*Mom shows me laptop ad of 3000 bucks with the most overkill specs ever*

Mom: "Son, will this laptop run Google?"

Me: "Do you want to surf Google or actually run Google's server?"

Mom: *looks confused*

"I also want to use Fesabook on it"

Me: *brings her a 5 year old laptop with a new ssd in it*

*has an old i3, 8gb ram and no gpu*

Mom: "This laptop is super fast! Thanks son!"

*One hour later*

*Mom calls*

"Son, I think the laptop broke"

Me: "What? What happened?"

Mom: "I pressed a button and now all the keys are lighting red" (backlit keyboard)

Me: "You can choose the color of your keyboard mom"

Mom: "Ooh! How do I make it pink?"

Me: "You can only choose between red and blue..."

Mom: "What a ripoff"

*Hangs up the phone*

As a developer, sometimes you hammer away on some useless solo side project for a few weeks. Maybe a small game, a web interface for your home-built storage server, or an app to turn your living room lights on an off.

I often see these posts and graphs here about motivation, about a desire to conceive perfection. You want to create a self-hosted Spotify clone "but better", or you set out to make the best todo app for iOS ever written.

These rants and memes often highlight how you start with this incredible drive, how your code is perfectly clean when you begin. Then it all oscillates between states of panic and surprise, sweat, tears and euphoria, an end in a disillusioned stare at the tangled mess you created, to gather dust forever in some private repository.

Writing a physics engine from scratch was harder than you expected. You needed a lot of ugly code to get your admin panel working in Safari. Some other shiny idea came along, and you decided to bite, even though you feel a burning guilt about the ever growing pile of unfinished failures.

All I want to say is:

No time was lost.

This is how senior developers are born. You strengthen your brain, the calluses on your mind provide you with perseverance to solve problems. Even if (no, *especially* if) you gave up on your project.

Eventually, giving up is good, it's a sign of wisdom an flexibility to focus on the broader domain again.

One of the things I love about failures is how varied they tend to be, how they force you to start seeing overarching patterns.

You don't notice the things you take back from your failures, they slip back sticking to you, undetected.

You get intuitions for strengths and weaknesses in patterns. Whenever you're matching two sparse ordered indexed lists, there's this corner of your brain lighting up on how to do it efficiently. You realize it's not the ORMs which suck, it's the fundamental object-relational impedance mismatch existing in all languages which causes problems, and you feel your fingers tingling whenever you encounter its effects in the future, ready to dive in ever so slightly deeper.

You notice you can suddenly solve completely abstract data problems using the pathfinding logic from your failed game. You realize you can use vector calculations from your physics engine to compare similarities in psychological behavior. You never understood trigonometry in high school, but while building a a deficient robotic Arduino abomination it suddenly started making sense.

You're building intuitions, continuously. These intuitions are grooves which become deeper each time you encounter fundamental patterns. The more variation in environments and topics you expose yourself to, the more permanent these associations become.

Failure is inconsequential, failure even deserves respect, failure builds intuition about patterns. Every single epiphany about similarity in patterns is an incredible victory.

Please, for the love of code...

Start and fail as many projects as you can.

Not that much dev-related, but still...

I wish I had a way of decompiling the code of my life, correcting it and then compiling it. I was diagnosed with Depression yesterday and it has turned me absolutely empty. The kind of empty where you feel like you're a void.

I'll survive. I know that much. I also know that it's going to be even harder than it was before.

Just for lighting the mood. This is also my struggle.

Someone at Google: how do we make Android build times quicker?

Someone else at Google: we could make a new button next to Run and call it 'Instant Run' and give it an awesome lighting bolt icon!

First someone: what will it do differently?

Second someone: nothing 😎

Internet: YOU are nothing without me.

My phone: Th..That's not true! She cc..can make calls ww..ithout you...and ss...send texts. Sh..Sh..She plays offf..offline games sometimes and has ddd..downloaded music to her storage that she could llii.. listen to and has a sshh..shit load of memes stocked that she sss..sometimes laughs at. I AM usef...ffuul :-/

Internet *lighting up a cigarette*: hahhaa! You can survive without me. If this were 10 YEARS ago! There's not a slightest chance, today.

My phone *starts sobbing*: sh..shut up sshhhuut uu..up.

Internet *blowing smoke rings*: you think you're the ONLY device she owns?? She has too many of them, but guess who is connected to all those devices! ME! She can't function without me. Hell, the world can't function without ME!

Electricity *rubbing it's eyes from sleep* - what's all that noise??

Phone: 😶

Internet: 😶

Phone: 🙂

(I'm about to fall asleep and there's no power right now. Back up ain't working. Life sucks)

Just upgraded to almost the exact same keyboard, only it has back-lighting 😅

Same manufacturer, keyswitch, layout and general appearance 😜

I have this little hobby project going on for a while now, and I thought it's worth sharing. Now at first blush this might seem like just another screenshot with neofetch.. but this thing has quite the story to tell. This laptop is no less than 17 years old.

So, a Compaq nx7010, a business laptop from 2004. It has had plenty of software and hardware mods alike. Let's start with the software.

It's running run-off-the-mill Debian 9, with a custom kernel. The reason why it's running that version of Debian is because of bugs in the network driver (ipw2200) in Debian 10, causing it to disconnect after a day or so. Less of an issue in Debian 9, and seemingly fixed by upgrading the kernel to a custom one. And the kernel is actually one of the things where you can save heaps of space when you do it yourself. The kernel package itself is 8.4MB for this one. The headers are 7.4MB. The stock kernels on the other hand (4.19 at downstream revisions 9, 10 and 13) took up a whole GB of space combined. That is how much I've been able to remove, even from headless systems. The stock kernels are incredibly bloated for what they are.

Other than that, most of the data storage is done through NFS over WiFi, which is actually faster than what is inside this laptop (a CF card which I will get to later).

Now let's talk hardware. And at age 17, you can imagine that it has seen quite a bit of maintenance there. The easiest mod is probably the flash mod. These old laptops use IDE for storage rather than SATA. Now the nice thing about IDE is that it actually lives on to this very day, in CF cards. The pinout is exactly the same. So you can use passive IDE-CF adapters and plug in a CF card. Easy!

The next thing I want to talk about is the battery. And um.. why that one is a bad idea to mod. Finding replacements for such old hardware.. good luck with that. So your other option is something called recelling, where you disassemble the battery and, well, replace the cells. The problem is that those battery packs are built like tanks and the disassembly will likely result in a broken battery housing (which you'll still need). Also the controllers inside those battery packs are either too smart or too stupid to play nicely with new cells. On that laptop at least, the new cells still had a perceived capacity of the old ones, while obviously the voltage on the cells themselves didn't change at all. The laptop thought the batteries were done for, despite still being chock full of juice. Then I tried to recalibrate them in the BIOS and fried the battery controller. Do not try to recell the battery, unless you have a spare already. The controllers and battery housings are complete and utter dogshit.

Next up is the display backlight. Originally this laptop used to use a CCFL backlight, which is a tiny tube that is driven at around 2000 volts. To its controller go either 7, 6, 4 or 3 wires, which are all related and I will get to. Signs of it dying are redshift, and eventually it going out until you close the lid and open it up again. The reason for it is that the voltage required to keep that CCFL "excited" rises over time, beyond what the controller can do.

So, 7-pin configuration is 2x VCC (12V), 2x enable (on or off), 1x adjust (analog brightness), and 2x ground. 6-pin gets rid of 1 enable line. Those are the configurations you'll find in CCFL. Then came LED lighting which required much less power to run. So the 4-pin configuration gets rid of a VCC and a ground line. And finally you have the 3-pin configuration which gets rid of the adjust line, and you can just short it to the enable line.

There are some other mods but I'm running out of characters. Why am I telling you all this? The reason is that this laptop doesn't feel any different to use than the ThinkPad x220 and IdeaPad Y700 I have on my desk (with 6c12t, 32G of RAM, ~1TB of SSDs and 2TB HDDs). A hefty setup compared to a very dated one, yet they feel the same. It can do web browsing, I can chat on Telegram with it, and I can do programming on it. So, if you're looking for a hobby project, maybe some kind of restrictions on your hardware to spark that creativity that makes code better, I can highly recommend it. I think I'm almost done with this project, and it was heaps of fun :D

I’ve been working on a fun little project using Crystal and d-bus to control the lighting for Razer RGB devices. Making progress!

Seeing someone prototype a 3D game with complex lighting using OpenGL in a 15 minute video (It was sped up about 4x but, still, fuck me)

Using c. Not c++.

He also did 3D graphics in BASIC from scratch to explain how they work, generally.

I am fucked.... 😫😫😫My new custom build pc is not starting up after lighting strike 😭😭 ... I had unplugged all the plugs from the socket but i forgot to unplug the wifi from the broadband cable.... So when lighting hit my building the current came through broadband cable and burned my wifi then through there it got to my pc... My motherboard, gtx1070 graphic card, ram everything is gone.... Except my hard drive and psu...

I've just disassembled this LED floodlight that I bought a while ago. It's some stupid little cheapie from a dollar store, so I figured that there'd be shit inside. But I wanted that LED cob.. a power LED :3

Well, shit wasn't too far off from the truth. The component choice is reasonable, but the design of the bloody thing.. batshit insane. The LED floodlight is powered by 4 AAA batteries, connected in series. So 6VDC. That then goes into this little tactile pushbutton, into the LED cob and then a 4.7 ohm resistor.

Well that's a pretty easy circuit.. let's remove the batteries and the casement, and put it on the lab bench power supply. Probes connected to the circuit with only the resistor and the LED cob in between (I didn't want to deal with the switch). Power supply set to 6V, current limiting to 500mA, contact!! And it works, amazing! So I let it run for a while to see that nothing gets too hot.. hah. After a minute or so, smoke would come out.. LED cob was a bit warm to the touch but nothing too bad. But the resistor.. I could cook water on it if I wanted to! 100 fucking °C, and rising. What the F yo?!

So I figured that I didn't want to put the resistor in between there. Just the LED cob now, which apparently has a forward voltage somewhere between 3.2V and 3.3V depending on how I set the current (500mA and 600mA respectively). Needed a bigger heatsink though, so I jammed one of my aluminium heatsinks on there. And it worked great! Very bright too, as it takes between 1.6 and 2W of power. Just for a comparison, the lighting in my living room is 4x5W and the ones on top of my dining table are 2x3W (along with some TL bar that my landlord put there.. fluorescent I think). So yeah, 2W is quite a lot for an LED, especially when it's all concentrated into one tiny spot.

That said, back to the original design with the resistor. 2 questions I have for that moron that designed this crap. First, why use a resistor for a power LED?! They needlessly waste power, and aren't good choices for anything that consumes more than 100mA. You should use PWM for these purposes, or tune your voltage on the supply side. Second, why go with 6V when your forward voltage is 3.3 at most? Wouldn't it make more sense to use 3 batteries with 4.5V? Ah, but I know the answer to the second one. AAA cells aren't rated for high loads like this. So that's likely why the alkaline cells that I had in there before have started leaking. Thanks, certified piece of shit!

Honestly, consumer electronics are such a joke... At least there's some components that I can salvage from this crap. Mainly the LED cob, but also the resistor and the tactile pushbutton perhaps.

One last remark that I'd like to make. This floodlight was cheap garbage. But considering that you can't do it well at that price, you just shouldn't do it. You know why? Because consumers always go for the cheapest. Makes a lot of money to build at rock bottom prices and make shit, but it damages the whole industry, since now the good designs will go out of business. That's why consumer electronics is so full of crap nowadays. Some unethical profiteering gluttons saw money, and they replaced the whole assortment with nothing but garbage. I'm sure that there's a special place in hell for that kind of people.

When I worked as an IT student and was asked what we could do to ensure the destruction of data on old drives. I suggested lighting the office on fire while blindly firing guns into the inferno. To this day I don't know why they laughed.

One of those things that put a smile on my face happened today.

I (like many devs) am fond of Linux. So I use Linux on everything.

I'm currently doing an internship abroad in Finland(Linus Torvald's country!) for my college.

So there is this Finnish student who uses Linux. And after a while he asked what I was using so I told him that I'm running linux(arch+i3 like all the cool kids).

So one day he was like; But can you game on Linux?
I was like, yeah sure, might not work as well as Windows but some games run native and some can be emulated through wine. He was like; Hmm maybe I'll try it out.

So he installed Linux mint on his laptop and came to work. I was rather proud (even though he installed the bastard child of Debian and Ubuntu).

So far I've helped him set up streaming games from his pc to Linux and port forwarding.

But then came the big boy. Since I always try to teach him some stuff since they don't teach him a lot at his school.

He asked me if I could help him set up a plex streaming server on Linux.

So we took an old computer and installed Ubuntu Server(Lot's of information for it).

Installed and configured plex server, qtbittorrent-knox and all kind of goodies.

I started showing him how to use ssh, how the rights system works, etc.

It broke my heart a little that he want to be able to teamviewer in it.(since it's running openSSH daemon)

So he installed Ubuntu's desktop ontop of it as well as teamviewer.

It ran slow as hell because the PC has an old crummy core2duo and ddr2 2gb of ram. It chokes when multitasking.

So seeing that as well as telling him everything that can be done with a GUI can be done in CLI.

I saw the lightbulb lighting up. He gets it now. He understand the power of Linux.

That just made me smile all the way home.

Finally some progress :D
Specular lighting with opengl

DON'T. INSTALL. BETA. SOFTWARE. BY. DEFAULT.

RAZER

When I plugged my $250 keyboard (Which I have had for years and love beyond measure) into my new install of Windows, it popped up with a cute little message to install Razer Synapse, which manages the lighting on Razer devices, like my keyboards (One mechanical and one not - for silence during voice chat), mouse and headset.

"Wow, this looks different", I mutter to myself, as I unknowingly and non-optionally install software which is IN BETA.

I notice that my other keyboard and mouse don't show up. I don't customize my mouse much, I leave it in spectrum cycling. Easy, works well. My other keyboard is much cheaper and does not offer very much customization (three colors. whoop. I don't touch that either much)

Since I only really touch this keyboard, I am not bothered in the slightest and carry on for a couple months. Fast forwards to yesterday when my mouse stops lighting up. Fuck, now its just a black blob. I'll open synapse tomorrow and fix that.

No I won't

After uninstalling devices, uninstalling synapse, restart restart restart, uninstall again, install again, blah blah blah, download a tool that didn't detect the device either, etc etc, for about two hours, I was about ready to accept my dark fate. But then, I saw (screenshot attached) this little itty-bitty beta tag next to the software (again) installed by default.

I about flipped my shit, uninstalled Razer Synapse 3 so hard it sent a tsunami towards some coastal country, and then angrily installed Razer Synapse 2.

That looks more familiar. Oh, there we are, all three devices. Ah, very well, my mouse is working correctly once again. I know its at the header of this rant, but let's reiterate (or, reiterage, in this case):

DON'T. INSTALL. BETA. SOFTWARE. BY. DEFAULT.

Thank you.

Not a rant but I've been wanting to do this for a while now. Added some rgb mood lighting to my desk that's connected to a Raspberry Pi. Making a web interface next to change colors/set modes remotely :D

Well, I was Always into Computers and Games and stuff and at some point, I started wondering: "why does Computer Go brrr when I Hit this Button?".

It was WinAPI C++ and I was amazed by the tons of work the programmers must have put into all this.

13 year old me was Like: "I can make a Game, cant be too hard."

It was hard.
Turns out I grabbed a Unity Version and tried Things, followed a tutorial and Made a funny jet Fighter Game (which I sadly lost).

Then an article got me into checking out Linux based systems and pentesting.
*Promptly Burns persistent Kali Live to USB Stick"
"Wow zhis koohl".
Had Lots of fun with Metasploit.

Years pass and I wrap my head around Javascript, Node, HTML and CSS, I tried making a Website, worked Out to some extent.

More years pass, we annoy our teacher so long until he opens up an arduino course at school.
He does.

We built weather stations with an ESP32 and C++ via Arduino Software, literally build 3 quadrocopter drones with remote Control and RGB lighting.
Then, Cherry on the top of everything, we win the drone flying Contest everyone gets some nice stuff.

A couple weeks later my class teacher requests me and two of my friends to come along on one of their annual teacher meetings where there are a bunch of teachers from other schools and where they discuss new technology and stuff.

We are allowed to present 3D printing, some of our past programming and some of the tech we've built.

Teachers were amazed, I had huge amounts of fun answering their questions and explaining stuff to them.

Finally done with Realschulabschluss (Middle-grade-graduation) and High school Starts.
It's great, we finally have actual CS lessons, we lesen Java now.
It's fuckton of fun and I ace all of it.
Probably the best grades I ever had in any class.

Then, in my free time, I started writing some simple programs, firstvI extended our crappy Greenfoot Marsrover Project and gave it procedural Landscape Generation (sort of), added a Power system, reactors, Iron and uranium or, refineries, all kinds of cool stuff.

After teaching myself more Java, I start making some actual projects such as "Ranchu's bag of useful and not so useful stuff", namely my OnyxLib library on my GitHub.

More time passes, more Projects are finished, I get addicted to coding, literally.
My days were literally Eat, Code, sleep, repeat.

After breaking that unhealthy cycle I fixed it with Long Breaks and Others activities in between.

In conclusion I Always wanted to know what goes on beneath the beautiful front end of the computer, found out, and it was the most amazing thing ever.
I always had constant fun while coding (except for when you don't have fun) and really enjoyed it at most times.
I Just really love it.

About a year back now I noticed that I was really quite good at what I was doing and I wanted to continue learning and using my programming.
That's when I knew that shit was made for me.

...fuck that's a long read.

My ducks can find bugs at night now.
I use this as mood lighting in the bathroom.

How many project managers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they'll just schedule a meeting to discuss the lighting strategy.

I live in a 3rd world country so we don’t have a lot of technological advancements as compared to to developed countries. This means true technological talent is very rare maybe 0.01% of the people in the space, which in this case is programming. Why then do these dumb Fucks who didn’t even score good enough grades to attend any computer science related course which aren’t even that high, so high minded(pun may be intended). Seriously every time i meet someone somewhat capable in their domain e.g. mobile devs or frontend devs, talk like they can move the fucking world and change the course of humanity but when you ask them to pass down the knowledge you will receive a fuck u note of no reply. This pisses me off because I thought because of our slow progress in catching up with the world we would have communities that aim to expand the knowledge of everyone and help everyone help themselves.
I write this because I’ve attended so many meetups around my area and every time I ask someone for help to get to some enlightenment as they have the reply is always put down your email and I’ll send it to you and this is the last you ever hear from them.
The worst part is you’ll see them bragging on local forums about how awesome they are and see them poking holes at other peoples attempts. Seriously if you are so great why aren’t the tech giants of the world salivating over your talents.
Personally I believe that these people are afraid that once they pass the knowledge someone will beat them at it and they won’t be as “awesome” as they initially thought.
That said not everyone is like this we have some good eggs in the basket. To the others I would like to let them know that we can’t know everything and someone somewhere is always gonna be better than us, a candle never loses its light by lighting another candle. If you are one of these people please try and make a change. You never know what’ll come out of it.

My home screen started to get full.... so had to shrink the icons. Grid: 10x17 (170 apps) Next: 11x18 (198 apps).

You can propaby see the devRant app there.

!rant

What's your dream GSDR/GWDR setup?

(Get shit/work done room)

Spacious desk, three 21" monitors. MacBook Pro laptop and windows/ubuntu desktop.

A nice big dry erase or smart board on the wall.

Hardwood/hard carpet floors.

One empty wall so that I may bounce a tennis ball against it while I contemplate.

Electric piano.

A tough padded bench for naps and laying down to change perspective.

Very good lighting.

Close proximity to a gym.

I guess I'll have to move out of my parents first though 😅

oh we share setups now? ok here's mine @localhost

For you game Devs out there,

There should be a UE 4.20 this year... Gives a whole new meaning to baked lighting 🌿💡

My project had a pretty decent state until I decided to add more features. New features had new requirements which in turn added more code along with a bug which nearly destroyed my will to live.
Went into 'fuck it' mode and reverted aaallll the way back to the decent state. Now I don't feel like sticking firecrackers to my laptop and lighting them up. 😌

Every bloody time I respond to a comment, devRant asks me to add my 2 cents. I only have pence here, and there is not fucking coin slot!!!! 😡

I tried the lighting port, it doesn’t fit.

Is anyone else experiencing this pay wall?

Today is Diwali or you can say Dipawali. A festival of lights. The whole country celebrates it by lighting up their homes with oil lamps made up of clay cups.

I wish my devRant community here a very Happy Diwali.

Quite a few years ago (late 90s, early 00s maybe) I remember watching a TV show where they demonstrated what virtual reality might be like. It was all rough polygons, no lighting or texturing etc.

I'd heard about the Oculus Rift and considered trying it. I get motion sickness sometimes from certain 3D games (Deus Ex, Portal, sometimes even Minecraft) so was hesitant. Last week, decided to just get one and see how it went.

Didn't expect it to be as good as it is - compared to what was envisaged ~20 years ago. No motion sickness. Not only was the graphics detail amazing but the responsiveness is insane. In another 20 years time what will there be?

Anyway on dev topic: Now it makes me want to play with a 3D/VR engine. Considering Unreal Engine but not really sure where to start learning. Maybe a book? Though reviews tend to say they go out of date quick, I do prefer a physical book for learning tech stuff.

I used to think I was halfway decent looking until webcams were invented.

Just boosted my Starling/Adobe AIR game engine's performance by 60%! active code time per frame @ 60fps reduced from 50% to 19%. Now I have more room for lighting effects :)

I just wanted to develop a cool webapp-controlled lighting for my bar.

Next things I know, there is electronics scattered everywhere, 2 multimeters to find what the fck is wrong with a PSU not outputting 1/100 of the current it's supposed to, said PSU opened on my desk, and I'm trying to find a capacitor online because there isn't any fcking electronics store selling spare parts anymore in my city.

Context:
- PSU means Power Supply Unit, in this case a computer one.
- PSU was given by a friend and is out of warranty
- the total consumption for all LEDs is 24A @ 5V consumption. A refurbished PSU is ideal for that
- that PSU is rated 2A @ 5V on the stand-by, which is perfect to power a Raspberry Pi. The issue is that there is a sharp voltage drop as soon as you try to use more than 20mA.

For me:
> The programming playlist on Spotify produced by Johan Brook while wearing over ear headphones
> A cup of tea produced by my wife in my large cup
> Keyboard lighting set to dark purple
> Monitor back lighting set to dark purple

BLAZING FAST

I never see this said with reference to a fucking hardware driver or a shit hot games engine, it's always used to persuade me to use some fucking frontend framework.

It's JS, running in a browser, polishing the turd of the clapped-out DOM - I don't EXPECT it to be fast. I just don't want it to go completely to fuck straight away. The bar is so low that the core of the Earth is melting it.

2017 back on track ... My response time is 3 minutes 😰 pretty good on a bank holiday at 10 at night

Our office setup sucks.

Wherever I sit, there's always a (non-dimmable) window right in front of me, or right behind me.

If it's in front of me, I squint the entire day and my eyes hurt. If it's behind me, I look into the glare the entire day and then my eyes hurt.

I feel demoralized because of it.

I've even turned on light theme again to mitigate this. Blasphemy 😥

My programming paradigms unit has decided to explore different teaching/learning environments by creating lecture/workshops. Imagine a massive room with big projector screens at the front and smaller screens lined up against the wall at the back. The lecture room seats are designed around tables that are gradually elevated so it’s similar to a lecture hall but you’re sitting at discussion tables.

There’s the usual lecture with all the slides up around everywhere, there’s nice wheelie chairs and dimmer lighting... can’t tell if we’re at a conference or some awards night. Then all of a sudden, we’re coding in teams (tables) and uploading our work on to forums to discuss with the rest of the lecture hall. WHAAAAAAAT

Really different and quite enjoyable experience, there’s more than one tutor walking around to help, there’s mics for people to present.

Just sharing my new experience of forward learning environments that didn’t cause feelings of anxiousness for once or boredom. It was kind of mind blowing, wish it was always like this.

Can someone explain to me Java lighting...

There log4j, slf4j, logback. Some are interfaces, others are implementations.

What is the setup so I can basically wit one and forget, or upgrade with the jar amount of code changes?

I need to upgrade log4j 1 to 2 and they changed the package name and how to init it....

Now it's logging.log4j.

And correct me if I'm working, Logger logger = LogMagager.getLogger(Clazz.class)

Does the log4j.properties need changing as well?

Woo time for a Chromebook rant against Samsung!

So they just 'revised' the Chromebook plus (Currently using v1 to write this) and I was intrigued because they ditched the Samsung made ARM chips for an intel CPU.... Buuuuuuuuuut... It's a fucking celeron... Of all fucking things to put in a half thousand dollar laptop, at least an m3 would be useful. Then I find out they are ditching the full metal body, it's heavier, thicker, same 3GB of RAM, ditching the 3:2 aspect ratio (Fucking why?!) and the 'upgraded' keyboard doesn't even have back lighting...

Ugh, makes me want a pixel book more, double the price and a million times the performance and quality -.-

My improvised camera setup for somewhat more equal lighting than flash

😂 I think my laptop has been lighting up my joints. Everytime I power it off from the terminal (Fedora) it restarts...

how do you code and evaluate this, should output 4

["1", "+", "3"]

Its amazing how you have to train people so their greed doesn't override their greed.

Imagine this.

2000.00 of waste a day.
2000.00 a DAY, offset by EVERY last customer you get.

To make on average 15.00 to 20.00 a day you have to spend the equivalent of $0.19 of electricity extra for them to run a laptop, to get a certain kinda client.

And some days, for a few days at least, you have to leave them alone for 4 to 5 days without buying anything so they'll buy something every day for 2 to 4 weeks at a time.

Well you're already lighting, heating, cooling and staffing the place, and you're throwing out a fuck ton of perishable product, can you afford to turn that customer away ? nope.

but they want to because they like being assholes and because they're mimicking their asshole parents who's purpose or finer points of detail they never understood because they're just desiring to mimic their piece of shit parents in being assholes, not realizing when they can be assholes without too much self detriment.

and the place is far from the ritz hotel :P

Wireless headphones and on my standing desk with dim lighting.

YAYYY! I MADE IT!!

After several nights of playing with my new and very first custom mechanical keyboard, at last I could successfully get my long-time-dreaming keyboard!

I read the guilds, tutorials, even youtube videos to get walked through the process:

- I started with building my own layout on different websites, since they said that it would be easier to use online tools than to write codes by yourself in order to build your own keymappings, but the UI/UX of the first one I tried was so bad that it took me a great deal of time to understand how to use it and working on it is even more time consuming. Later I found another webpage which was less recommended, but could help me to do that a lot easier.

- Then, the result was compiled to a firmware file, which would be flashed into the kb's controller. Loading the file into the board was also tiring and got me exhausted totally! I tried all the "lazy" recommended ways (using Windows softwares) but received the same error all the time. When I almost lost all the hopes, I'd come to the least recommended way: typing a few command lines on Linux. And it worked! The keyboard just do what I want it to do miraculously.

What I learnt: never do complicated things on Windows, because they are suuuuuper simple on Linux!

P/S: Sorry for the bad lighting in my room and the tiny spacebar (the spacebar size is 7u which I don't have one right now). I just need a beautiful keycap set to make it perfect.

I'll be in the VFX industry. Modeling, lighting stuff.
Probably wanting to kill myself due to the potato sack worth of a salary i get

Design in Motion: Real-Time Rendering's Impact on Architecture

Architecture, a discipline that once relied heavily on blueprints, models, and lengthy render times, has undergone a revolutionary transformation in recent years. The advent of real-time rendering technology has fundamentally altered the way architects visualize, present, and interact with their designs. This paradigm shift has not only enhanced the creative process but has also empowered architects to make more informed decisions and create immersive experiences for clients and stakeholders.

Real-time rendering, a technological marvel that harnesses the power of high-performance graphics hardware and advanced software algorithms, allows architects to generate photorealistic visualizations of their designs in a matter of milliseconds. Gone are the days of waiting hours or even days for a single rendering to complete. This acceleration in rendering time has not only expedited the design process but has also encouraged architects to explore multiple design iterations rapidly.

One of the most significant impacts of real-time rendering on architecture is the ability to visualize a design in various lighting conditions and environmental settings. Architects can now instantly switch between daytime and nighttime lighting scenarios, experiment with different materials, and observe how their designs respond to different seasons or weather conditions. This level of dynamic visualization offers insights into how a building's appearance and functionality evolve throughout the day, contributing to more holistic and thoughtful design solutions.

Moreover, real-time rendering has transformed client presentations. Architectural concepts can now be communicated with unprecedented clarity and realism. Clients can virtually walk through spaces, observing intricate details, exploring different angles, and even experiencing the play of light and shadow in real-time. This immersive experience fosters a deeper understanding of the design intent, enabling clients to provide more targeted feedback and make informed decisions.

The impact of real-time rendering on collaboration within architectural teams cannot be overstated. Traditionally, architects and designers would need to wait for a rendering to complete before discussing design changes or improvements. With real-time rendering, team members can make adjustments on the fly, observing the immediate effects of their decisions. This seamless collaboration not only enhances efficiency but also encourages interdisciplinary collaboration as architects, engineers, and other stakeholders can work together in real-time to refine designs.

The integration of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) into the architectural workflow is another transformative aspect of real-time rendering. Architects can now create VR environments that allow clients to step inside their designs and explore every nook and cranny. This not only enhances client engagement but also enables architects to identify potential design flaws or spatial issues that might not be apparent in 2D drawings. AR, on the other hand, overlays digital information onto the physical world, facilitating on-site decision-making and construction supervision.

Real-time rendering's impact extends beyond the design phase. It has proven to be a valuable tool for public engagement and community involvement in architectural projects. By creating virtual walkthroughs of proposed structures, architects can offer the public an opportunity to experience the design before construction begins. This transparency fosters a sense of ownership and allows for constructive feedback, contributing to the development of designs that resonate with the community's needs and aspirations.

The environmental implications of real-time rendering are also noteworthy. The ability to visualize designs in various environmental contexts contributes to more sustainable architecture. Architects can assess how natural light interacts with interior spaces, optimizing energy efficiency and reducing the need for artificial lighting during the day.

In conclusion, real-time rendering has ushered in a new era of architectural design, propelling the industry into a realm of dynamic visualization, immersive experiences, and enhanced collaboration. The ability to witness designs in motion, explore different lighting conditions, and interact with virtual environments has redefined how architects approach their craft. From facilitating client presentations to fostering sustainable design solutions, real-time rendering's impact on architecture is profound and multifaceted. As the technology continues to evolve, architects have an unprecedented opportunity to push the boundaries of creativity, efficiency, and sustainability in the built environment.

We create home automation S/W and have it installed in the workplace.

For some reason the lights in the Help Desk/Testing department didn't turn on this morning. At the time our lead engineer was there too.

Rather then try sort it out themselves, they called R&D and got us to check the issue out. Turns out the lighting had been tripped over the weekend when the maintenance department was doing some work.

As we were investigating the issue they were just talking about their weekend so could of easily investigated it themselves!

Contemplating ideas for a game that will involve some exploration and puzzles (aimed at teaching some low-level computer stuff like binary etc.) Replayed an old 2D game in an emulator, looked at some old adventure games, decided a 2D platformer might work for what I'm aiming for.

So I start making some pixel art, simple things like 32x32 tiles for bricks, some bigge ones for doors etc. And I discuss some ideas with my girlfriend for what kind of scenarios would fit into this game world.

Anyway, she normally draws and paints, but seemed interested in trying pixel art so I gave her a link to Piskel and a rough idea of some decorative items I'd want to put around the map. Within a few hours she created a flower pot with flowers, a coffee machine, a light with lightshade, a small pile of books, and a couple of other things - all shaded and detailed beyond any of my attempts, including lighting going from left to right (which I wanted but didn't specify).

I mean, I could've expected this but pixel art is quite a different beast to drawing or painting as you have to do more with less.

Now I just need to make my game engine. So far I have an SDL program with a flowerpot that you can move around xD