How to Crosspost Like a Champ
I’ve been crossposting on BlueSky and Mastodon for a minute and I want to share the lazy way I’ve been doing it. Getting the Software First you need two applications. BSKY - A CLI client written in Go Toot - A CLI client written in Python BSKY In Debian it was easy to get set up. For BSKY you need to fist install the Go Language. sudo apt install golang Once Go is installed you only need to run:
Why the Fediverse Is Winning With Only 10 Million Users
Twitter has 238 million daily active users. By comparison, the fediverse only has about 10million daily active users. One of the major differences between Twitter and Mastodon lies in their business models. Twitter is a commercial platform, which means that it is driven by the need to generate revenue for its shareholders. To do this, Twitter must constantly attract new users and keep them engaged. Mastodon, on the other hand, is not a commercial platform.
SCaLE 20x Was a Blast!
If you haven’t had the chance to experience the Southern California Linux Expo, located in Pasadena, California, I highly recommend attending. I have attended SCaLE for maybe the seventh or eighth year, and this year was exceptionally good. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend on Saturday, but I made the best of my limited time there. My former nonprofit had its booth set up, and I was able to use that booth as a base of operations.
Why Microsoft Is Going All in on ChatGPT
I know I’ve talked a lot about ChatGPT. It’s been less than two years since Open AI launched ChatGPT, and it’s already become one of the most popular AI services around. With a staggering 5 million users in record time, ChatGPT is making waves in the tech world and beyond. But what is ChatGPT and why is it so popular? As a personal user of ChatGPT, I can attest to its versatility and usefulness.
ChatGPT is Better as a Collaborator than a Writer
After a few weeks of using ChatGPT a few things became clear to me. ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that has revolutionized the way people write content. Not only can it generate paragraphs of well-written text with just a few words in the prompt, but it can also act as a virtual collaborator, offering creative ideas and helpful suggestions. While its output is often of a good quality, it can be emotionally lacking and is missing the personal touch of a human writer.
Happy New Year!
Well we managed to survive another year. Congrats, my friends. This year will have more videos, music, and probably some web-dev stuff. I’m excited to build it with you all.
My Cheat sheet for the Tar Command
I often make a lot of little cheat sheets that I often use as a quick reminder of the tools I use often enough that they can find there way into my daily workflow, but sometimes I need a little refresher. It’s not uncommon that I’m tasked to work on a server that is kinda bare-bones. Running Linux locally means you can choose what terminal software works best for you but when given a random CentOS or AlmaLinux box you might be left with only legacy tools.
How to Know if AI Is Manipulating You
If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re concerned about the potential for AI to manipulate you. And with good reason! As AI technology continues to advance, the ability of machines to manipulate us is becoming increasingly sophisticated. But fear not! There are ways to know if you’re being manipulated by AI, and steps you can take to protect yourself. Here are a few key signs to watch out for:
If You Can, Tip More!
Last night I had a Lyft ride home from my Tuesday night meetup. I meet some local nerds as we chat about machine learning, the fall of social media, and other silly topics over delicious BBQ. It’s a lot of fun but after moving to Orange County it has become a bit more work to get to and from the restaurant. I took the but to get there. 4:30: Leave work, walk a mile.
I moved to Orange County
Most of my life I’ve lived in Los Angeles County. For the first time in my life I am a resident of Orange County in California. There are some cultural differences that i am struggling to understand. To be completely honest the Trump flags are a little off putting. When you see a lifted truck and the hood stands above the average person’s height it truly feels like the owner of that trump does not care about the lives of others.
Hugo Does What Jekyll Can't
The last few weeks have been a total whirlwind in regards to hosting. For years I used Jekyll to build my site and hosted on Netlify. However Jekyll started to have dependency issues and I needed to find a better solution. I started by biting the bullet with WordPress. I know WordPress inside and out from using at my day job. There’s a service and attention cost to running a platform like WordPress.
Pop Os With Gnome
The number one reason I switched to Pop OS is because how they handled pipewire audio sound system. When configured correctly the pipewire audio system is light years ahead of pulseaudio. The desktop that comes with Pop OS is actually not Gnome but Cosmic DE. Technically an alternative shell for The Gnome desktop but eventually a full replacement written in rust. Installing the actual gnome desktop only requires one command.
Selling Old Hardware
The Thinkpad x230 Tablet About a month ago I bought a Thinkpad x230 tablet from a friend hoping to use the Wacom drawing functions built into that laptops screen. The x230t was the last tablet of that model made by Lenovo and probably one of the most affordable. However the touch/Wacom screen was dead and the price to replace the screen was more than just picking up another x230t.
Thinkpad x230: The Best Budget Laptop
type=“video/mp4”> Today we’re gonna take a little look at the Thinkpad x230. I go over the basic hardware and what I like about it. YouTube Link In my personal observation, there seem to be two main groups of people when it comes to computing preferences. However, there’s a third category that’s slowly fading away. Let’s delve into these categories. The first category consists of those who have a genuine affinity for laptops or desktop computers.
Ripping CDs with ABCDE
type="video/mp4" ABCDE is “A better CD encoder”. In this video I got over a tool that I like to use a lot for ripping CDs. I don’t really go down the rabbit hole in this program but hopefully this will make the software seem more approachable.
The Magical Thinkpad
I’ve been bitten by the bug and the last 5 weeks I’ve been getting to know the Thinkpad x230. This little laptop is an absolute beast. Specs: Intel i5-3320M (4) @ 3.3GHz 16 GBs or DDR3 RAM 250 GB SSD Extended 9 Cell Batter @ ~8 hours 1366x768 IPS Screen Back lit keyboard I’m running Debian Stable (Stretch). Everything worked out of the box except the WiFi/Bluetooth module that I had to pull from non-free.
Mashable Doesn't Understand Mastodon
These is a pretty bad article on Mashable on why Mastodon won’t survive. I’m telling you its a terrible article but you’re probably thinking “Arthur, all you write is terrible articles” and you’d be correct. This one is no different. However there are things about this peice originally written by @LanceUlanoff in April of this year that are just not quite reasonable about Mastodon that I am going to address.
Starbucks Wifi and Tor
I like wifi access points that are relatively accessible and free. I really love the fact that the Los Angeles library and the Long Beach Library both have free, uncensored wifi. This is how it should be. Any publicly funded areas should have wifi for the community. In most of the United States it’s become common for both McDonald’s and Starbucks to offer free wifi to all their patrons as well.
Going to Scale 14x
This will be my first year attending the Southern California Linux Expo. I’ll only be there Sunday and I only could afford a general admission ticket but I’m sure it’ll be very fun. Plus, it’s in Pasadena which is nice. My cohort Johnstar and myself will be running around the Pasadena Convention Center until we are overcome with hunger. At that point we might partake in some local LA burgers. (Probably In-N-Out, almost always is)
Remember that time I was caught on Google Maps?
So I guess the street view car grabbed a shot of me when I was heading out to the local liquor store for another 80oz bucket of fizzy caffeine. I saw the car go by but I’ve seen the street view car several times. This time I actually ended up online. I haven’t learned my lesion either. I still venture out to the sunlight for a tasty beverage several times a day.
How to Make a Video "GIF"
It seems to be all the rage these days. A video “gif” is a silent video embedded to a site in loop mode. I guess the audio is an optional thing but most go without it. Step One: Prepare the video file Use your favorite video editor to trim your video down to just a few seconds. To be an awesome looping “gif”, try your best to make it look seamless.
Installing Ubuntu with only Android
I found myself in a unique situation last night. I somehow corupted my install of Ubuntu and my installer thumb drive was no where to be found. To make matters worse I don’t have an internet connection at my house. I use my phone’s tethering to access the web. So I installed DriveDroid and I was able to get my machine back online. I only have the 16GB Nexus and it’s pretty full right now so I opted to use Ubuntu Mini (Also known as the Net Installer).
Doing real work on a tablet: 2014 Edition
About a month ago I sold my Chromebook. It was the HP 14. There was nothing wrong with it as a Chromebook but at the end of the day when it comes to a computer I really want to have Linux. Full unlimited Linux. Then there was the size. I feel that 14 inches is not nearly as portable as I thought it would be. Lugging around a 14 laptop to do modest computing felt like over kill.
Bike Racks in Long Beach
I live in a bicycle friendly city. It’s one of the reasons I moved back to Long Beach. I’ve recently gave up driving and now my transportation is predominately bicycle. For distances further than I’d like to ride or days where the weather is too brutal (rare as that is) Long Beach has a really good public transportation system. There is a really good program for city funded bicycle racks. The great part of this program is that it help the cities local infrastructure with minimal expense to the local business owners.
Passwords with APG
I believe APG stands for Automatic Password Generator. I’m not 100% sure but I believe it’s installed in the Default of Ubuntu and Debain Linux. If not you can always just run: sudo apt-get install apg By default it will generate 6 passwords. apg KayRoowlUv8 (Kay-Roowl-Uv-EIGHT) yeibfigsOis6 (yeib-figs-Ois-SIX) wofJect6 (wof-Ject-SIX) UzCyibShycs4 (Uz-Cyib-Shycs-FOUR) Vafkarag9 (Vaf-kar-ag-NINE) This includes the verbal pronunciation of the password by default.
Cyanogenmod add service to make 'textsecure'
Our communication is being listened to. We know this already. It’s a fact of life these days. A lot of us don’t encrypt our communication. I personally send unencrypted mails and SMS messages every day. Most people don’t encrypt any of their communications. Encryption is hard to understand therefore hard to implement. What if we take the hard work out of the hands of the common user? That’s exactly what Whisper Systems and now CyanogenMod Inc.
Music with mplayer and youtube-dl
Last year I wrote about my adoration for youtube-dl and how it was awesome for streaming youtube videos without flash or even a web browser. Since I wrote that post youtube has changed the way in how content is streamed. They have adopted DASH an adaptive steaming protocol that should make streaming more efficient on mobile data connections. An awesome side effect of this new streaming protocol is the separation of the audio and video streams.
Using Google Tracks
There was a time not long ago that I weighed almost 300lbs. I’m not ashamed. In fact I’m proud of the weight loss. I’m still a fatty (always will be, being a fatty is all in your head!) but I’ve made a lot of progress. At the time of writing this I’m down to 218lbs. I still have quite a way to go. One of the tools that made the weight loss easier was great software to help me track my progress.
Building Titles (Editing in LibAV part two!)
One of the biggest challenges with making a video in LibAV/FFmpeg is the lack of title cards. Using the GIMP (or ImageMagick) you can make some very awesome title cards and convert them into a static video clip to be mixed in with your other clips. If you rememeber the camera shot clips at 1080p 24fps h264. We encoded the clips to 720p 24fps with Mpeg2Video. An older video format, but gives us the advantage of using the “cat” command.
Editing Video with LibAV / FFmpeg
For a few weeks the Cthulhu has been out of commision. I’ve been working on an old beat up Acer Aspire 5100 lately. Even though the computer has a PassMark of 750 it feels more like a 75… I’ve had some netbooks that could just crush this machine in terms of performance. To paraphrase the old statement: the best computer is the one you have. Chrome has really helped with the over all sluggishness of doing things online.
Nexus 4 Camera still seems to amaze me.
I’m still amazed with the pictures I get out of this Nexus 4. I’m using the “leaked” Android 4.3 camera and it’s almost instant. Though this picture is anything short of perfect it’s still quite eye popping. Let’s hope the new Moto-X phone, which is supposed to take the place of the Nexus 4 can still beat this. We’ll hopefully find out soon.
I hate flash : Watching youtube from terminal
I hate flash. It’s taking a very long time dying but it needs to die. Sadly there are a lot of amazing websites that use it. Fortunately I found a quick trick to watching youtube videos from the terminal. This requires youtube-dl and mplayer. Both should be in most major Linux distros repositories. mplayer -fs $(youtube-dl -g -f 22 youtube.com/watch?v=3V35jvY0u7I) The key tags are the “-g” that prints out the actual video location for mplayer and “-f 22″ is an optional tag for selecting the quality / codec Without this tag it will load the highest quality video.
Rooting the Nexus 4 under Ubuntu Linux
WARNING! *Following this tutorial will wipe all the data off your Nexus device. If you’re files aren’t automatically synced to the cloud or backed up you will not have access to them. They will be gone. Poof! Nothing left. Though very unlikely, when you flash hardware you take a chance of permanently damaging your hardware. Certain outlets that sell Nexus devices will cover this damage. Most do NOT. If you are not comfortable with taking that chance do not do it.
Bluray / AVCHD authoring in Linux
There is a blog post from ‘If Jesus was Irish’ that attempts to tackle the Bluray / AVCHD mastering process under Linux. The two formats are near identical. The only difference really seems to be the disc type and bitrate of the video. The good news? It can be done (or so they say). The bad news, it requires closed source applications. Let’s start by pretending you’ve edited your masterpiece in Kdenlive or Openshot and rendered it to an uncompressed or high quality format.
The awesomeness of ADB
Installing ADB on any Ubuntu based system is as simple as adding the ‘android-tools-adb‘ package. You can also add the package through the command line: sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb Once installed you should make sure your cellphone ‘Android Debugging’ is switched on. Then it’s as simple as: sudo adb devices This should find and mount your phone. This opens up a lot of awesome options like the ability to push and pull files from the phone.
Auto-complete in Ubuntu 12.10"
For some unknown (and possibly criminally dumb) reason one of the Linux desktops strongest features are horrifyingly stunted. I’m talking about auto-complete in Bash. Fortunately there is a quick and easy fix to un-Canonical the system. Simply uncomment the following in /etc/bash.bashrc as SuperUser or Root: I’m not entirely sure if it will look exactly the same on your system. This was the GNOME Remix of 12.10. Now as this tragedy of bad decision making has been fixed I wonder if anyone knows how this could be switched off by default.
About
Hello! My Name is Arthur and this is my personal website. It can be verified by links from my Mastodon. I used Linux computers to work, create art, and produce videos and music. I want to stress that these opinions I have should not be reflective of any business or organization I’m associated with. I only speak for me, as a person in this realm. I’m a Leftist - I push for better infrastructure for everyone and support systems for those in need.