Photography Using Pixel’s Night Sight

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A few minutes ago, we went out for a walk to the corner store. All four of us. It’s winter time in Canada, and it’s a little bit late, so it’s dark outside. On a lark, I decided to test the camera on my Pixel 2 phone. I did this because, just recently, there was an update to the software which included an update to the camera software called, “Night Sight”. Night site uses artificial intelligence to take a slightly longer exposure and rebuild the image in a way that lets you see more than you can under normal conditions, …

Schrödinger’s Elon Musk

Brain Farts / Life / OpinionLeave a comment

Are we living in a simulation? In various interviews, Elon Musk has famously stated that there is a one-in-a-billion chance that we are not living in a simulation. Turning that around, he is saying that we are almost certainly living in a made up universe. A hyper-realistic fantasy. He cites, among other things, the rapid increases in video game development, to show that given enough time, it should be possible to create a perfect simulation. And, if such a perfect simulation has been created, then it must be created time and time again. Some people make light of this argument, …

The True Story of Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer

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You know Dasher and Dancer, and Prancer and Vixen. You also know about Comet, and Cupid, and Donder and Blitzen, but nobody really cares about any of those others, even Olive (the other reindeer). The only reindeer anyone cares about is Rudolph. You may not know the actual and honest-to-goodness true story of Rudolph, but lucky for you, I am here to tell you. So, sit back, gather your kids, hug your Christmas tree, light a fire in the fireplace, and enjoy the true story of Rudolph.

My Open Source Journey

Cooking With Linux / Life / Linux/Open SourceLeave a comment

Way back, in my late teens, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, I had created myself a geek’s paradise in my basement. I had a chemistry lab, with equipment sourced through my high school, a microscope, a telescope, and an electronics lab built with equipment from Radio Shack. I was also starting to experiment with various computers and, in time, would have at least three different Commodore computers, a TRS-80, until eventually moving to a state of the art 286 IBM PC clone. Later, I’d expand the memory on that PC’s main board to a staggering 1 MB of RAM. …

Transformative Music and the Power of Radio

LifeLeave a comment

The first time I paid for a piece of music was back in 1972 which means I was either 12 years old or would, at some point in that year, be 12 years old. The music I bought was a 45 RPM record, a single, by one Sammy Davis Jr. The song, which I’d heard many times on the radio, was “The Candy Man”, and I still remember going to the store and handing over my hard-earned 99 cents to pay for it. I can’t remember the store but I do remember the experience. It was exciting in ways that …

DEBT : A Chilling Bedtime Story

Marcel's FictionLeave a comment

-1507 A.D. – “It is over, Excellency. No one would dare oppose you now.” The soldier waited for his dismissal, dreaming of ale and the camaraderie of his fellows. The campaign had been mercifully short but nevertheless intensely bloody. Now, it was finally over. “Nonsense,” the baron said with a wave. “Of course they would dare. Perhaps not today, but tomorrow and tomorrow, and if not them, then perhaps their children.” The baron’s smile cut through the soldier’s courage like a poisoned blade. He quickly looked away, nodding faintly. “I am glad you agree,” said the baron. “If they were …

The Open Deity Project (ODP)

Humour / Linux/Open Source / Religion & AtheismLeave a comment

Creating The World’s First, and Best, Open Source God To contribute, see the GitHub link at the bottom. Today, I want to introduce you to the “Open Deity Project”. ODP will be a community built god and religion with a git repository for changes. The purpose of ODP is to give us all the chance to make the perfect god. We will do it by following a time honoured open source philosophies. Open the code. Share the code. Release early and release often! Everyone is invited to work on creating the Open God. If you can’t help in the creation, …

Teeny Tiny Linux distros, old DOS games, and more!

Cooking With Linux / Marcel's YouTubeLeave a comment

It’s Tuesday, and it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net) where I do some live Linuxy and open source stuff, live, on camera, and without the benefit of post video editing therefore providing a high probability of falling flat on my face. Today, it’s teeny tiny Linux time where I’ll show you some of the smallest fully graphical distributions out there, play some old abandoned games, DOS emulation, and visit browser based Linux. Basically, a grab bag of Linux and open source goodies. Oh, and wine. DamnSmallLinux (aka DSL): http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/downloa… NonoLinux: https://sourceforge.net/projects/nano… TinyCore Linux: https://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycoreli… DOSBox Website: http://www.dosbox.com/ …

Bunsenlabs Linux, Ubuntu 18.04, WSL X services, and more.

Cooking With Linux / Marcel's YouTubeLeave a comment

It’s Tuesday, and it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net) where I do some live Linuxy and open source stuff, live, on camera, and without the benefit of post video editing therefore providing a high probability of falling flat on my face. Today, we’re going back to WSL and trying to run X Windows, then we’re going to take a Linux distribution most people have never heard of out for a spin (Bunsenlabs Linux), and one you have heard of (Ubuntu 18.04). Bunsenlabs Linux is at https://www.bunsenlabs.org VcXsrv X Window server for Windows is at https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/  

How to set up your own IRC server on Linux.

Cooking With Linux / Marcel's YouTubeLeave a comment

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net), sponsored and supported by Linux Journal to whom I am thankful. Also, if you’re seeing this, know that you are watching a recording of what was a live show. Speaking of which . . . You all know about Slack, right? Some of you are tied to it even now, unable to break free because that’s what your company runs. Not that there’s anything wrong with Slack, but long before Slack and others like it, there was another collaborative chat system and it’s still alive, even …