Paul Sutton @zleap@social.cleverlibre.org

Usenet 25th December 2006

On usenet, just another normal day.
In quiet corners disputes wend their way
Restrainedly on bondage, loud on dice,
Quixotically on healthcare, droll on ice,
Quite passionately on the way to write
And fast and free on books, all day, all night.
No tinselled turkeys here, no slick false glitz,
Goodwill extends all year, except to twits,
And nobody is here because they must.
The level of debate implies a trust
That words get thoughts across, that talk is good
And “here” exists, (no reason why it should).
When Christmas cheer and smiles are wearing thin
One more unwanted present hits the bin
I think of those I care for, far away
On usenet, just another normal day.

Jo Walton

"A perfectly preserved dinosaur egg highlights link to modern birds

Embryonic dinosaur fossils are extremely rare. It is the first time any have shown signs of a distinctive birdlike posture known as “tucking” — with the head under the right arm."

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/perfectly-preserved-dinosaur-egg-highlights-link-modern-birds-rcna9425

Link to the science paper

https://www.cell.com/iscience/pdf/S2589-0042(21)01487-5.pdf

#openacess

"Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia"

Quietly, continuously, members of the #Wikipedia Wikiproject:Climate Change work to maintain the scientific integrity of articles related to #ClimateChange against the vandalism of #climate change deniers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-59452614

#Article #Volunteerism

Best practices for writing Code Comments

https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/23/best-practices-for-writing-code-comments/

OpenCV Tutorial demonstrates how a Python program is built to measure the distance of a hand using a single webcam

Apart from the information on how to use these Python libraries (hand recognition and tracking), it's a very interesting exercise which shows how you build out any program piece by piece, by testing the logic at each step. This is, of course, not possible if you don't have open source code to examine and re-use.

I love how the logic is unpacked at each stage, and it is the approach most programmers will use to simplify what can become complex as it progresses to completion. You test each stage before starting a new one, and this is where you'd notice the X measurement is not sufficient to provide accurate results, and why the diagonal measurement is more accurate. Then testing whether it is a linear relationship or not, and so you keep building up the following stages.

Although this was for hand recognition and distance interpretation, the type of approach could be followed for face tracking or anything else.

See OpenCV Knows Where Your Hand Is

#technology #opensource #programming #coding #Python

Imagem/foto

> We have to say, [Murtaza]’s example game in his latest video isn’t very exciting. However, the OpenCV technique he uses to track a hand and determine its distance from a single camera i…
https://matomo.gadgeteer.co.za/piwik.php?idsite=1&rec=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgadgeteer.co.za%2Fopencv-tutorial-demonstrates-how-a-python-program-is-built-to-measure-the-distance-of-a-hand-using-a-single-webcam%2F%3Fpk_campaign%3Dfeed%26pk_kwd%3Dopencv-tutorial-demonstrates-how-a-python-program-is-built-to-measure-the-distance-of-a-hand-using-a-single-webcam&action_name=OpenCV+Tutorial+demonstrates+how+a+Python+program+is+built+to+measure+the+distance+of+a+hand+using+a+single+webcam&urlref=https%3A%2F%2Fgadgeteer.co.za%2Ffeed%2F

https://hackaday.com/2021/12/23/opencv-knows-where-your-hand-is/ https://squeet.me/objects/962c3e104962e86073850dce8d6033bc0e8ec21f

The Hubble Space Telescope has been up there for over 30 years, expanding and improving our knowledge of the kosmos.

What have we learned? What can the bigger and more sensitive James Webb Space Telescope do that Hubble can't? How can Webb and Hubble be used together to teach us even more?

"Hubble – Eye in the Sky", Episode 3: "Time Machines"

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13633

#HST #Hubble #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope

NASA's video "29 days on the edge" about about the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope deployment:

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13952

This time without any Google involvement, directly from NASA's own site. I didn't realize this was available, even though I should have. This one might work better on some devices.

Thanks, @lnxw48a1 nu.federati.net/notice/3388670

#JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope

Did you know that the FSF has a PeerTube account? PeerTube is a decentralized, federated video platform powered by ActivityPub and WebTorrent, and you'll find us on the Framatube instance: https://u.fsf.org/36m

@dudebsd @retroedgetech

IMO using duopoly devices allows companies like Google/Apple to shape invasive standards in innovation/future of smartphones.

#Pinephone is a way to #decentralize power away from monopoly, over direction of smartphone usage, and like you say, social control.

People can't see it. + I'm all for degoogled devices, but think it's important to not make android/apple the only choices.

Supporting Linux phones today means choices tomorrow and "freedom" competition IMO.

Less than 24 hours after launching https://translate.pixelfed.org we have 33 members who have contributed translations for 16 different languages on #pixelfed!

Thank you everyone! ❤️

[reminder] the 4.0 stable version of #PeerTube was released last week!
📖 New features detail: https://framablog.org/2021/11/30/peertube-v4-prenez-le-pouvoir-pour-presenter-vos-videos/
👩‍💻 The code: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
💶 Support us: https://soutenir.framasoft.org

Lawyers behind Rohingya Facebook lawsuit call it a reckoning for regulating social media https://restofworld.org/2021/meta-150-billion-rohingya-lawsuit/

I get that many people don't read scientific papers and I get why. This makes me question, is there a demand for "audio papers"? Like with audio books, then you can hear it while doing other things

they should make USB with screws like old VGA, DSUB or military connectors have

DuckDuckGo is building its own desktop #browser

"DuckDuckGo takes aim at Google Chrome but insists it isn't going to fork Google's Chromium project upon which Chrome, Edge and others are built on. [..] Instead of forking Chromium or anything else, we're building our desktop app around the OS-provided rendering engines (like on mobile), allowing us to strip away a lot of the unnecessary cruft and clutter that's accumulated over the years in major browsers"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29648132

#Weblite ?

if anyone is looking for a good PhD programme: https://uni-freiburg.de/university/jobs/00001972/