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Blog Details for "Penguin Pete's Blog"
Penguin Pete's Blog Penguin Pete's Blog Being an extraordinarily geeky site about Free and Open Source Software and the wonders thereof. Full site features include the hippest FOSS blog on the 'net, a gallery with over 400 wallpapers at this count free for download, source code, distro rev 
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You Can Hack An OS But You Can't Hack People - part 2: The Computing World
2008-05-10 03:57:00 Once upon a time... Hold on here. I'm going to simplify the story down to three operating systems. Is everybody cool with that? I know all about GNU/Linux, GNU/HURD, Minix, BSD (Free, Open, Net, and PC), Solaris, Plan Nine From Bell Labs, Darwin, OS X, BeOS, Amiga, Tandy, OS/2, Xenix, and so on. For the sake of fairy-tale brevity, we're temporarily pretending that there's three operating systems, or computing republics upon the desktop. We'll slide some of the others in in their due time. Just wanted to make that clear. Start the projector! Once upon a time, there were three computing republics. Apple, Unix, and Windows. They spread out to cover all of the land until the map of the world looked like this: Each of the republics was wildly different in the ways they did things. So much so, that it is quite difficult to this day to effectively translate between them. Yet all of the computing republics had this in common: they were all ruled by governments that were very much l... More About: People , World , General , Hack , Computing
The Tragedy of Linux: You Can Hack an OS, But You Can't Hack People
2008-05-09 16:32:00 This will be a seven-part series. Introduction: It's about time I tackled this ugly task. I've been promising a follow-up to Ubuntu is not Linux . Because the broad point that I'm trying to make needs to be hammered down, I will explain it again and again and again, more and more clearly each time. Why is this idea so apparently hard for others to grasp and so nose-on-my-face evident to me? Perhaps I'm more socialized than my geek peers. I took a psychology course once. I've always been fascinated by sociology and culture studies. And I worked a couple years in my youth as a taxi driver. You find out all kinds of things about people that you wouldn't otherwise. Perhaps it is this forbidden fruit of knowledge of human nature that puts such a gulf between me and the geek world. I balance my computer knowledge with my people knowledge, while other geeks stay more exclusively computer-knowledge. Of all the responses I got, probably the one that came the closest to showing under... More About: People , Tragedy , General , Hack
The Tragedy of Linux: You Can Hack an OS, But You Can't Hack People
2008-05-09 16:32:00 This will be a seven-part series. Introduction: It's about time I tackled this ugly task. I've been promising a follow-up to Ubuntu is not Linux . Because the broad point that I'm trying to make needs to be hammered down, I will explain it again and again and again, more and more clearly each time. Why is this idea so apparently hard for others to grasp and so nose-on-my-face evident to me? Perhaps I'm more socialized than my geek peers. I took a psychology course once. I've always been fascinated by sociology and culture studies. And I worked a couple years in my youth as a taxi driver. You find out all kinds of things about people that you wouldn't otherwise. Perhaps it is this forbidden fruit of knowledge of human nature that puts such a gulf between me and the geek world. I balance my computer knowledge with my people knowledge, while other geeks stay more exclusively computer-knowledge. Of all the responses I got, probably the one that came the closest to showing under... More About: People , Tragedy , Hack
Iowa wildlife report: bunnies!
2008-05-07 20:38:00 Excuse for not mowing the lawn lately #137: I have a nest of bunnies. The kids discovered a bunny nest on our front lawn. Evidently, rabbits dig holes in the ground, birth their brood, and then cover the hole with some dried grass and bits of their own fur. We have been careful not to touch them so as not to leave human smell on them, and so far they seem to be OK with our occasional intrusion. As I understand it, rabbits lactate like any mammal, and the mother nurses them only a few minutes out of the day, but rabbit milk is powerful nutritious, so it balances out. Bunnies take about a month to mature enough to go it alone. Also, rabbits aren't particularly attentive mothers. We've seen her come back to the nest at night. Usually she leaves it with more grass and fur piled on it, in an attempt to hide it better. With wilderness all around us, I don't know why she chose the lawn of a suburban home for her nursery. So the pics aren't too sharp, because I'm trying to be... More About: Site News , Wildlife , Report , Iowa
Iowa wildlife report: bunnies!
2008-05-07 20:38:00 Excuse for not mowing the lawn lately #137: I have a nest of bunnies. The kids discovered a bunny nest on our front lawn. Evidently, rabbits dig holes in the ground, birth their brood, and then cover the hole with some dried grass and bits of their own fur. We have been careful not to touch them so as not to leave human smell on them, and so far they seem to be OK with our occasional intrusion. As I understand it, rabbits lactate like any mammal, and the mother nurses them only a few minutes out of the day, but rabbit milk is powerful nutritious, so it balances out. Bunnies take about a month to mature enough to go it alone. Also, rabbits aren't particularly attentive mothers. We've seen her come back to the nest at night. Usually she leaves it with more grass and fur piled on it, in an attempt to hide it better. With wilderness all around us, I don't know why she chose the lawn of a suburban home for her nursery. So the pics aren't too sharp, because I'm trying to be... More About: Wildlife , Report , Iowa
New Flash game: IQ Blocks
2008-05-07 15:26:00 I might as well turn this one loose while I'm at it. New Flash game in the sidebar, name of IQ Blocks . It looks like this: The idea is that you click go, starting the timer and changing the pattern in the upper right, and then you have to click the squares in the big place on the lower left until it matches the pattern which will stop the timer. That's it. Try to contain your excitement. Source code here. GNU GPL'd, graphics included. OK, this is inspired by those IQ tests you get in school where they give you red-and-white blocks and a card with a pattern on it, and you use the blocks to assemble the pattern. But I have no idea if these blocks used in IQ tests have a name, if one company makes them, or what. Any teachers out there who can fill me in? Anyway, I thought people might find it cool to have a chance to play with these in a non-school environment, maybe for the nostalgia kick from school. It could be that nobody's ever thought of this before because it's a non-... More About: Game
New Flash Game: Drop-A-Block
2008-05-04 01:54:00 I've been hedging around on this one because I wanted to beta-test in the side bar for a couple of days, but now that somebody's mentioned it: yes, I've had a new Flash game in the sidebar of this blog. Wa-a-ay down there on the right. It's called "Drop A Block " and you play it by moving the arrow keys to move the paddle back and forth to collect and position blocks, and down arrow to drop the block into the rack below. Three-or-more of the same color in any direction makes those blocks disappear, and combos are possible. The concept is very similar to the arcade game Klax. There's no sound, saving of high scores, or even a way for the game to recognize when you're stuck. Hitting the little 'reset' button in the top left clears the board and makes the score 0 again. Want the source code? Here yah go! GPL-licensed, includes graphics and README, and if anybody out there rebuilds this into a fuller game and posts it online, be my guest and drop the link to it in the comment... More About: Game
New Flash Game: Drop-A-Block
2008-05-04 01:54:00 I've been hedging around on this one because I wanted to beta-test in the side bar for a couple of days, but now that somebody's mentioned it: yes, I've had a new Flash game in the sidebar of this blog. Wa-a-ay down there on the right. It's called "Drop A Block " and you play it by moving the arrow keys to move the paddle back and forth to collect and position blocks, and down arrow to drop the block into the rack below. Three-or-more of the same color in any direction makes those blocks disappear, and combos are possible. The concept is very similar to the arcade game Klax. There's no sound, saving of high scores, or even a way for the game to recognize when you're stuck. Hitting the little 'reset' button in the top left clears the board and makes the score 0 again. Want the source code? Here yah go! GPL-licensed, includes graphics and README, and if anybody out there rebuilds this into a fuller game and posts it online, be my guest and drop the link to it in the comment... More About: Game
Attention Firefox Plug-in Makers: GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!
2008-04-23 01:54:00 Some people came to Linux because they wanted freedom. Some people came because they liked the Unix way. Some people came because they were sick of Microsoft. Me, 75% of the reason I came to Linux is because it lets me run it instead of it trying to run me. It has no pretensions. It doesn't think that it's the most important product in the world. And usually, that attitude trickles down to the applications on the system. Not like on Windows. On Windows, every two-bit program, even if it was built from four lines of C code, believes that it is the sole reason you own a computer. On Windows, each little widget will absolutely demand to have its own major directory, its own desktop icon, its own taskbar icon, its own position in the Start menu, its own functions in the right-click menu, its own wallpaper, its own screensaver, and its own file extension. It will pop up with every single mouse click demanding attention like a starving cat. Update me, choose a new theme for me, regi... More About: Firefox , Makers , Plug , Attention
Attention Firefox Plug-in Makers: GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!
2008-04-23 01:54:00 Some people came to Linux because they wanted freedom. Some people came because they liked the Unix way. Some people came because they were sick of Microsoft. Me, 75% of the reason I came to Linux is because it lets me run it instead of it trying to run me. It has no pretensions. It doesn't think that it's the most important product in the world. And usually, that attitude trickles down to the applications on the system. Not like on Windows. On Windows, every two-bit program, even if it was built from four lines of C code, believes that it is the sole reason you own a computer. On Windows, each little widget will absolutely demand to have its own major directory, its own desktop icon, its own taskbar icon, its own position in the Start menu, its own functions in the right-click menu, its own wallpaper, its own screensaver, and its own file extension. It will pop up with every single mouse click demanding attention like a starving cat. Update me, choose a new theme for me, regi... More About: Firefox , General , Makers , Plug , Attention
A little visit from the Wallpaper Fairy
2008-04-19 19:22:00 Well, winter's finally over and we've had a refreshing spring rain to cleanse the mental palette and renew our hopes. So I'm too lazy to do naught but clear out the wallpaper posting buffer. As this batch shows, I'm turning towards more positive themes. Rainbows and flowers and stuff. Does this mean something? Maybe not. More About: Wallpaper , Visit
A little visit from the Wallpaper Fairy
2008-04-19 19:22:00 Well, winter's finally over and we've had a refreshing spring rain to cleanse the mental palette and renew our hopes. So I'm too lazy to do naught but clear out the wallpaper posting buffer. As this batch shows, I'm turning towards more positive themes. Rainbows and flowers and stuff. Does this mean something? Maybe not. More About: Site News , Wallpaper , Visit
Flash Mish Mash
2008-04-17 14:47:00 http://www.penguinpetes.com/images/flash/ flash_demo10.html Just a random batch of utterly pointless Flash animations I've been doodling out lately. Click the image below to go to the page where they're running, which may take a minute or two to load, as always. Or click here. Or even click the title. You'll probably want to control-click and open it in a new tab and then go amuse yourself for a minute until it finishes loading. Made with the ever-amazing SWFTools FOSS Flash toolkit for Linux. In this case, there really isn't any code to show for it - I generated these using the same techniques I outlined way back here. Just draw something and then script a loop to increment some numbers to render the next frame, compile all the image frames into Flash, add cheese and serve. Bonus Buck: We have a new pioneer in FOSS-Flash, and the site is here. In the examples, there's a very nice tutorial on making a pure SVG animation in SWFC. More About: Mash
Flash Mish Mash
2008-04-17 14:47:00 http://www.penguinpetes.com/images/flash/ flash_demo10.html Just a random batch of utterly pointless Flash animations I've been doodling out lately. Click the image below to go to the page where they're running, which may take a minute or two to load, as always. Or click here. Or even click the title. You'll probably want to control-click and open it in a new tab and then go amuse yourself for a minute until it finishes loading. Made with the ever-amazing SWFTools FOSS Flash toolkit for Linux. In this case, there really isn't any code to show for it - I generated these using the same techniques I outlined way back here. Just draw something and then script a loop to increment some numbers to render the next frame, compile all the image frames into Flash, add cheese and serve. Bonus Buck: We have a new pioneer in FOSS-Flash, and the site is here. In the examples, there's a very nice tutorial on making a pure SVG animation in SWFC. More About: Mash
Two explorations of how creepy artificial life can get...
2008-04-15 11:45:00 I've just found a Flash demo that is frankly unsettling. Click that link if you dare and wait for it to load. I found myself moving the mouse more to avoid having its gaze look me in the eye. I used to laugh at people who talked about the "uncanny valley", and I am very sorry for that now. Nevertheless, it got me thinking: We have MakeHuman plus Blender on the Linux desktop, and we have a way to make Flash. So, could we do this demo using only FOSS tools? I think it may be possible with pre-rendered frames. You could have separate layers for eyes and face movement, and the rest is just head tilts. However, I think they have something more sophisticated going on, like something built into the ActionScript. Now, as if that weren't enough, here's a four-legged walking thing that will haunt your nightmares. All it needs is a head... There, that put you in the right frame of mind to do your taxes today, did it not? Update: After some webvestigating, I found the site that describe... More About: Life , Artificial Life , Creepy
Two explorations of how creepy artificial life can get...
2008-04-15 11:45:00 I've just found a Flash demo that is frankly unsettling. Click that link if you dare and wait for it to load. I found myself moving the mouse more to avoid having its gaze look me in the eye. I used to laugh at people who talked about the "uncanny valley", and I am very sorry for that now. Nevertheless, it got me thinking: We have MakeHuman plus Blender on the Linux desktop, and we have a way to make Flash. So, could we do this demo using only FOSS tools? I think it may be possible with pre-rendered frames. You could have separate layers for eyes and face movement, and the rest is just head tilts. However, I think they have something more sophisticated going on, like something built into the ActionScript. Now, as if that weren't enough, here's a four-legged walking thing that will haunt your nightmares. All it needs is a head... There, that put you in the right frame of mind to do your taxes today, did it not? Update: After some webvestigating, I found the site that describe... More About: Life , Artificial Life , Creepy
Andy Rooney, the Programmer
2008-04-12 04:15:00 Andy Rooney , God bless 'im, is the guy most people know from the "60 Minutes" news show. He has also produced books and columns, and I could recommend him for light-hearted reading. He has made a name for himself out of being funny while fussing about little things that are too small for anybody to notice. He connects with people in this really egalitarian way, because by talking about some really trivial subject he touches something that is in a lot of people's lives, but they were just too busy to notice. The bad thing about programming bloggers is that too many of them fail to realize that they are not Andy Rooney. They're even too dull to see that they have one leg in Andy Rooney territory. They're doing all of the whining without being any of the funny. I don't need to link to any examples. You've seen it all a hundred times: "Lisp has too many parenthesis." "Perl talks in punctuation marks." "My hands wore out and fell off from typing all the public static virtual... More About: Andy , Programmer
Andy Rooney, the Programmer
2008-04-12 04:15:00 Andy Rooney , God bless 'im, is the guy most people know from the "60 Minutes" news show. He has also produced books and columns, and I could recommend him for light-hearted reading. He has made a name for himself out of being funny while fussing about little things that are too small for anybody to notice. He connects with people in this really egalitarian way, because by talking about some really trivial subject he touches something that is in a lot of people's lives, but they were just too busy to notice. The bad thing about programming bloggers is that too many of them fail to realize that they are not Andy Rooney. They're even too dull to see that they have one leg in Andy Rooney territory. They're doing all of the whining without being any of the funny. I don't need to link to any examples. You've seen it all a hundred times: "Lisp has too many parenthesis." "Perl talks in punctuation marks." "My hands wore out and fell off from typing all the public static virtual ab... More About: General , Andy , Programmer
Crowd-Sourcing a Book From Blogs
2008-04-08 19:51:00 Somehow, the idea of generating whole books from the social web just intrigues me. Last year, I got interested in the Wikinovel project, which actually does seemed to have produced a fairly palatable, if disjointed, piece. I guess it interests me for the same reason that watching an artificial life simulator is fun. Will it be gibberish, or will the thousand monkeys at typewriters produce "Inflexible Logic" this time? Now there's a new experiment which I've just stumbled upon, this time with the possibility of having a more marketable outcome. Meet the Yearblook project. The idea here, as far as I can parse it, is to have the crowd (you're soaking in it) submit and vote up blog posts, and at the end of the year publish a book of blogs - a "blook"? I guess they'll do it through either a vanity press or a Lulu.com account or something. The voting mechanism reminds me of Digg, which makes me shudder in dread, because you only have to see Digg's front page to grasp what that crow... More About: Blogs , Book , Sourcing , Crowd
Crowd-Sourcing a Book From Blogs
2008-04-08 19:51:00 Somehow, the idea of generating whole books from the social web just intrigues me. Last year, I got interested in the Wikinovel project, which actually does seemed to have produced a fairly palatable, if disjointed, piece. I guess it interests me for the same reason that watching an artificial life simulator is fun. Will it be gibberish, or will the thousand monkeys at typewriters produce "Inflexible Logic" this time? Now there's a new experiment which I've just stumbled upon, this time with the possibility of having a more marketable outcome. Meet the Yearblook project. The idea here, as far as I can parse it, is to have the crowd (you're soaking in it) submit and vote up blog posts, and at the end of the year publish a book of blogs - a "blook"? I guess they'll do it through either a vanity press or a Lulu.com account or something. The voting mechanism reminds me of Digg, which makes me shudder in dread, because you only have to see Digg's front page to grasp what that crow... More About: Blogs , Book , Sourcing , Crowd
Flash Demo #9: Keyboard Control and Ball Physics
2008-04-08 15:38:00 Ah, it's about time I picked up Flash again! This demo is the result of 12 grueling hours of scouring every scrap of documentation I could find. I was very determined and pulled an all-nighter, using every method from searching Clusty to groveling through the source code of swfc. But I won: I have finally figured out how to do keyboard control in swfc! Now I will make the job easier for the next seeker of knowledge, so: here's how to control a sprite with the keyboard in SWFTools swfc Flash on Linux. First, the amazingly short code: .flash bbox=400x400 fps=50 .png marble "../icon_image/marble.png" .put marble x=200 y=200 pin=center .sprite Marble .frame 1 .put marble pin=center .end .action: var Xspeed; var Yspeed; var velocity; var inertia; var boundary; Marble.onLoad=function() { velocity=0.45; Xspeed=0; Yspeed=0; inertia=0.98; boundary=176; }; Marble.onEnterFrame=function() { if (Key.isDown(Ke... More About: Physics , Demo , Keyboard , Control
Mr. Helpful Answers Your Searchbag Queries...
2008-04-06 22:13:00 Hello, True Believers! It's time once again to pull up a few items from the search-bag, that list of search terms tracked by my b2evolution stats which show some of the phrases which landed people here. What I'm mostly interested in are the "near-misses" - those phrases which show that the searcher came here looking for something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unhere. bob dobbs ascii art - You asked for it. ù._¿¿Â+_Â ;Ö¿¿,ùú úù__¿_¿_&ique st;,.ú ú_¿/"Í"Ù ÄÍÙ"Í"ø" ' ÿÙÀ~ðó&ique st;. ú_ÚÀÙ -øó,ù .Ú7' ... More About: Answers
Mr. Helpful Answers Your Searchbag Queries...
2008-04-06 22:13:00 Hello, True Believers! It's time once again to pull up a few items from the search-bag, that list of search terms tracked by my b2evolution stats which show some of the phrases which landed people here. What I'm mostly interested in are the "near-misses" - those phrases which show that the searcher came here looking for something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unhere. bob dobbs ascii art - You asked for it. ù._¿¿Â+_ÂÖ¿¿,ùú úù__¿_¿_¿,.ú ú_¿/"Í"Ù ÄÍÙ"Í"ø"' ÿÙÀ~ðó¿. ú_ÚÀÙ -øó,ù .Ú7' )ó_, .ÚÔ ù!¿ú _7ú .Ö.ª, . Äå ªø ªÔÜ ... More About: Answers
How Open Technology Could Lead Us Out Of Recession
2008-03-29 17:39:00 Well, here we all are in the USA, on the brink of market panic. Every other headline and news story is bemoaning our dark economic climate. Layoffs, bankruptcies, and lost jobs galore, plus a weakened US dollar and a continued expensive war campaign, all are lining up to create a "perfect storm" of market downturn. Now, the government can certainly play with their little "economic stimulus" packages all it wants to, but the solution isn't giving everybody a few hundred dollars and a wish for good luck. We need to re-awaken the job market, and a way to do that is to create new opportunities where none existed. Let's see here: is there a sector where we can do this? Ah, yes, science and technology! Here's some suggestions that could boost our national earning power: Patent reform: I know that full patent reform is beyond all hope, but we could at least amend it. Apply a new law which makes a patent void if the patent-holder does not manufacture and sell a product that directly ... More About: Technology , General , Open , Recession , Lead
How Open Technology Could Lead Us Out Of Recession
2008-03-29 17:39:00 Well, here we all are in the USA, on the brink of market panic. Every other headline and news story is bemoaning our dark economic climate. Layoffs, bankruptcies, and lost jobs galore, plus a weakened US dollar and a continued expensive war campaign, all are lining up to create a "perfect storm" of market downturn. Now, the government can certainly play with their little "economic stimulus" packages all it wants to, but the solution isn't giving everybody a few hundred dollars and a wish for good luck. We need to re-awaken the job market, and a way to do that is to create new opportunities where none existed. Let's see here: is there a sector where we can do this? Ah, yes, science and technology! Here's some suggestions that could boost our national earning power: Patent reform: I know that full patent reform is beyond all hope, but we could at least amend it. Apply a new law which makes a patent void if the patent-holder does not manufacture and sell a product that directly ... More About: Technology , Open , Recession , Lead
Yet Another Random String Generator
2008-03-28 15:36:00 I was browsing through the excellent Shell-Fu site and I ran across this simple random password generator. Handy, but a good candidate for aliasing since it's relatively long. Then, I figured why not make it a multi-function script? So, here's what I call 'Randstring.sh': #!/bin/bash USAGESTRING="USAGE Randstring.sh l(letter),L(LETTER),n(number),a(all) N(length) example: 'Randstring.sh n 8' returns random 8-digit number" if [ "$1" ]; then ATRIB="$1" else echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 fi if [ "$2" ]; then LENGTH="$2" else echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 fi case $ATRIB in l) ATRIBSTRING="a-z" ;; L) ATRIBSTRING="A-Z" ;; n) ATRIBSTRING="0-9" ;; a) ATRIBSTRING="A-Za-z0-9" ;; *) echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 ;; esac case $LENGTH in [0-9]*) LENGTHARG=$LENGTH ;; *) echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 ;; esac echo $(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc $ATRIBSTRING | head -c$LENGTHARG) exit 0 I'm using a lot of argument-checking here. I might as ... More About: Random , Generator , String
Yet Another Random String Generator
2008-03-28 15:36:00 I was browsing through the excellent Shell-Fu site and I ran across this simple random password generator. Handy, but a good candidate for aliasing since it's relatively long. Then, I figured why not make it a multi-function script? So, here's what I call 'Randstring.sh': #!/bin/bash USAGESTRING="USAGE Randstring.sh l(letter),L(LETTER),n(number),a(all) N(length) example: 'Randstring.sh n 8' returns random 8-digit number" if [ "$1" ]; then ATRIB="$1" else echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 fi if [ "$2" ]; then LENGTH="$2" else echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 fi case $ATRIB in l) ATRIBSTRING="a-z" ;; L) ATRIBSTRING="A-Z" ;; n) ATRIBSTRING="0-9" ;; a) ATRIBSTRING="A-Za-z0-9" ;; *) echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 ;; esac case $LENGTH in [0-9]*) LENGTHARG=$LENGTH ;; *) echo -e $USAGESTRING exit 1 ;; esac echo $(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc $ATRIBSTRING | head -c$LENGTHARG) exit 0 I'm using a lot of argument-checking here. I might as ... More About: Random , Generator , String
Someday, it will be legal to strangle trolls...
2008-03-25 23:30:00 I guess part of the game when you're a FOSS blogger is that every great once in a while, you have to swat away some brat who comes running up to hurl spitballs at you. I don't usually stoop to doing it myself (a) because 90 other bloggers need something to rant about, too, and (b) as I mentioned in L.I.C. symptom #3, pigeons will always crap on the statues of heroes. But I haven't taken my turn lately, so it's my day to play whack-a-mole. After all, how much trouble is it to hose off some pigeon droppings? Today's pigeon crapping on the alternative-computer-platform-statue is Don Reisinger, who took a break from alphabetizing his dingleberry collection today to assure us, in the most strident tones, that we will some day hate Apple and Google as we now do Microsoft. Yeah, I know. Cheap shot, easily deflected, so why even bother? I dunno. It's slum day. 'Sides, if Slashdot can serve it, I can throw it away. Mr. Reisinger backs up his claim by writing an amazing science fict... More About: Legal , Trolls
Someday, it will be legal to strangle trolls...
2008-03-25 23:30:00 I guess part of the game when you're a FOSS blogger is that every great once in a while, you have to swat away some brat who comes running up to hurl spitballs at you. I don't usually stoop to doing it myself (a) because 90 other bloggers need something to rant about, too, and (b) as I mentioned in L.I.C. symptom #3, pigeons will always crap on the statues of heroes. But I haven't taken my turn lately, so it's my day to play whack-a-mole. After all, how much trouble is it to hose off some pigeon droppings? Today's pigeon crapping on the alternative-computer-platform-statue is Don Reisinger, who took a break from alphabetizing his dingleberry collection today to assure us, in the most strident tones, that we will some day hate Apple and Google as we now do Microsoft. Yeah, I know. Cheap shot, easily deflected, so why even bother? I dunno. It's slum day. 'Sides, if Slashdot can serve it, I can throw it away. Mr. Reisinger backs up his claim by writing an amazing science fict... More About: General , Legal , Trolls
Image Magick Banner Generator - part 5
More articles from this author:2008-03-25 07:17:00 So here we are all at the end of the Image Magick banner generation project. So I was twiddling about typing different little strings into "random_banner.sh" and displaying the results. And then I had the idea to write this script: "make_banners.sh" #!/bin/bash for NUM in $(seq 1 100); do WORD1=$(./random_line.sh /usr/share/dict/words) WORD2=$(./random_line.sh /usr/share/dict/words) NEWFILE=$WORD1"_"$WORD2".png" ./random_banner.sh "$WORD1 $WORD2" mv Banner .png ./banner_gallery/$NEWFILE done exit 0 What it does is pick two random words from /usr/share/dict/words and pop them through the banner generator, then save them in a subfolder. 100 at a time. Then I can browse through the folder later and cherry-pick anything interesting. The result is a toy that's half word-play and half image-play. Most of the results either have no meaning or aren't very pretty, but some of them are very interesting. Some are just crying out to have blogs written under... More About: Generator , Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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