Replying to
@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social Jason, this is all your fault. (-:
(Image animator/compositor 100% slop coded.)
🧵 10/N
#GenerativeArt #PixelBlaze #Fibonacci256 #EvilGeniusLabs
Remote
Kernel Bob 
@kbob@chaos.social
mastodon 4.6.9Crusty geek. Retired software developer, aspiring musician. Used Unix way before it was cool.
I'm in New York, but my heart is in Oregon. My cardiologist hates that.
Once I built a pumpkin chucker. Another time, I built an LED cube.
Interests: 3D printing and making in general, synths (playing and making them), learning the bass guitar (rock, jazz, funk), FPGAs and electronics, pinball. I spent 40+ years obsessively coding and studying computing, but that interest has finally cooled.
855 Followers
384 Following
50 Posts
Joined September 26, 2018
Pronouns:
he/him. þei/þem is ok for typography/ancient language geeks
'Blog:
PeerTube:
Units::
40% metric, 60% imperial/SAE
Replying to
@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social And here's the hero image. Shows some of the variety this pattern can produce. Of course, they all look better when animated than in still images, but what're you gonna do?
🧵 10/N
#PixelBlaze #EvilGeniusLabs
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@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social This video shows the palette transitions better.
🧵 4/N
#EvilGeniusLabs #Fibonacci256
Replying to
I've been writing some new shaders for it too. This is a continuation of @jasoncoon@leds.social and @wizard@leds.social 's Color Palette Waves. I added continuous progressive palette changes and true black pixels.
It has 33 color palettes, and it plays them in random order. So there are 33 × 32 = 1056 different palette transitions.
🧵 3/N
#EvilGeniusLabs #Fibonacci256
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@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social In this project, the comments are almost as important as the code, as I wanted to make a complex algorithm as transparent as possible to the next person who wants to riff on it. I also did my best to record where the ideas came from, and got rid of some 8 bit AVR code that was its own obfuscation.
Anyway, here's a picture.
🧵9/N
Replying to
@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social I tried to use a coding agent to merge the best parts of earlier colorwave implementations with my own ideas, but that went badly. The agent reliably misconstrued my instructions and implemented something almost, but not quite entirely, unlike what I wanted. Meanwhile, it developed an exhaustive test suite and a ticketing system that made it impossible to change anything.
🧵 7/N
Today I finally assembled the Fibonacci 256 Expanding HDR that I got from Evil Genius Labs nearly two months ago.
The colors are really vivid and a lot easier to photograph than my LED cube.
#EvilGeniusLabs #Blinky #LED
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@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social Garrr... 🧵 3/N was supposed to be a video. Let me try again...
🧵 5/N
#Fibonacci256 #EvilGeniusLabs #PixelBlaze
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@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social I spent some time on performance and code cleanup, and now my version of ColorWave is ready for the world. Share and enjoy!
It looks like uploading to the PixelBlaze pattern repository is broken, so I posted it as a gist.
https://gist.github.com/kbob/c23f97c25b9b6bfe8c38eff5f001496d
Full disclosure, I used LLMs to help write this. See next post.
🧵 6/N
#Fibonacci256 #EvilGeniusLabs #PixelBlaze
Replying to
(Not a rant.)
Now that I've gathered all the Linux nerds (and probably infuriated most of you), I have a question.
20+ years ago, I learned to type "apt-get install $package" instead of "apt install". Likewise, I've always used "apt-get dist-upgrade" instead of "apt upgrade". I learned those were better, but I've forgotten why if I ever knew.
Is apt-get install better than apt install?
Was it once?
How?
Same three questions for apt-get dist-upgrade.
Thanks!
12/N
#Debian #CompuArchaeology
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Right after the XDMCP class diagrams, there's a secton on VNC server support. lightdm has a VNC proxy delegator thing built in!
So fornicate systemd, I just need to add a stanza to lightdm's configuration to listen on port 5901 and call Xvnc. Which I did. And it worked in just a few tries. Success! Tuesday afternoon, maybe 10 hours after I started.
Rebooted a couple of times to verify it's really working, and it is. So now I can move on to the next thing.
10/N
#LightDM
I designed a desk stand for my access point and published it on Printables.
https://www.printables.com/model/1730708-desk-stand-for-omada-eap655-wall-access-point
@3dprinting@techhub.social #TPLink #Omada #3DPrinting #Printables
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@lkundrak@metalhead.club Yeah, that works well. In this case, I want something thin for aesthetic reasons.
I want to put a high friction surface on the bottom of a 3D printed thing. Can anyone recommend an adhesive tape that's rubbery-sticky on the front, adheres well to ASA and PETG, and is readily available in the US?
I'm making a monitor stand. I don't want it to slide on the desk.
Thanks!
#FediWisdom
Replying to
I DuckDuckWent around a little for lightdm + vnc info, and I found some internal design documents for lightdm. Right next to the XDMCP -- no, really! Check this out! XDMCP! As Obi-Wan himself said, now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. Probably since about 1995.
https://deepwiki.com/canonical/lightdm/4-remote-access#xdmcp-protocol-support
But I digress.
9/N
#XDMCP #ThisIsRealRetroComputing
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I have to mention that while I was doing this, I decided to set up VNC between two Macs, just to verify the Mac was going to be a VNC client. It was a two minute job, and an Apple support page spelled out every step, correctly and unambiguously. But oddly, nobody nowhere could tell me how to write a URL for the second display. I found it by guessing. (It's vnc://hostname:5901 .)
END RANT (for now)
11/N
#MacOSIsGuiltyToo #ButLessEgregiouslyGuilty
Replying to
On Monday I decided, for reasons, to set up a Linux workstation on a mini PC. I started with NixOS. I spent the next six hours reading NixOS documentation so I could install Python.
After six hours, the docs had taught me a new programming language, explained common pitfalls (so many pitfalls!) in using this language, but had not come anywhere near "type this to install a package".
I decided to move on, and overwrote the NixOS image with...
2/N
#NixOS
Replying to
I started with RDP, because some random Redditor said it performs better than VNC.
BEGIN SUBRANT
Somewhere between 99 and 100% of the information on the Internet about configuring Linux is wrong. It might have been right for the author's system on that particular day, but because every part of the ecosystem is in flux and there are 74.8 different ways to do everything, including things that should never have to be looked at.
END SUBRANT
4/N
#RDP
Replying to
The bubble universe explorer is now live on the world-wide web. Please try it out. See posts above for some examples of what it can do.
Thank you!
https://kbob.github.io/bubble-universe/
🧵 36/N
#BubbleUniverse #GenerativeArt #LLM
Meta employees are now having every keystroke recorded to train LLMs. They're smart nerds. They could easily program an Arduino-like to emulate a keyboard and continuously type "Zuck sucks. He must be fired." or similar into a text editor whenever they're idle.
For the good of the company, of course.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/zuckerberg-mass-firing-seven-months
(thanks to @cliffle@hachyderm.io for the link)
Replying to
There's variety here...
EDIT: added the blue and pink image.
🧵 35/N
#BubbleUniverse #GenerativeArt
I installed SearXNG in a container on a Raspberry Pi today. It was designed for agents, but it's a darn good experience for humans, too. Page load takes about two seconds, faster than Qwant or DuckDuckGo. No ads, no trackers. In the default config, it aggregates six results, but the config is infinitely customizable.
#SearXNG
I've got a sandbox #Forgejo instance, and I'm thinking about setting up a permanent one at home. I'm thinking about running it on a headless Raspberry Pi with the storage on a TrueNAS box, because that's what I have.
Will I regret the performance?
- Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB RAM, Docker
- 1 Gbit Ethernet
- TrueNAS on Denverton CPU, 32GB RAM, disks not SSDs.
Thanks!
Replying to
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social Now if you could just make the edge rectangles into circles for MagSafe wireless charging...
Replying to
... and installed Linux Mint. Because Cinnamon looks a lot cleaner than GNOME. It went okay. I got a desktop, logged in, used the familiar Debian tools to install some things, and started to get comfortable.
Then I decided I wanted to use the desktop remotely from my Mac. (My 2005 $10 keyboard and mouse suck, and the monitor isn't conveniently placed.)
RDP or VNC?
...
3/N
#LinuxMint #Cinnamon #VNC
Replying to
It wasn't too hard to run tigerVNC from a terminal, I just had to follow the instructions, then figure out why display :0 wasn't available, then write a shell script to start a Cinnamon session, then rewrite it a few times until it worked, and then find the right way to address a nonzero display from the Mac. (Hint: it's vnc://hostname:5901 because everybody loves magic numbers). Five, six hours of faffing, tops. Easy.
So let's get this running as a daemon.
6/N
#MacOSIsGuiltyToo
Replying to
Appearance Panel:
- Themes: limited selection, sorry.
- Particle Size: stay below 5 unless the number of particles is very small.
- Trail Persistence: all the good stuff happens between 0.9 and 1.0 (though this demo shows an alternate use).
Brightness Panel:
- it's just a mixer. If your image oversaturates, you might be able to save it here.
Post Panel:
- Bloom - I wrote about it above in 🧵12 through 🧵14.
- Tone Map - Just wrote it. No tips.
🧵 38/N
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@metin@graphics.social Those little details that only the creator can notice add up, don't they?
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@PaulaMaddox@mastodon.social I pushed a version that should display an alert if it can't find WebGPU. Try reloading. Some browsers still don't enable WebGPU by default; check your browser's documentation.
And now I think I'll go see whether it runs on a Raspberry Pi. (-:
Replying to
The web app is now functionally complete. 18 knobs, most of the space unexplored.
Building this with the LLM was interesting; I'll write more about that on my LLM thread.
I'll get it up on a public-facing server soon...
🧵 34/N
#BubbleUniverse #GenerativeArt
Replying to
@apzpins@some.apz.fi How long does the filament stay dry in the PolyDryer canisters? What's the humidity in your space this summer?
Replying to
@jasoncoon@leds.social @wizard@leds.social
So I scrapped that. Rewrote from scratch. Kept the tests. I used the agent to open and close tickets and update the tests whenever they stopped working (which was always). But I wrote the code and the comments in the code. And it did find some bugs, so the effort, while tedious, was worthwhile.
🧵 8/N
Replying to
Where was I? Right. I started with RDP. I could not find reliable info on how to connect to an RDP server from MacOS, nor whether it's possible, so I didn't get far.
So I switched to VNC. I used VNC 20 years ago. MacOS supports it. Let's see what's changed. I looked at RealVNC, tightVNC, and tigerVNC. RealVNC is apparently paid now. tightVNC is Windows first now(!) and only old versions support Linux. That leaves tigerVNC.
5/N
#RDP #VNC #RealVNC #tightVNC #tigerVNC
Replying to
@ewenmcneill@cloudisland.nz If you had to start over, would you stay with Homebrew over the alternatives (MacPorts, Nix, install everything ad hoc)?
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Some notes on the controls:
Motion Panel:
- Sequence Count and Length: the number of particles.
- R: a magic number. Simple fractions (e.g. 0.5 or 0.667) produce different patterns.
- S: an even more magic number. Explore very small S, 0.000 .. 0.015 or so.
- S Blocks: most interesting with very small S.
(continued)
🧵 37/N
Replying to
Anyway, the information on the Internet was uniformly wrong about how to integrate VNC into systemd. Wrong in many interesting ways. I delved into the systemd docs and finally got Xvnc plumbed into it, and then the problem was that VNC didn't have any X clients to run. So I looked up which display manager Mint uses. It's lightdm.
(Question for the peanut gallery: does Ubuntu use lightdm? Canonical apparently wrote it, but Ubuntu might have migrated away.)
8/N
#LinuxMint #VNC #LightDM
Replying to
@PaulaMaddox@mastodon.social In Firefox 143/Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5: I edited about:config, set dom.webgpu.enabled = true, and restarted Firefox. Bubble universe runs, albeit slowly (maybe 15 fps at 1920x1080?)
Replying to
Sometime since 2012, a new utility has become part of Linux. It's called systemd. You may have heard of it.
Installing a daemon means working with systemd. I've never really used it before, though if you need SysV init scripts, I'm your man. The SysV init system was apparently too complicated and opaque, a nest of little shell scripts and symlinks. So systemd simplifies all that.
Many pages of angry text have been written about systemd; I'm not going there. I'm just sad.
7/N
#systemd