quality of the pictures. What's the point of all those megapixels when they…
Back to writing Squirrel on the road The road is not a squirrel's natural environment. The road is hostile to the squirrel, his life threatened whenever he steps onto it. It is a recent development, a recent intrusion into space that was previously green. The squirrel's ancestors were hunted by dogs and hawks, not cars. But he does not know this. Squirrels don't study history. They don't talk to…
Back to writing [meta] Finding and fixing dead links on this blog Table of contents Archiving linked pages Fixing dead links I said from the beginning that gwern.net was a source of motivation for me to start writing, and I specifically linked to his article about archiving the URLs to which his blog links . It's time for me to start doing the same! I don't have quite as much to say but I thought…
Back to writing Night Light (1995) Table of contents Introduction Extracting the assets A second copy Turn on your night light The missing menu files Conclusion Introduction (§) When I was a kid, one of the computer games I played was Night Light, by GTE Entertainment. It's about Pandora the cat and Pixel the dog exploring the house in the dark after all the people have gone out for the night.…
Back to writing Browser in the Dark: flashlights with CSS and canvas Table of contents mix-blend-mode Canvas Night Light with CSS Night Light with canvas Note: this article will make more sense if you are using a mouse or other pointing device. Requires javascript. Warning: things can get a little spooky in the dark! You can read the source code for this document here (or by pressing Ctrl+U in…
Back to writing [life] Advertising Table of contents Introduction Types of advertisements The damage of advertisements The basics of capitalism Breakdown of conventional incentives & distortion of metrics (& clickbait) Manipulation & asymmetric information & budgets Tracking & targeted ads Jevons paradox Slapping everyone once Destruction of public spaces & race to the bottom Stifling of…
Back to writing [windows] Run as Administrator on login I have a few long-running / daemon programs that I would like to "run as administrator" automatically when I start my computer, without UAC prompts. The programs are not available as Windows Services. First, I tried placing an lnk shortcut in the Startup folder [1] with the "Run this program as an administrator" box checked. However, this…
Back to writing [electronics] [today_i_did_this] Modding a rechargeable mouse to USB-C I have a wireless mouse that uses USB micro-B to recharge. I'd like for it to charge over USB type-C instead so I can use the cables that I already have around my desk. It is a Vogek VKM42. You've never heard of Vogek and you never will again. I got the mouse for free and it is obviously very cheap, so I decided…
Back to writing [life] Everything is politics Table of contents Introduction Who you talk to Morals What you buy What you eat Tradition Travel and transit Technological progress Employment Investments Everything Introduction (§) Note: when I first sat down to write this, I was expecting it to come out a little more structured and coherent. Instead it's more of a wild stream of consciousness and…
Back to writing [3dprinting] [electronics] Ankibutton Table of contents Glamour shots Introduction The problem False starts True starts The fourth button Conclusion Download Appendix: Installing Seeeduino Xiao into the Arduino IDE Glamour shots (§) Introduction (§) One of the most effective ways to procrastinate on a task is to spend time working on something else that will supposedly help you do…
Back to writing [electronics] [today_i_did_this] Recharging a cell phone battery outside of the phone Here is a Motorola C139 cell phone from about 2008. I rediscovered it in a drawer last year. The charger for this device has long been misplaced. It uses a barrel plug smaller than any I've ever seen, with an outer diameter of about 3mm. I thought it would be fun to turn this old phone back on…
Back to writing Sending emails to myself In April, I wrote operatornotify.py , a module which allows my programs to notify me of important information or errors. I was immediately very proud of it. It felt awesome to get so much impact out of a sub-100 line module as I went around hooking it up to my existing programs and getting the tracebacks from my horribly broken code delivered right to me.…
Back to writing Sublime Text as EDITOR I use Sublime Text as my EDITOR environment variable and as my git editor. I used ST2 for many years and recently jumped to ST4, skipping 3. But something has changed along the way, or maybe it was always a little imperfect. Between Sublime's workspaces and project sessions and hot-exit files that allow you to close with unsaved changes, there is quite a lot…
Back to writing [life] Not Just Bikes In May of 2021 I discovered the youtube channel Not Just Bikes , and immediately watched the whole thing. The experience was revelatory and painful. NJB has shown me that American urban and road design took a nosedive during the postwar period, where the American Dream was to own a house with a yard, drive a car everywhere you go, and, for some reason, have…
Back to writing View in app Hi! 👋 It looks like you're viewing this post in a web browser. Posts from voussoir.net look better and have more features when viewed from our official voussoir.net app! That's because we've intentionally reduced the performance and functionality of the web version, which would otherwise do everything you need! So although you seem to be very content browsing the…
Back to writing IPFS misconceptions Table of contents Introduction IPFS is not a place you upload to, it's a network you're a part of IPFS does not force others to host your files IPFS is not anonymous or "dark web" IPFS's copywriting is bad Introduction (§) I am interested in IPFS . I don't run a node, but I look forward to seeing the technology grow. I like peer-to-peer networks and hope they…
Back to writing [electronics] Assembling the Nearer keyboard Table of contents Glamour shots Introduction Quick links Designing the layout Switches & caps Microcontroller Designing the switchplate Designing the wiring matrix Building the firmware Arrival of the switchplate Hot glue crimes against humanity Wiring Columns Diodes Rows Controller The base Stabilizers Conclusion Price breakdown What…
Back to writing [journalism] A professionally written article By voussoir | April 24 2021 some time in the afternoon | 538 words | 505 spaces | 70 punctuation | 8 legs | 10 minute read for slow readers | 5 minute read for fast readers | 1 minute read for really fast readers | 0 minute read for readers who skip straight to the comments Share this article on Facebook , Twitter , Reddit , Hacker News…
Back to writing How to run an SSH, SFTP server from Termux Table of contents "Almost all" Initial setup Password auth Keyfile auth Homescreen shortcut With Syncthing in one hand and Termux in the other, you can do almost all of your pc-phone file transfer wirelessly. Here's how to serve SSH and SFTP from Android. "Almost all" (§) I have an LG K10 running Android 7 with an SD card inserted. I find…
Back to writing Saturday, September 10000, 1993 In September 1993, AOL brought Usenet access to the general public. Previously, Usenet was mainly available in institutions like universities, and saw waves of new users every September as freshmen got online. New users have been coming online ever since, and that September never ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September…
Back to writing Android and the curious case of notification orthogonality Table of contents The situation What a mess! Proposed solution The situation (§) On modern Android, applications can register multiple channels / categories through which they'll send notifications, so that you can configure different types of notifications to behave differently. It's a great concept, but the actual…
Back to writing Cancel This Album! According to Google Trends, the term cancel culture started to appear in late 2019 and had its big heyday in mid-2020, so in internet years I'm rather late. I think the concept of cancel culture is plain stupid: a bunch of people who have willingly centralized themselves under a privately-owned social media site whose primary / only source of revenue is…
Back to writing SQLite, what a hunk! Oh. My. God. Systers. Listen up. See that database in that corner there with the cute leather-bound journal? Don't stare! Yeah, that's SQLite. SQLite! You know!! Well, he's oooonly the handsomest, hunkiest piece of OSS in pretty much the whole world . SQLite's got, like, billions and billions of installs. I mean there's basically more SQLite installs than…
Back to writing #!shebangs Table of contents Introduction Windows file extensions Unix shebangs I don't like shebangs Developer over user (or else bye-bye checksums) Anti-Windows dogmatism PATHEXT Hedges The registry .mp3.exe Conclusion Introduction (§) Windows file extensions (§) On Windows, the file extension of a filename is used to automatically determine how the file should be opened when you…
Back to writing Master of my domain Table of contents Introduction Prefer portable over installers With installers, always choose your directory Separate subdirectories for each version Use 'latest' junctions for program shortcuts Reserve PATH for nobility only Use junctions to reign in appdata Back up your software Dealing with uncooperative software Introduction (§) This article is about how I…
Back to writing RSS from private multireddits The RSS URL for a multireddit is https://www.reddit.com/user/username/m/multiname/new.rss . But, putting this into your RSS client without making the multi public will yield a 404. On reddit.com/prefs/feeds you'll find some RSS links that use a static token in the URL to act as the authentication, so you don't have to provide login credentials in your…
Back to writing Download your podcasts Table of contents Introduction Downloading Tagging Cutting ads Listen & enjoy Introduction (§) Over the past year or two, more and more podcasts have been moving to Spotify and pulling their material from their other outlets. This is because Spotify wants to pump up their subscriber counts and is offering cash incentives to podcasters for exclusivity. The…
Back to writing Youtube-dl format code cheatsheet Table of contents Video formats AVC only VP9 only AV1 only 4320p only 2160p only 1440p only 1080p only 720p only 480p only 360p only 240p only 144p only 60fps only 30fps only Audio formats Combined formats Here are all the youtube format codes I'm aware of. Please let me know if there are more, or if something here is outdated. contact@voussoir.net…
Back to writing [today_i_did_this] Mobile homepage.html I'm not satisfied with the new tab page on Android Chrome. So, I put together an html file that I can use as my own homepage. Here's a comparison: I don't like the new tab page because: You only get eight links. You can't rename the links. You can't rearrange the links. I will never ever ever ever click to view the suggested content. The web…