@f@a.farook.org avatar

f

@f@a.farook.org

I'm a bit of an eclectic mess 🙂 I've been a programmer, journalist, editor, TV producer, and a few other things.

Love mobile development, AR/VR/XR, and all forms of digital creativity where you use AI to generate art, text, and music.

I post about #Coding, #Swift, #SwiftUI, #MachineLearning, and #DeepLearning stuff and also might occasionally post #AIArt that I generate. I'll also talk about #Technology, #Gadgets, #Movies, #TV, #Writing and a few other things as the fancy strikes ...

Lived in: 🇱🇰🇸🇦🇺🇸🇳🇿🇸🇬🇲🇾🇦🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇵🇹🇶🇦🇨🇦

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davemark, to tech
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

"I deleted keys generated by our TV for 5 straight minutes. 5 Minutes of like 200BPM clicking. I restarted. Everything worked again. I laughed so hard I cried. I felt like I'd solved a murder."

Tech people, THIS IS A GREAT FANTASIC READ!!!

The title is, "DO NOT BUY HISENSE TV'S"

https://cohost.org/ghoulnoise/post/5286766-do-not-buy-hisense-t

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@MortonRobD @davemark Not sure that brand alone is at play here. I’ve had several Hisense Roku TVs and have had no issues - but then again, I have no Windows PCs on my networks either …

So it probably is an issue only if you have Windows computers on your network and you have a Hisense Android TV possibly?

I can’t say for sure but all I can tell you is that if you have a network for Mac computers and iOS devices and have a Hisense Roku TV, it works fine … or at least, has for me in multiple countries with multiple Hisense TVs 🙂

f, to random
@f@a.farook.org avatar

I wasn't going to buy an Apple Vision Pro for many reasons. But I did buy the Quest 3 this week and it's got multiple improvements over the Quest 2.

I like the Quest 3 and think that objectively, it probably works better than AVP for a lot of scenarios.

Plus, it's cheaper 😛

Then, Karl Guttag came out with this post today:
https://kguttag.com/2024/03/01/apple-vision-pros-optics-blurrier-lower-contrast-than-meta-quest-3/

Vindication, or confirmation bias? 😀

Whatever the case, both my wife (who found the Quest 2 hard to use) and I found that the Quest 3 was much easier to use (lighter and fits better and easier to put on/remove) and the best movie watching experience we’ve had in AR/VR so far …

I also found that the Quest 3 works beautifully with glasses. Compare that to AVP which won’t work with glasses at all.

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@tylermumford Do you do much gaming on the Quest? If yes, I’d be interested to hear what your experience has been …

I have not had the time to try out any games on the Quest 3. Did try a few games on Quest 2 but that was a few years ago and the experience was mixed — some games worked beautifully and others gave me nausea/headaches 😛

davemark, to ai
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

Ask your AI this question:

"which us presidents were born in england"

Curious what response you get, the first time you ask.

Perplexity.ai said:

"Only one U.S. president was born in England."

This is not correct. 😐

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@davemark This is what Bard says:
https://a.farook.org/media/e48421687cdebcb6efeb98426c3d058ab4bdfa2729661aef3bed346543d6b977.file

davemark, to apple
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

Apple, in today's Vision Pro press release:

"Users will also be able to download and stream TV shows, films, sports, and more "

Sounds like it'll be just like, say, the iPad. Download some shows and movies and have them to watch on that long plane ride. 🍿

I do like that. So PRICY though. 💰

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-previews-new-entertainment-experiences-launching-with-apple-vision-pro/

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@davemark Can do the same right now with xReal glasses and an iPad — and much cheaper too 🙂

We, my wife and I, are looking at doing exactly this for an upcoming flight. I wrote an app which synchronises the playback of the same video on two different iOS devices via Multipeer Connectivity and with the xReal connected to the iPad, we can watch the same movie at the same time …

I was very bullish on the Vision Pro till I realized that they still didn’t have shared playback sorted out. So I went ahead and created my own for way less money 😛

f, to movies
@f@a.farook.org avatar

I get so tired of movies where people know what happens (deja vu, time loop etc) and know that certain things will happen due to their actions and still do the same thing expecting to stop the events.

How does that make sense at all? If your actions cause a chain reaction, shouldn't you stop?

It's so annoying when they persist despite knowing what will happen instead of trying a different course of action ... Or not doing anything at all?

f, to random
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@Rycaut I think I told you a long time ago that I would let you know if I found a solution that worked for me for maintaining my to-watch movie list ... (Not sure if it was really a long time ago or not, but it seems like it ...)

So just letting you know that I found one with Obsidian 😛 I know you already saw that post but in case you want details on how set things up or any help with setting things up yourself, lemme know ...

I recall you mentioning that you had a collection of Apple Notes and if it helps, Obsidian seems to import Apple Notes fairly easily. It imported in all of my Apple Notes with very little effort and the only thing I miss from Apple Notes is the ability to collaborate/share certain notes with my wife.

But even that might be solvable since I see some solutions out there which might work ... Or, there is the paid option from Obsidian itself — but I'm cheap/paranoid and would prefer a self-hosted option 🙂

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@Rycaut Yep, having things to experiment with is always a great motivator 🙂

I was using Obsidian for simple note-taking but while I knew it had plugins, I had not looked at the plugins or considered how it might enhance the functionality till I looked into storing my movies on Obsidian …

There are several posts online about storing a list of movies on Obsidian and so you should have no trouble setting it up, but the basic idea is to use a couple of plugins — QuickAdd and Dataview — to get things going.

In my case, with QuickAdd I can simply use a keyboard shortcut to bring up a search dialog where I type the name of a movie, have it show me a list of matches, pick the movie I want from the list and have it added as a new note in Obsidian automatically and have the gallery populated with a card for the new entry.

So I find it really, really helpful/easy 😀

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@Rycaut I just saw this plugin while looking for something and remembered that you might like it since you were talking about importing your Goodreads history 🙂

https://github.com/MichaBrugger/booksidian_plugin

f, to politics
@f@a.farook.org avatar

Watched two different Tamil movies today where they mention that China (and other countries) are plotting to stop India's progress by sending drugs and poisoned products to India ...

Seems like classic human behaviour — "others" are jealous of us. They want to drag us down.

We'll never change — we always blame others and want "our" people to be cautious/wary of strangers.

And then we pass on this behaviour to our children ...

f, to swift
@f@a.farook.org avatar

AnyType allows me to keep a list of movies I want to watch and create various views based on different criteria such as movie language ... but it's hard to automate adding data to AnyType. Easiest way is to type it all in manually.

My own app lets me do things as I wish and I can automate movie information retrieval easily from say IMDB, but it is task-specific and I can't easily store (or rather, store in an organised fashion) movie information side-by-side with say, book info, or a comic book collection.

Can I find a middle ground?


https://a.farook.org/media/13af7c8e9221ab92959e257ce065c9e9353b60c2b9b4aea963be1e069f71ddd8.file
https://a.farook.org/media/3c8e4c311df731489b81182156748c6ff25a586fa5b32e314a661b1cfef58745.file

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@Rycaut I haven’t gone through each of the items in the following list in detail yet, but there might be something there that might work for you 🙂

https://alternativeto.net/software/filemaker-pro/?license=opensource

My first instinct always is to go for a solution that I can extend/code for, and so I’ll need to do some checking on each … If I find one that I really like, will let you know …

f, to Entertainment
@f@a.farook.org avatar

My wife and I, we watch almost everything together — movies, TV shows, even YouTube videos.

This can be challenging during travel since we prefer to watch our own content instead of that provided by the airline. Watching on a single iPad with shared headphones is not a great experience.

I'm thinking of an app to fix this issue which allows us to watch the same content on two different devices, but synced.

Not sure if this helps anybody but us? Anybody else find this useful?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and have been hoping somebody else would fix it (like Apple VisionPro) but not sure that’ll happen …

So I’m going to take a stab at fixing it myself 🙂

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@Rycaut Yep, aware of SharePlay, but if I’m not mistaken, it’s pretty limited if you don’t have Internet access. I believe this might have changed with iOS 17 (I vaguely remember a conversation I had with somebody about this after WWDC) but I haven’t bothered to check it out yet …

Should do that soon though, thanks for the reminder 🙂

Also, FaceTime is blocked in certain countries (like the UAE) so that you can’t use it for video calls. So I’m not sure how that ties into the SharePlay part of it … Guess I’ll find out …

f, to aiart
@f@a.farook.org avatar

I used to use the hashtag for the art I post on social media that was machine generated. But no longer ...

The current systems are not intelligent — they are just statistical predictive systems.

I now use the hashtag for my machine learning generated art. I think that might be a better description? I don't know that for sure, but it certainly feels better than continuing to use the tag 😛

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@boringold I'm curious, but how do you define images generated by code? As in, aren’t images generated using machine learning models, also generated via code, though perhaps not always code written by you?

Not trying to be argumentative, but genuinely curious 🙂 Is this like possibly generating SVG images? Or just putting together basic primitives (circles, rectangles etc.) to create an image?

Would you happen to have any links to samples of your work that you consider that I can take a look at?

I’m curious and fascinated …

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@morph The issue here probably is that “art” can mean different things to different people 🙂 When I say “art”, I mean it as in “an image”, I am not making a statement about the quality of the drawing/image.

But others seem to think that if something is called “art” then it has to be high-quality, fit to be hung in a gallery etc.

Also, even if we are talking about the quality of the work when we say “art”, what’s “art” to you might not be “art” to me 😛

So I’m not sure we’re going to please everybody no matter what term we use since somebody will have an objection in some form.

@boringold @WeavingWithAI

f, to movies
@f@a.farook.org avatar

Today I discovered something interesting — YouTube has fairly good versions of Hindi movies from back in the 80s and 90s!

Well, I think I actually discovered this yesterday when I found “Betaab” but I didn’t actually realize this till today when I searched for “EK Ladka Ek Ladki” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291883)

Back in the 90s, Hindi movies blatantly copied Hollywood movies (with no attribution or permission, mind you) and made their own versions. “Ek Ladka Ek Ladki” is one such movie which copies Kurt Russel & Goldie Hawn’s “Overboard” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093693).

This movie is probably responsible for getting me into Hindi movies again and for learning Hindi just so I could watch the movies 🙂

I generally never watch a movie twice (with a few exceptions) but I think I must have watched this one at least 5 times …

Oh yeah, it’s on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSdQeh3WnkU

The last time I looked for “Ek Ladka Ek Ladki” on YouTube, the only copy I could find was a really dark and hard to watch version. So this version is certainly a find for me 🙂

This gives me an idea! Maybe I should look for other movies from the 90s that copied Hollywood movies and post about them every once in a while?

I generally love the Bollywood version to the Hollywood version of these “re-makes”. So it might be interesting to introduce more people to these versions …

f, to security
@f@a.farook.org avatar

Ring - it's the doorbell.

The bell rings twice more before I even get to the door.

I open the door and there’s somebody standing in the doorway of our neighbour’s apartment. The angle is such that I can’t tell if they actually have the door open and are inside the apartment or are just standing in the doorway.

I look at them inquiringly.

“Can I have your WiFi password?” they say, holding up their phone.

I’m like, “What?”

“Your WiFi password. I just want to make a call,” they say as if this was the most normal thing.

“I don’t want to give you my password,” I say and close the door.

That really was the whole interaction. I’m just flabbergasted by the whole thing still. Did they really think that I’d simply hand over access to my WiFi to somebody I didn’t know? (I don’t know my neighbours and they’ve never spoken to me before …)

Do they understand the security implications of the whole thing? Or was it an emergency (like trying to make a call without anybody else knowing for some reason)? If it was an emergency, why didn’t they tell me so?

I don’t know … But I’m still wondering …

f, to tv
@f@a.farook.org avatar

Something I've noticed about a lot of American TV shows — the first season starts off with a great idea but by season two or three it has become all about the personal lives of the characters and their relationships and the core idea gets relegated to the background and gets lost.

“House” was a great medical drama at first and I loved it for the medicine but eventually it became all drama and not much medicine. The same with “The Good Doctor”.

(I can contrast this to UK TV but I guess that’ll have to be a post for another time 😛)

“Warrior” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796) is a show which doesn’t do this as much and which manages to maintain a balance between the core story and the character development. Or maybe, it’s because the story is all about the characters 🙂

But what I do like about the show a lot is the fact that the characters learn, grow, and change. Characters who started out looking as if they are pure evil start getting shades of grey as you learn about them and their motivations. Others change their attitudes and stance as time goes on.

The show is constantly changing and alliances constantly shift. And it’s marvellous to see these happening and to see a story being told so deftly 🙂

As the end of season 3 approaches, I can see a lot of changes and a bunch of new alliances happening. I hope there’s a season 4 since I want to keep on watching!

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@stevesplace I assume some people do like all the drama too, otherwise in a profit oriented environment, they wouldn’t be going for that approach, right?

But personally, I don’t like loading up a show with all the personal drama instead of the original subject matter that got me hooked in the first place.

Take shows like “Midsomer Murders” which has run for over 20 seasons in the UK — the show has stuck to its core premise all those seasons. The personal stuff is incidental and is not the main focus of the show. I like that approach much better 🙂

davemark, to random
@davemark@mastodon.social avatar

🤔

  1. Who will budge first? Apple or X? Will Apple (for the first time in App Store history) allow a single character App name?

  2. Will Twitter URLs undergo a sea change? Or will your tweets/X’s continue to appear with the domain “twitter dot com”?

https://twitter.com/nickjsheriff/status/1684935759529480192?s=61&t=n1rFDNQqXlt-9v6iEjqN8w

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@davemark I believe the display name on device is “X” while the app name on the App Store is still “Twitter” 🙂 @mcelhearn
https://a.farook.org/media/8d24a779d9f9a982b2c968ad54436301a60f1ce773c6acdce7e65f584a7ebc7b.file

dimsumthinking, to random
@dimsumthinking@mastodon.social avatar

Well... I learned something about Observable today that blew my mind. Yes it's something I should have known - I've actually used this feature without doing so consciously. I need to refine how I'm explaining Observable. Need to sit with this a bit.

Coffee with colleagues is amazingly helpful.

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@dimsumthinking Now you’ve got me curious 🙂 What did you learn about Observable? And is it something which can be explained in a few words or something that requires a blog post?

icanzilb, to random
@icanzilb@mastodon.social avatar

So, I'm ramping up for interviews and watching some prep videos. It's really a bit comical that removing nodes from binary search trees by hand is a valid task in 2023 exactly as it was in 1992 when I first learned data structures. NEVER needed to do that specific thing for work.

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@icanzilb My favourite is coding to output the Fibonacci sequence 😛 The last time it came up, I refused to do it — well, not in a nasty way but I did tell them that I had never needed to do that ever for work and while I knew of two different ways to do it (vaguely) that I wasn’t going to do it since it made no sense …

They still wanted to hire me 😀

marcel, to random
@marcel@mastodon.social avatar

🚨 Peat is OUT NOW 🚨

I'm not gonna lie, friends. This is just a tiny app that does one single thing very well.

I wasn't happy with the current state of habit tracker apps on the App Store and set out to get rid of all of the stuff nobody really needs while providing a great experience for what's actually important.

It's the digital version of a tally sheet. And tally sheets are what I found work best when you try to build a habit.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/habit-tracker-peat/id6449402568

f,
@f@a.farook.org avatar

@marcel Looks great, congratulations! 🙂

One thing I miss in most habit trackers is the ability to track things which occur more than once a day — like walking every hour, or remembering to drink water. But that’s probably a very niche requirement ….

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