It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!
Today’s project is Hack-A-Paste (demo, source). You can upload text and share it with others.
Today’s project was an easy one, because I was busy. Took an hour or two.
It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!
Today’s project is Hack-A-Chat. (demo, source). It’s a free web chat for anyone that goes to the website.
Check out the link above to try out the live demo.
So far, not much easier. Another 8-hour day. I was hoping to do something with WebRTC today, but I didn’t get to it.
It’s november, and I’ve decided this month that I’m going to do 30 projects in 30 days. It’s an all-month hack-a-thon!
Today’s project is the Hack-A-Blog. (demo, source).
Check out the link above to try out the live demo. I’m proud of getting this one done in time. I think the next days will be easier, as I figured some things out already.
I’ve been prototyping an e-ink laptop.
I’m not the first, there have been many other such devices before. I came up with the idea independently, but the specifics are heavily inspired by the Ultimate Writer by NinjaTrappeur in 2018. Similar to him, my use case is typing without distractions, and reading books. E-ink displays are quite slow to update, so I don’t think it can serve as a general purpose computer. Here’s a video of it in action. It operates at one frame per second.
The electronics are not fully done. They need better secured, and I’m going to redo the cabling and power back.
I’m not the best woodworker, but I’m slowly learning. Here are pictures of case and lid action.
On the software end, shout outs to:
There’s a few things I’d like to polish still–even as a prototype this isn’t fully done.
There’s also no default software, but that’s a feature. A prototype is for figuring out how I want the interface to work, and what I want it to do.
Parts list
Power budget (at 5V):
A real-life test showed 5-6 hour battery life. Theory says (13Wh/battery * 4 batteries / 2.7 watts)=20 hours battery life. I’m investigating the discrepancy. In theory, swapping for a Pi Zero W and a better keyboard would give 72-hour battery life.
I write down everything I do. Yesterday, I wrote a quick-and-dirty analysis program to get some stats on common habits.
The full results are here: drive floss food read sleep teeth tv wake walk youtube. Of course, what I write down doesn’t perfectly match what I do, so most of the absolute stats are vastly wrong. Comparative ones are still interesting.
Here’s some results:
I’ll leave you with this poor man’s graph of driving frequency over time. See the pandemic hit?
{'2018-01': 'x',
'2018-02': '',
'2018-03': 'x',
'2018-04': 'xxx',
'2018-05': '',
'2018-06': '',
'2018-07': 'x',
'2018-08': '',
'2018-09': '',
'2018-10': 'x',
'2018-11': 'xx',
'2018-12': 'xx',
'2019-01': 'x',
'2019-02': '',
'2019-03': 'xxxxxxx',
'2019-04': 'x',
'2019-05': '',
'2019-06': 'x',
'2019-07': 'x',
'2019-08': 'xx',
'2019-09': '',
'2019-10': 'xxxxx',
'2019-11': 'xxxxxxxxx',
'2019-12': 'xxxxxx',
'2020-01': 'xxxxxxxxx',
'2020-02': 'xxxxxxxxxxx',
'2020-03': 'xxxxxxx',
'2020-04': 'xxxxx',
'2020-05': 'xx',
'2020-06': '',
'2020-07': '',
'2020-08': '',
'2020-09': '',
'2020-10': 'x',
'2020-11': 'xxxxxx',
'2020-12': 'x',
'2021-01': 'xx',
'2021-02': 'xxx',
'2021-03': 'xxxxxxxxx',
'2021-04': '',
'2021-05': 'xxxxxxxx',
'2021-06': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2021-07': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2021-08': 'xxxxx',
'2021-09': 'xxxxxxx',
'2021-10': 'xxxx',
'2021-11': 'xxxxxx',
'2021-12': 'xxxxxxxx',
'2022-01': 'xxxxxxxxx',
'2022-02': 'xxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-03': 'xxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-04': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-05': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-06': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-07': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-08': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'2022-09': 'xxxxxxx'}
qr-backup v1.1 is released. qr-backup is a command-line Linux program. You can use it to back up a file as a series of QR codes. You can restore the QR codes using a webcam or scanner, and get back the original file.
The main features of qr-backup are ease-of-use and futureproofing (restore does not require qr-backup).
Please report any bugs on github. Once this is stable, I will do the first pip/package manager release. To test the alpha, check out the latest code using git.
See also USAGE and extensive FAQ.
New features in v1.1:
qr-backup --restore restores using the webcamqr-backup --restore IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE restores from scanned imagesP.S. As a special request, if anyone is on OS X, let me know if it works for you?
I recently wrote a program that records all tty activity. That means bash sessions, ssh, raw tty access, screen and tmux sessions, the lot. I used script. The latest version of my software can be found on github.
Note that it’s been tested only with bash so far, and there’s no encryption built in.
To just record all shell commands typed, use the standard eternal history tricks (bash).
I made a site for your constant refresh needs: http://isrickandmortyout.com/
Very, very early in my self-improvement journey, I tried adding a 20 minute timer to my life. Every 20 minutes of my waking life, it went off. I’d explicitly say to myself what it was I was doing (“Watching TV” or “Talking to Fred”). It’s important to have a verbal or written note of what you’re doing.
I added a specific prompt at one point: “What am I doing, and why?”. I don’t think goals are how I think about things today, but it’s how I tried to think back then (goal factoring). Today I might ask, “What am I doing, and do I want to be doing it? Do I want to be doing it this way?”
The basic 20-minute check-in process was very helpful to me. Some benefits:
One of the more useful things I did was to start logging all my technical problems. Whenever I hit a problem, I write an entry in problem-log.txt. Here’s an example
2022-08-02
Q: Why isn't the printer working? [ SOLVED ]
A: sudo cupsenable HL-2270DW
// This isn't in the problem log, but the issue is that CUPS will silently disable the printer if it thinks there's an issue. This can happen if you pull a USB cord mid-print.
I write the date, the question, and the answer. Later, when I have a tough or annoying problem, I try to grep problem-log.txt. I’ll add a note if I solve a problem using the log, too.
This was an interesting project to look at 5 years later. I didn’t see benefits until 1-2 years later. It does not help me think through a problem. It’s hard to remember to do. But, over time it’s built up and become invaluable to me. I hit a tricky problem, and I can’t immediately find an answer on the web. I find out it’s in problem-log.txt. And, someone’s written it exactly with my hardware (and sometimes even my folder names) correctly in there. Cool!
Here’s another example:
2018-10-21
Q: How do I connect to the small yellow router?
Not every problem gets solved. Oh well.