All posts by AM

video, wordpresser

The outdoor sky/clouds have joined my plants stream

I decided to add a 5th camera to the live stream of my plants (not) growing. This new camera captures the outdoor sky/clouds, and serves as a natural reference to what time of day is it, since I do not overlay any date or time indication in the sources. As I write, it is dark outside – not the best timing :).

For now, the stream is available on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/arturmarques_dot_com.

In the past, instead of a live stream, my option was to build time-lapse videos. To assist in the process, I coded solutions that build automatic time-lapse videos from images datasets, with configurable quality. When using these tools, I usually build 24 hours videos, but I could request the output of a larger or shorter time span – for example, I have enough material to construct months-long files. The key reason why I have not been doing so, is that I have moved much of the raw data to the cloud, which is not as instantaneously readable, as local physical volumes. When I started playing with these media and doing these easy, fun, observations, one key reward was being able to promptly unveil whatever had happened in the past x hours.

I will adapt my solutions to the new cloud storage and automate the process again. Until then, the live stream should be available with some regularity.

urls, wordpresser

URLs "p1" – 89 resources

I am an avid WWW surfer, with hundreds of websites visited each month, sometimes daily. I bookmark them all, at least for logging purposes. These posts having the "urls" category, capture what was on my browser on a specific date. I hope you enjoy some of these shared resources.

wordpresser

Listening to Kelpe – "Ex-Aquarium"

Forget about conventional “power music”. This is it! Contained, yet systematically “growing”, not in beats-per-unit-of-time, nor in a linear fashion, but, overall, in stage size and/or “crafting” of a particular audio ambiance; effectively embracing, even invading of the listener’s attention, sometimes releasing after peaks.
Highly captivating music, combining instruments, as simple as single chords and basic drum plates, with laboriously thought, felt, loved!, musical environments.

Congratulations to “Kelpe”, Kel McKeown! This particular “Ex-Aquarium” (2008) album I am listening to, is a wonderful and intelligent creation. I am glad I found it – pay special attention to track #2, “Whirlwound”.

sw, wordpresser

youtube-dl – an absurd, sad situation

What follows is my briefest introduction to “copyright”, as I limitedly understand it, followed by my personal thoughts on yesterday’s RIIA initiated DMCA takedown of the project “youtube-dl” from github.com.

The full request for the takedown of “youtube-dl”, and many of its forks, is at
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md

Intro
“Copyright”, from an economic perspective, is a set of monopolies given to creators, to incentivize “creation”. The rational for these incentives is that creation is hard, failure-prone, and copying is relatively trivial.
However, if these monopolies were excessive, for example lasting “forever”, then creators, their heirs, or to whom the rights/monopolies were sold, would constitute a permanent bottleneck between the creation and the opportunity for society, as a whole, to benefit from it, with unrestricted freedom. Thus, the monopolies are time-limited – they have an expiration date.

There are also exceptions in the law. In the USA, “fair use” is the chapter to read, to understand exceptions. For example, showing a copyrighted video to a class of students, in an educational context, will likely be valid.
In Europe, exceptions are similar – international treaties signed by most countries have “harmonized” national copyright systems -, but include explicitly enunciated use-cases, that bypass the chance of litigation and will not require a judge to interpret particular situations as “fair use” or not, namely some learning acts at public libraries.

The creator alone has the exclusive rights to decide who/what can be done with the creation; if/how it can be modified, and if/how it can be distributed. Societies, in the so-called “Knowledge Economy” we are living in, will mostly progress fueled by better knowledge, so creators are the professionals that modern societies need and “Copyright” law must keep evolving to keep the proper balance between the creators’ rewards and the societal benefits.

The “DMCA” (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is one of the many changes that Copyright law incorporated, in the USA. However, it is an ugly one, because until year 2000 clean reverse engineering practices would probably be legit, and since then, if for bypassing certain TPMs (Technology Protection Measures) that can “compromise” the creator, they might not be.

My thoughts
Clean reverse engineering practices usually are extraordinary innovations and should not be barred. The perverse effect of making certain TPM-defeating processes illegal, even when identified cleanly, with absolutely no access to the source intellectual property, is that the knowledge of the available bypasses will rest in the hands of the very few who do manage to find them. The chance for improvement is lost and asymmetries intensify, with solutions only available to few, definitely not available to the entire community, leaving most under the false believe that the current fruition model is the single possible one. This has fueled “bug bounty” programs, thus contributing to alternative reward systems.

These are very hard topics to discuss lightly, and this post sure is light. But, right now, I find it very negative, wrong on many levels – economical and intellectual -, damaging for all in the long-run, and intensely disrespectful for the thinkers, writers and coders involved, that RIIA is attacking years of hard labored source code developed by a community of intellectuals.

The “youtube-dl” source code has probably done nothing more than to promote the exact same artists that, allegedly, are being hurt by it. This is truly unfair. Have common sense! Some of the referenced artists themselves should take a good look at the mirror and try to assess if these tools are taking food out of their tables – what they are indirectly doing, is taking the creation pleasure out of the lives of innocents, who just enjoy creating software. Have some decency. Live and love, and let live and love.

I also tweeted about this:
https://twitter.com/my_dot_com/

gaming, racing, wordpresser

Prost’s 1988 McLaren F1 @Algarve = 01:27:594

This is a 01:27:594 lap around the Algarve track, racing Alain Prost’s 1988 F1 McLaren. As I write, the lap record is only 11 seconds faster, in a F1 2020 car.

From 2020-10-23 to 2020-10-25, the Formula 1 Championship is at a new racing circuit, where F1 cars have never raced before: the “Autódromo Internacional do Algarve”, in Portimão, Algarve, Portugal. F1 never officially raced, but did test there, in the past.

In a season so competitively poor and lacking dispute for the wins, the interest is beyond the podium. Tracks like Algarve’s are a very welcome addition to the calendar, not just because they are new, but mainly because they are different: in this case, the layout brings variance in the Z-axis. Cars go up and down, frequently! Corners are blinder and wider than usual, allowing and even inviting alternative trajectories, enabling a human-factor not so evident in other locations. I am enjoying it! It is unique and F1 needs variables that can contribute to less predictable race results.

I decided to try it myself, racing Alain Prost’s 1988 McLaren F1.
I have also upped my simulator’s resolution, from 2560×1600 to 3440×1440. The wider ratio is more immersive. I changed for productivity reasons, not expecting gaming benefits, but they are there.

Here is a video of a 01:27:594 (minutes:seconds:milliseconds) lap, using rFactor 2. Contrary to many, I never found the sound of this car’s Honda engine particularly enjoyable or spectacular. In-car, the noise is too regular, providing relatively poor acoustic queues for when to shift gears, up or down. Modern F1 cars literally beep the drivers when it is time to up-shift. This car also had no speed limiter and no driver-assists, and that is good.
I find the McLaren heavy, high down-force, trustable. That is its key positive attribute: it is predictable – after a short time, you know how it will behave, except when on the limit on old tires, when it becomes less clear how the tire wear will condition outcomes.
I dislike the slow gearbox and there is nothing the driver can do, to compensate it: the setup only allows different gear ratios.

Regarding the track itself, it is ever-changing in altitude, and challenging to the left-front tire under braking, because there are two right-corners which require heavy braking while not in a straight line.

The video has two segments: the first ~90 seconds are captured from in-car, exactly as seen, when playing. The second half is footage from the “TV” camera. Enjoy!

video, wordpresser

My plants, (not) growing, LIVE! On Twitch

For long, I have been having fun with timelapse videos of my plants growing. Some of those videos have reached
this blog @ https://arturmarques.com/wp ;
and
my main youtube channel @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUa0DzKskGo0iRYP8QzWsvA/

Today, I decided to combine the streams from four of the cameras that take the raw snapshots for the timelapse videos, into a single video feed. I am putting it live on Twitch:

@ https://www.twitch.tv/arturmarques_dot_com

It is live from my place, but it is all fully automatic. I am not monitoring the Twitch room and feedback, if any. It is an experiment, to check how reliable the stream can be, and what kind of interactions it can ignite on self-motivated spectators.

Four of the vases – the ones on upper-right corner of the video stream – are trying to grow Chili seeds, since yesterday. I read that it is hard to do it, with temperatures below 30. The temperature in the room where the plants are, is below that, so there is a high chance of failure. It is very probable that nothing will happen for many days.

The plants are on artificial light for ~8 hours/day. The rest of the time, they live with whatever ambient light the room gets, which can be very irregular. When the room gets dark enough, the plants will remain visible with infrared lighting.
In an effort to have something on camera, due to the difficulty in growing Chili, I have also planted Dill and Mint.

Enjoy, if you can.

Health, wordpresser

Bad Eyeglasses = "Eyekeeper Petit" + Suertree "Anti-Bleue"

I had never used eyeglasses until recently. The many hours surrounded by computer monitors, require permanent close-distance focusing from the eyes, which is much more tiring than long-distance focusing.

Two doctors diagnosed me +1.50 diopters eyeglasses, but I had already started using them, on my own, self-diagnosed, after having experimented with +0.5, +1.0 and +1.5 affordable spectacles.
I think doctors can do better, in cases where the problem’s main source can be simple tiredness. They subject the patient to optical devices, to measure the proper needed corrections on sphere, cylinder and axis values, and may even request “tracking laser tomography” exams. However, it is rare for someone to have the initiative to talk about the effects of screen size, screen hours, screen light composition, (no) usage of screen filters, etc. Hence, I have been self-discovering.

I found that I do NOT always need the same correction and that a good “blue-light filter” can be extremely helpful. For example, as I write, I am using some very affordable “Eyekeeper” +1.0 glasses (~5 euros a piece!), and they focus exactly what I need. But, some six hours ago, all I needed was a negligible +0.5 correction, using my favorites: a product from Gunnar, featuring their “patented” lenses and light-filtering technology (~90 euros). They do rest my eyes! Hours after “Gunnar”, I often do NOT need glasses at all; but, after some time, I restart to feel that I could benefit from assistance.
After a full day of work, during the night, I might go +1.50. For those diopters, my affordable favorite is from “Prospek”. I also always need the +1.50 power, when using very high-resolution tablet devices.

My key finding is that the visual assistance that I need, while working, is not always the same – it fluctuates, from NO correction, to +1.50 diopters. The shape of the lenses and some light-filters can make a strong difference. I love the “Gunnar” brand for that.

I keep searching and experimenting, but I prefer to shop online, and I think there is NO good ecommerce for these products yet. I have been buying them from Amazon, with inconsistent availability and inconsistent results.

I spend more than I should at several Amazon stores. My current favorite is amazon.de; years ago, it was amazon.co.uk; occasionally amazon.es beats both. However, on August 2020, amazon.fr, where I had never shopped before, was the place to go for affordable, available, and deliverable to my location, spectacles with “blue-filter” and/or configurable diopters.

I bought a trio of “Suertree +1.50” with “90% blue filter”, and a single “Eyekeeper Petit +1.50, no blue-filter”. I disliked both and reviewed both with 2 (out of 5) stars. Here are copies of my reviews, left at amazon.fr.

For the “Suertree”:
“I own several +1.50 glasses and I can say there is something wrong with the item that I got from Suertree. Their focus is not sharp, as if I had picked the wrong diopters. Moreover, the blue filter interferes with the overall vision quality, mainly contributing to mirror effects with peripheral light (light that comes NOT from the center, but from the sides).”

For the “Eyekeeper”:
“I have other Eyekeeper glasses, and the brand became, to me, an icon of good products at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, not this time. These glasses look good, are light, but do NOT focus as sharply as other Eyekeeper I own, of the same +1.50 diopters, which is frustrating. On top of the focus issue, the frame gets in the way, meaning you can see it while wearing the product, because the lenses are smaller than they probably should be, and there are times they do not embrace the full vision field. Very disappointed with this item.”


eyekepper_lecteur_petit_verre_lunettes_de_lecture_sans_monture__1.50_diop_768.jpg
https://arturmarques.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/eyekepper_lecteur_petit_verre_lunettes_de_lecture_sans_monture__1.50_diop_768.jpg (image/jpeg)

eyekepper_lecteur_petit_verre_lunettes_de_lecture_sans_monture__1.50_diop_768.jpg


eyekepper_lecteur_petit_verre_lunettes_de_lecture_sans_monture__1.50_diop_gunnar_prospek_768.jpg
https://arturmarques.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/eyekepper_lecteur_petit_verre_lunettes_de_lecture_sans_monture__1.50_diop_gunnar_prospek_768.jpg (image/jpeg)

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suertree_90pc_lunettes_de_lecture_anti-lumiere_bleue__1.50_diop_768.jpg
https://arturmarques.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/suertree_90pc_lunettes_de_lecture_anti-lumiere_bleue__1.50_diop_768.jpg (image/jpeg)

suertree_90pc_lunettes_de_lecture_anti-lumiere_bleue__1.50_diop_768.jpg
Technical Details
Listening, Spotify, wordpresser

Pet Shop Boys – Hotspot

Not bad at all! In the 1990s, I loved “Pet Shop Boys” (PSB) – they were innovative, managed to blend intelligent lyrics with electronic music and psychoacoustics to make the listener feel good. There was an époque, when PSB were constant in my music consumption habits.
Then, with the Internet, the “Music Industry”, and/or music itself, changed forever. The sudden availability of the entire world’s music, not only changed business models, but also exposed people to creations previously unknown to them, increasing competition, highlighting differences, and causing seismic changes in tastes and listening behaviors.
Past PSB music, remained engrained in me as “great!”, but some releases, from the late 2000s and 2010s, failed to seduce me – there was better music to listen. The “Market of Attention” was causing its disruption.
Today, on Spotify, I decided to listen the latest PSB album, titled “Hotspot”, and I have to admit “not bad at all!”. In fact, “pretty pretty good”, as CYE’s Larry would say.
“Hotspot” is no “fly away” album. It does not cut roots, nor could or should it. Still, it feels a real “creation”, not a mere reformulation of the old. It has building work in it. You can feel the pain of the need to balance PSB’s past signatures with something new. It hurts; not all tracks are seductive. The closing track, “Wedding in Berlin”, was a poor finish, to me, but, overall, the album is fresh and enjoyable.
I am back to PSB. I will now (re)discover what they’ve been selling for that past decade.

urls, wordpresser

URLs "p1" 20200915 – 125 resources

I am an avid WWW surfer, with hundreds of websites visited each month, sometimes daily. I bookmark them all, at least for logging purposes. These posts having the "urls" category, capture what was on my browser on a specific date. I hope you enjoy some of these shared resources.


20200915_urls_p1_768.jpg
https://arturmarques.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/20200915_urls_p1_768.jpg (image/jpeg)

20200915_urls_p1_768.jpg
Technical Details
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    public-playlist, Spotify, wordpresser

    Kai Whiston, HDMIRROR Remix – Fall in Your Hands

    I have absolutely no idea who Kai Whiston is, except for the URL he (?) publishes on Twitter:
    http://smarturl.it/DEARBOYEI

    What I know is that KW’s music probably leaves very few indifferent, or at rest. It induces change, shock, contrast. It is charged, menacing, so unexpected at times, that I enjoy it and revisit it, to shake/unlock myself in my own creative activities.

    This music probably gets classified as “electronic”, but the classification is now vague, embracing nearly all the music that is produced, if the term is interpreted as “involving artificial, electronically produced rhythms”.

    The “fall in your hands” track is the sixth from the album “No World Eternal”, which is quite a work of art and joy, for my ears.