#dearMastomind - is there something like the #unfollow bug #bot in here? I know it's not a thing, but it could be a thing, right? Maybe I wanna know someone unfollowed me after I said something. 😁

#DearMastomind: Does anyone know of an Android or E-Ink API or developer tools which gives app access to display state of E-Ink devices.

E.g., "regal", "speed", A-1", or "X-Mode" modesof the Onyx BOOX Max Lumi / E Ink Mobius display?

#eink #onyx #boox #android #apps

Does the concept of dividing technology in "freestanding" vs. "integrated" ring bells for anyone?

I'm trying to track this down. Thought that #UsulaMFranklin might have been a source, but her Massey Lectures text doesn't include the terms AFAICT.

#DearMastomind #DearHiveMind #DearLazyWeb #Technology #TechOntology

I'm looking for tools to create / edit ePub documents, preferably directly from URLs and employing the Readability library.

The ability to append to a given document would be quite useful --- additional web pages should be treated as chapters.

Best options would be Linux (Termux/Android) or Android applications or tools.

What's out there?

I am of course familiar with #Pandoc which addresses HTML->ePub conversion, but not the Readability library element, or editing the generated pubs.

#DearMastomind #DearLazyweb #ePub #Readability #web

Related to my printer question: I'm also looking for recommendations for a good flatbed scanner.

Alternatively, an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier, though I suspect the separate devices approach is better.

#scanners #peripherals #DearMastomind #DearHivemind

So ... the topic of pirnters came up recently and in a recent turn of events I find myself 1) similarly in the market and B) surrounded by bullshit options.

The present madness appears to be for devices which are a) wireless-only and ii) cloud-based, which of course means that rather than printer drivers, there's a motherlovin' printer app that must be downloaded and installed. Apparently also such devices don't function unless "connected to the Internet", which ... spanks of all kinds of bad.

One such device appears on a list of recent CVE issues. Great ... now I've got to run security updates on my printer.

Criteria sought

• Laserjet, monochrome.
• Hardwired. Either Ethernet (RJ45) or USB. Network print protocol would be acceptable.
• No cloud nothin'.
• Reasonable print rate would be on the order of ~30 ppm.
• Preferably running connected to my OpenWRT router/hub.
• Configurable / supportable under Linux and MacOS.

I'm leaning somewhat toward Epson or Brother, tending away from HP, and reject anything Samsung entirely.

I'm noticing that anything that is NOT WiFi and/or Cloud based seems to be short stocked or out completely.

#printers #printing #LaserJet #KISS #InternetOfShit #DearMastomind

I'm looking for a freely-available full text (PDF, ePub preferably) of Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1846).

There's a start of one at Wikisource, but it's only the contents, index, and other supplemental material.

Neither LibGen nor Archive Org seem to have a copy of the text in English and out of copyright. (There's a copyrighted repriint at Archive.Org.)

#DearMastomind #PDFMe #Books #CharlesBabbage #DearHivemind #EconomyOfMachinery #TechOntology

#DearMastomind I am trying to grok kresd, the Knot Resolver (used on the Turris Omnia) ... and ... am encoutering impenetrable documentation.

If there's anyone famiar with it, my current goals:

• Point specific domains at a specific DNS server.
• Map one domain to another. E.g., youtube.com -> yewtu.be, reddit.com -> teddit.net, etc.
• Assign specific IPs to specific hosts.

https://knot-resolver.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config-overview.html

My other option is to redo my DNS configuration using DNSMasq. Which quite frankly is probably preferable as its documentation and configuration are much more sane.

#kresd #KnotResolver #Turris #Omnia #TurrisOmnia #OpenWRT #DNS #dnsmasq

I'm trying to find a quote.

I'm fairly certain it was by John Gilmore. It's about creating email, and runs something like: we made it virtually free for anyone anywhere to communicate with anyone else and it wasn't an accident.

I'm pretty sure "wasn't an accident" is in there. I'm not finding the rest of it.

Probably 1990s / early aughts.

#quotes #DearMastomind #JohnGilmore

Other than hashtags and public web search, how do you find past content on Mastodon?

Or is that simply a lost cause?

(I'm trying to track down a conversation from a few months ago that I apparently didn't hashtag appropriately.)

@SearchMe

#Mastodon #Help #DearMastomind #Search

Q: Why is holiday leave so stingy in the US?

Life, work, school, etc., are all structured so as to minimise free time.

Why?
By whom?

Inspired by an aside in Technology Connextras, "I took a cross-country train trip" (25 Sept 2021, YouTube) reflecting on how much rail travel cuts into the already-stingy holiday allocation (typically 2 weeks) of Americans.

#Holiday #Vacation #FreeTime #UnitedStates #AskMastodon #DearMastomind #DearHivemind

Dear #mastomind: Where would I find a list of Android versions supported / unsupported by the latest release of Google Chrome browser?

#DearMastomind #ChromeBrowser #Chrome #Android

#DAK what the tool used by birdsite.slashdev.space to mirror #Birdsite tweets to the Fediverse?

I've been trying to dig that out of the site itself w/o luck.

(There are a few other instances running the same tool AFAIR.)

#twitter #DearMastomind

#DearMastomind I'm trying to find references to a 3D file or document explorer that was being researched at Xerox PARC in the late 1990s.

A friend demoed it to me at the time.

I remember little about it though:

• Its appearance is best described as "vaguely Doom-like".
• It was a 3D explorer, with documents and files visualised in depth with rotation and movement.
• It probably ran on Windows (Windows 97 or WinNT). I saw it demoed on a laptop.
• I don't believe it was ever marketed or sold, though I could be wrong.

Research is ... suggesting online search may be fruitless. (Too many recent / unrelated matches.) If anyone has the remotest idea I'd appreciate it.

Boosts welcome.

#Xerox #PARC #3dFileManager #3dDocumentManager

#DearMastomind What is the (or a) online service / webpage that simplifies website styling similar to how Readability used to work?

Is there a good pointer on Zoom's architecture / security?

I'd be looking for something of the sort Freedom to Tinker (Ed Felten), 2600, EFF, Bruce Schneier, CCC, or similar groups might produce. I've not done a rigorous search yet, but my nonrigorous searches have been disappointing to date.

#Mastomind #DearMastomind #Zoom #Security #Privacy #Surveillance

Is there something vaguely resembling a census of computing over time?

There are timelines, as at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computing_1950%E2%80%931979

That notes specific events, introduction of machines or specific technologies. Occasionally units shipped may be determined --- The Kenbak-1, the first personal computer, selling for $750 in 1971 ($4,800 in 2021), moved 40 units.

What I'm looking for is something which might include:

• Number of individual computers.
• Number of programmers and other computer professionals.
• Total installed memory & storage.
• Total installed compute capacity (FLOPS or equivalent).

Statista (behind a paywall) has values for, e.g., PCs worldwide 2013--2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/610271/worldwide-personal-computers-installed-base/

#DearMastomind #ComputerHistory #ComputerCensus

#DearMastomind: What different types / uses of tables can you think of?

I'm looking with a mind to document / Web formatting and styles.

Of the top of my head:

• Short lists (such as this one), which are effectively single-column tables usually with far too much text crammed into a single line (such as this one).
• Data tables.
• Textual tables --- generally with few or no quantitative cells.
• Simple (or not-so-simple) spreadsheets, offering sort, totals, and/or other summary statistics, possibly subsetting or cross-tabulation capabilities, in an interactive or at least intelligently-computed sense.
• Graph-adjacent tables. Data tables which are directly related, possibly interactively linked, to some data visualisation(s).
• Tabular layout. Tables used principally to organise and arrange longer bits of textual content. Need not be a classic HTML table layout or grid, though approaches this.

Different uses might have different formatting, including borders, "greenbar" separators, interactive sort or filtering capabilities (typically created now with Javascript, though native browser support might be handy), etc.

If you can think of a good discussion or reference addressing this question that would also be helpful.

#layout #tables #html #css #latex #docfs #webfs #kfc #browsers

#DearMastomind: Any tricks for serialising lists of media sources played with mpv (or other console media players)?

It's simple enough to compile a playlist and play it.

It's ... a little more convoluted to create a queue of references (local files, remote URLs), and append to that whilst working through the list.

My current workarounds are typically:

• Kill and restart the playback when adding new item(s).
• Maintain two terminal sessions (screen, tmux, various terminal emulator tabs, etc.), append to the inactive playlist whilst the first plays through, then manually activate the 2nd after the first is complete.

What I'd really like to be able to do is to drop a set of additional references which are appended to the currently-playing session.

Treating the queue as FIFO is generally find, though the option to add to the start of the stack (LIFO), either playing at the conclusion of the current resource or immediately following it, would be nice.

I could probably hack something up in Bash, but thought I'd ask to see if there's something that already exists.

#linux #mpv #queues #multimedia #CommandLine

#DearMastomind: What is it that actually makes system performance under heavy Web use slow?

Is it just memory exhaustion? Disk swapping? CPU / cores?

(Omitting any consideration of network / bandwidth here. Just looking at slow-as-fuck desktop/laptop systems.)

This with an eye to speccing out some new kit. Guides to what to look for / avoid / what's unnecessary expense would be handy.

(Main driver is an iMac 17,1 Intel Core5 8 GB RAM & Fusion drive, which I manage to pig out routinely.)

Thinking 16--32 GB RAM may be a minimum. Principally driving Firefox on Linux. Known high-water mark is 1750+ tabs. Yes, I know I have a problem, thank you for caring.

I've written Chrome AND Chromium, as well as anything based on them, out of my life.

Other loads are typically far smaller, though there may be some compiles, occasional large datasets (postgresql, sqlite, R, Python), and document compiles (LaTeX, pandoc), light audio/image edits. Mostly I live in bash / vim / mutt if at all possible.

#ComputerHardware #SystemPerformance #Firefox #Webbrowsing