ALAN LAVENDER @lavenderlens@qoto.org
- Employer
- https://stayahead.com
- Big Idea
- http://mindyourself.io/
- Past Life
- http://www.alanlavender.com/
Java & Web Development Trainer, London & virtual. Author: The Frontend Cookbook. https://FrontendCookbook.com 25+ years’ prior in photography, filmmaking, web development & design for print. Someday would like to do something humanitarian with codeforireland.org and codefortheuk.com. 🌐
Joined Nov 2022
ALAN LAVENDER
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Neuralink’s First User Is ‘Constantly Multitasking’ With His Brain Implant - Noland Arbaugh is the first to get Elon Musk’s brain device. The 30-year-old speaks to WI... - https://www.wired.com/story/neuralink-first-patient-interview-noland-arbaugh-elon-musk/ #science/biotech #science/health #cyborgtraining #science
ALAN LAVENDER
boosted
Certain people think I’m saying cassettes sound better than CDs. I don’t know why they believe this—I’ve never said that whatsoever.
I am saying that cassettes can sound better than vinyl. And this isn’t theoretical. I can make cassette recordings that sound empirically better than vinyl.
Nevertheless, why would I buy a cassette when CDs sound better? Price.
A new release on cassette is often half the price of the same album on CD. And the thing is, I have the equipment to make cassettes sound pretty darn good.
ALAN LAVENDER
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For those of you interested in recording to cassette, here’s a good overview of the different types:
Ferric oxide (type I)
Chromium oxide (type II)
Metal (type IV)
There is a type III, but it was rarely in use.
This video gives a good summary of how each type sounds. Most people agree that metal (type IV) sounds the best.
ALAN LAVENDER
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The thing about physical media formats is that it doesn’t have to be “superior” for you to want it.
For example, I have a VHS and VCD collection. I know these are inferior formats compared to DVD or Blu-Ray.
But have you ever seen Blade Runner on VHS through a CRT? Have you ever seen Ghost in the Shell on VCD through a projector?
I have, and they’re amazing experiences I would not trade for anything.
ALAN LAVENDER
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Why are people surprised that cassettes are still made?
It should be obvious why they’re still around.
Cassettes are the cheapest form of music media out there. Anyone can buy one blank cassette and start recording. Equipment is cheap: all you need is a boombox.
If you want good analog recording, you can use them on a TEAC Portastudio 4-track machine—and it will sound great.
I went to a music store the other day and saw the same album on vinyl, CD, and cassette. Guess which one I bought?
It was the cassette. It was C$12—thus C$28 cheaper than the vinyl.
Here’s the kicker. If you have a good tape deck, and a quality recording, cassettes can sound better than vinyl. Even a type 1 cassette theoretically has better dynamic range than vinyl.
ALAN LAVENDER
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In Japan, people hire middle-aged men to simply do nothing and be there.
I wonder if that service would take off over here. This could be a new line of work for me.
@BE fascinating, thanks. Interesting that one of the researchers interviewed is a software engineer, computer security, in their day job, in a similar sphere to mine. I would say that if he has learnt not to underestimate hackers in that space he will be open minded about the possibility of bio hacking.
With Artificial General Intelligence I believe the singularity has already happened and we will have to live with consequences far beyond our moral and societal control. Or, to put it bluntly, it’s no use shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Could it be that we are also past the point of no return and scant regulation with genetic manipulation? You seem better positioned than me to answer that.
@BE mindful both of your recommendations on prognostication and of my being a lay person in regard to the science, I read most of this study to inform myself. Their methods seem rigorous enough but what made me curious was when they didn’t have a sample of another virus to compare rates of transmission with, so just backwards engineered it. If this is possible, what checks and balances exist in the scientific community to ensure bad actors don’t also do this?
Time to kill my json-server before I quit VS Code. I never really quit it: it's my go-to for React, JavaScript, HTML/CSS and Python.
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...And drop it on my Netlify manual deploys area. I could just as well sync the project folder to a GitHub repo if I wanted to go serverless. My book site for The Frontend Cookbook is deployed this way. But drag and drop - what could be handier? Netlify also provides FREE OF CHARGE secure server certs through partnering with LetsEncrypt. The domain name for the app, choros.ie, is pointed to Netlify nameservers and configured with its https cert in this way.
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All my Node module projects are kept outside of Mac Documents or Desktop so they don't be forever getting backed up to iCloud with all their Node modules.
TO PUBLISH: I grab the /dist directory...
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The folder structure of the /dist directory looks like this. The Vite bundler smooshes all my JS and CSS including Tailwind and custom styles into two tiny JS and CSS files in /assets. But I must manually add a _redirects file (no extension) to avoid 404s on my Netlify-hosted site. It's a Netlify-with-SPA thing. Top kudos to my colleague Stuart for figuring this out from the Netlify docs.
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Next, I stop my Vite dev server and run a build. The generated /dist folder will be the code that gets uploaded to go live.
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...And paste them into the hardcoded JavaScript array. VS Code automatically re-formats for me (if it didn't, that would have been a deal-breaker for this workflow!!).
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So after previewing on the Vite dev server, I just grab the songs from the JSON for the json-server...
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...And this is my production mode, where the data is copied over to a hardcoded JS array of songs.
I trialled a version of the app with a search functionality where users search a JSON file of all the songs and load up their own selection. This was the way it was envisaged from the start, with partial first line or partial title search functionality. Part of the use case for the app was because it was impossible to decide whether to index hardcopies on first line or title. And a double-entry cross-referenced system would be the only solution on paper, doubling the bulk of photocopies. But after the trial the choir decided they preferred the songs ready-loaded with no search and add function.
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Here's some of the JSX for my Songs component. This is the stateful part of the app where I can switch from my own dev mode to production.
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- Employer
- https://stayahead.com
- Big Idea
- http://mindyourself.io/
- Past Life
- http://www.alanlavender.com/
Java & Web Development Trainer, London & virtual. Author: The Frontend Cookbook. https://FrontendCookbook.com 25+ years’ prior in photography, filmmaking, web development & design for print. Someday would like to do something humanitarian with codeforireland.org and codefortheuk.com. 🌐
Joined Nov 2022
