As a followup to my mastodon account (see this post), I’ve also created an experimental Blue Sky account. I’ve still no idea how long they’ll last.
Category Archives: Tech
Linkspam: Using Machine Learning for Geoglyph Detection
PNAS has an interesting paper on using AI and Machine Learning to try and identify new Nazca Pampa geoglyphs in the Peruvian Nazca Desert. It’s a fun little lunchtime skim with a few nice images of some of the newly found geoglyphs.
Linkspam: The UX of LEGO Interface Panels
This is a nice little introduction to UX design issues via the medium of Lego interface blocks: https://interactionmagic.com/UX-LEGO-Interfaces/
Period Sites with Period Browsers – Machine No. 131
It’s time to add another machine to Period Sites with Period Browsers – this time it’s an instance of Windows 95 with Attachmate’s Emissary 2.0. See it’s first run here!
Archivery: The Oldest Pages in the Wayback Machine
This is something I’ve been meaning to write up for a little while and, with the success of the Internet Archive’s recovery from it’s attack, it makes sense to do so now.
Linkspam: Bop Spotter
Bop Spotter is an interesting little curio; take an Android phone, set it to run Shazam on a loop, and then hide it somewhere (in this case San Franciscos’s Mission district) with a solar panel attached and suddenly you have the the culture-tasting equivalent of ShotSpotter, generating the unique soundtrack to a particular location. San Franciscos’s Mission is, of course, a very particular environment with a distinct feel too it, so it’d be interesting to see how it would contrast with other locations around the world – though I do suspect that most would end in the brief bang of a controlled explosion.
Linkspam: Starring the Computer
Starring the Computer is a fun – if somewhat geeky – site recording the use of various computers in films and television. As long with the usual suspects – such as the Apple Macintosh SE and the Commodore 64 – they have some more obscure devices, such as the Thinking Machines CM-1 pictured below. It is really worth a look.
lspci and the Pimoroni NVMe Base for Raspberry Pi 5
A little later than expected – and, oddly, after my NVMe Duo – I’ve finally managed to get my Pimoroni NVMe Base mounted to a Raspberry Pi 5 and get an OS installed.
Retrieving the Time Machine Estimated Full Backup Size
Another handy little magic spell for MacOS Sonoma’s Time Machine tool is…
log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info | grep "Estimated full backup will"
…which – when entered into a suitable Terminal instance – will print out Time Machine’s recent estimates of the storage costs of a full backup…
2024-05-02 06:46:35.507588+0100 0x3c5be8 Info 0x0 291 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:SizingProgress] Estimated full backup will contain 3113124 files (8.91 TB) from all sources
2024-05-02 07:46:49.802454+0100 0x3cd657 Info 0x0 291 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:SizingProgress] Estimated full backup will contain 3113163 files (8.91 TB) from all sources
2024-05-02 08:46:57.526626+0100 0x3d611b Info 0x0 291 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:SizingProgress] Estimated full backup will contain 3113223 files (8.91 TB) from all sources
2024-05-02 09:47:03.731963+0100 0x3e04eb Info 0x0 291 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:SizingProgress] Estimated full backup will contain 3114585 files (8.91 TB) from all sources
2024-05-02 10:47:35.409635+0100 0x3ecb04 Info 0x0 291 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:SizingProgress] Estimated full backup will contain 3116304 files (8.91 TB) from all sourcesAll very useful when shopping for a new target disk of if your monitoring your storage growth.
Linkspam: The Man Who Killed Google Search
Ed Zitron’s polemic into the origins of Google Search’s increasingly visible rot is worth a read.
