Digital Graffiti and hyperlocal e-zines.
I bought a ton of tiny micro-controllers, in part because I want to work on some automated farming projects and they were a steal at $6/board.
Then I had another idea.
These micro-controllers can run tiny web servers and WiFi access points. They also require extremely low power, can be powered on an outlet or a small solar panel and battery, and can be hidden very easily, either in a 3D printed waterproof container, a rescued piece of litter, or more.
Inspired by @hydroponictrash 's posts on hosting and hiding banned libraries, I decided to start working on a similar project: spreading tiny micro-servers across town in hidden locations hosting zines, propaganda and links to banned books and such.
Now, these are microcontrollers here... we're not talking about high-powered computers. I'm not going to be able to handle hundreds of requests at once... likely, less than half a dozen. I'm not going to be hosting beautiful looking web apps in ReactJS, more likely just raw HTML/CSS (maybe JQuery? we will see) and I'm not planning on this just spreading like wildfire.
That said, I think the concept of e-graffiti (think hosting one of these with anti-police or anti-gov messaging right outside of city hall, hidden where they can't find it) and hyperlocal e-zines really neat.
I'm going to test this idea out and get back to you on it. The next iteration I think would be cool is finding a way to do this on recycled e-waste: think old phones, broken laptops, etc. Things that have a higher processing power can also do bigger tasks like hosting banned books for download, serving as wifi-repeaters to serve... "liberated" wifi connections, etc.
I am once again begging application developers to have the guts to put a "no, I don't want that button" on dialogues rather than "not now, maybe later" and then haranguing me until I cave and click the yes button.
Unreal Engine 5 is astonishing. Entire landscapes built out of 3D scanned objects stacked on top of each other, with real-time lighting, running at 60fps on five year old hardware.
There are too many things in this world that I would like to learn, and not enough hours in the day, can someone please hire me to just mess about with various interests?
Mario movie was great. You can see the love of the series that everyone involved had shining through, utterly joyful, particularly with a nine year old who’s grown up with the games.
Deeply amused by the choice to set this series of Race Across the World in Canada. Firstly, it’s called Race Across the World, not Race Across Canada. Secondly, there’s no public transport, so the whole thing is just people at gas stations trying to hitchhike or hiring cars. Occasionally you’ll get another scene of people establishing the one bus a week left yesterday.
Valheim update: We have defeated our first trolls, and are now wearing some fetching troll trousers.
Not sure why, but I’m watching a 50 minute “documentary” about how the Titanic didn’t sink, it was an insurance scam because the Olympic was a write-off. It has dramatisations, which really make it.
Things I would like include, but are not limited to, an eSport that’s not a massive commitment to follow. I’d like to follow Rocket League but it’s all seemingly run as occasional tournaments that run 8 hours a day for four days.
Finally getting to the point at work where I’ve built enough low level libraries that I can start quickly throwing together higher level tools.
I have been playing Valheim with the nine year old (and also without, I just spent 2 hours recovering our gear after an unfortunate incident with a troll). It’s a wild ride, one minute I’m having a chilled trip down a river, the next I’m being mobbed by creatures capable of near instantly killing me.
The main discovery I’ve made so far today is just how bad I am at selfies.
Heading into London for a day of being a tourist. I'm going to see how many different forms of public transport I can use along the way, so far I've used a bus and a train, and I haven't even arrived yet.