Field test
Although technically I’m in a park, not a field.
The future of Future Sound Of Disco.
Poor little futuresoundofdisco.com is now one year old.
Confession
I enjoy the return to normality after the festive break more than I enjoy the spiralling descent into it.
2K18 -> 2K19
Half way. The sun is a little higher in the sky. Each day is a little longer. There's just a little more energy in the system. Time to take stock.
Anti-social networking
Sell your eyeballs direct!
This had me thinking. I don't have time to fully reason this out right now, but here's the back-of-a-fag packet version of how we fix social networks...
Planned Obsolescence
FFS. Google have now started putting banners in Inbox (my mail app of choice) to remind everyone that they're killing Inbox next March, something I'd be studiously ignoring since they announced it back in September. I actually wish they hadn’t told me at all because my OCD will be spending the next 6 months evaluating Inbox replacements and rebuilding my "workflow" in them (which mainly consists of repeatedly snoozing mails until I HAVE to deal with them) before I inevitably give up and just revert to using Gmail like they want me to.
Hickory Dickory Docker, Part 2
In which we achieve BMD (Bare Minimum Docker).
Ok, today I'm attempting the venerable "Hello World" in Docker for Mac, having only skimmed the instructions...
Hickory Dickory Docker
Noobing containers, a personal "journey".
As a consultant I employ a strict policy of JIT Skills Acquisition™, and one of my clients is finally interested in doing some containerised application development so I've got a fortnite* to figure out everything there is to know about Docker. They're a Windows/.NET shop internally, but to make it a fair cop I'm going to be doing everything on the Mac and all the app-y bits in .NET core. No Windows machines will be knowingly harmed during the course of this adventure.
A random deployment.
Or, "I am starting a music blog."
Yesterday, as I was partaking in my customary post-school run, pre-work, under-caffeinated wander in the park, listening to music, enjoying the first vaguely spring-like day since the snowpocalypse I began to formulate an idea. I’m going to start a new music blog.
A Lack of Focus.
Or, "It ain't like it used to be."
I learned something this afternoon while out with that old Zenit SLR. Today... I couldn't get an image in focus in the viewfinder. Nothing. Not a sausage. My initial assumption was I'd broken something (it's been in the boot of the car and bounced up and down the M1 a couple of times this week). What I didn't realise until I'd got home is that my eyes are likely the problem...
TinyPNG
Automated image compression utility
I am giving TinyPNG a go because Lighthouse is moaning about image sizes on one of my websites. It's an automated image compression service/API/panda that does smart PNG/JPEG compression, and it's free for light usage (<500 images a month).
In literally 3 lines I got it working, which has to be one of the lowest barriers to entry for any utility I've tried. And I'm running my CMS in debug while typing this post and testing it with this stormtrooper pic. (The revolution will be live.)
Experimental antique imaging.
Or, "Capturing 8-minute-old photons with a 30-year-old camera."
I am halfway through the first roll of film I've shot in at least fifteen years, and it's in a Soviet-era camera (a Zenit 11) that has been sat in a drawer for at least twenty-five years. It's certainly older than that - it was second-hand when my folks got it for teenage-me after I expressed an interest in taking proper pictures and I think they stopped making them in 1990. It has no battery, no automation of any kind, no in-viewfinder display (unlike the borgeois Zenit 12 which had two LEDs for under/overexposure). This lack of complexity is probably why everything still seems to work.... all the moving parts move, the shutter seems to have a smooth action and frankly you'll all be jealous of my selenium-light-meter-with-lookup-dial combo after EMP hits. (Although now I've typed that I'm trying to work out if the light meter would actually still work after an EMP. But you take my point.)
As an experiment, I've picked up a roll of "fake" black & white film (colour chemistry stuff, because I need something that Snappy Snaps can process) and I'm gonna turn it in and see if the camera has developed any exciting leaks or flaws. First observation? It's amazing how much more you start to think about the frame when you know you've only got 24 exposures. Also, winding on the film has become a completely foreign concept - I forgot literally every time.
All technologies become defined by their flaws in their artefacts, and subsequent iterations of the technology often model those flaws for aesthetic reasons (hello Instagram) but I must say the actual experience of taking a picture with knobs and dials and chemicals is also an artefact of the old technology. And surprisingly good fun.
I'll post some results if I get any.
(UPDATE: The camera had a horrendous light leak so nothing much came out. I'm now desperately not shopping for cameras on eBay, honest guv.)
Late nite, early warning.
Or, “Is this thing on?”
So, the real proof of concept with any content wrangling system is whether you can do the doings from your phone. This is a test. Do not be alarmed.
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Previously
The long wait for long form.
Or, "I have decided to resurrect the blog, guv"