pubutil

If you haven’t already heard of it, you might enjoy the Piano Puzzler podcast[0]

“Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer … [someone calls in and] listens to Bruce play his Piano Puzzler™. They then try to do two things: name the hidden tune, and name the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking.”

Of course, you can play along at home as you listen.

[0] https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381443927/performance-today-s-p...

Your story reminded me of one of my own:

A few years back I was helping clear out my parents’ garage, as they were having plumbing issues and needed a path cleared for the plumber. Eventually I come across a strange looking box with some weird brown tubes poking out of it. I look up at the ceiling, and see the waste pipe from a toilet. There was not only a hole in the ceiling, but a huge hole in the top of the waste pipe.

Turns out that strange box was full of newspapers that had had raw sewage dripping onto it for who knows how long. Those “brown tubes” were actually some sort of fungus, and when I looked closer, it was quite literally spewing out spores. It looked like steam.

I was horrified at the idea of this fungus surviving on nothing but sewage and ran to grab a respirator before rushing the thing into a compost bin. Wish I’d taken a photo, but my mind was elsewhere at the time.

My comment edit window closed, but if you trust me, I also made up a quick little pre-baked shortcut that should be fairly user-friendly[1]. Will prompt for date range input, calculate and display total upload size, ask for confirmation, prompt for upload location, then show an alert on completion. Also has some very rudimentary error handling in that it takes a file count before and after the upload, and warns if the two counts don't match up.

A few things to note (applies to my above comment as well):

-If you have a less powerful iOS device, your screen may go semi-unresponsive during the upload process. My iPhone XS goes unresponsive until the upload finishes (less the ability to terminate the shortcut via the "stop" button), but my 2017 iPad Pro is totally usable during upload.

-You may get an error along the lines of "This Shortcut is trying to share more than [x] photos." You can allow this by going to iOS Settings > Shortcuts > Advanced, then toggling on "Allow Sharing Large Amounts of Data"

-Again, there's no progress bar, so it may help to run the Shortcut from the editing pane in the Shortcuts app. That way you can at least watch the app step through the script.

[1] https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/d3258e1d720548cd9e635bbe090...

I'm sorry, seems I misspoke. It seems that when you look at an album in Photos you can select all; if you're in the camera roll or elsewhere, you won't get that option. Not sure why Apple would do that, but maybe they'll change it with the Photos rework in iOS 18.

As an alternative, here's a tiny script through iOS' Shortcuts app that selects photos in a date range and sends them to a Samba share through Files.[1] This time I actually tested, and was able to successfully run the Shortcut to copy a date range of photos/videos from the Photos app to my Samba share.

Quick instructions, in case you need them:

1. Create a new Shortcut and add a "Find Photos" module (You can search with the bar at the bottom). Add a filter, set it according to the screenshot[1], starting from "Date Taken" and ending at the stop date.

2. Add a "Save File" module beneath the Photos module (icon visible next to "Save Photos" in the screenshot). Shortcuts should auto-populate the selected photos as a variable so it reads "Save Photos". Hit the ">" next to "Save Photos" and tick any options you need.

3. Make sure to modify the date range each time you need to run the Shortcut.

You can also add/modify filters in each module to better suit your needs. For example, instead of "Date Taken" you could select by "Creation Date", or add in a "Media Type" filter so you only return photos and not videos (or vice-versa).

One thing to know: There's no progress bar so it's helpful to run the Shortcut from the Shortcuts app so you can see when it finishes executing/transferring. You should see a little 'stop' button with a semicircle around it when a Shortcut is executing from the app; it'll turn into a '...' button when it finishes.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/LPsQ8au.jpeg

Have you tried using the Files app for image/file transfers? You can add Samba (and other) shares in there by tapping the '...' in the upper-right corner, hitting 'Connect to Server', then inputting your local server's address and connecting. I use this not just for photos, but for transferring various files and docs to/from my phone/home server.

You mentioned not wanting to mass-select 2000+ photos. If the photos you're uploading fall within a certain date range, you can open the Photos app, search for the date range of photos you want to upload (e.g. "April 20 2024 to today", or "sept 21 2018 to mar 2020"). It'll return photos taken in that date range, where you can tap 'See All', then 'Select' > 'Select All' at the top of the screen. Then you can hit the 'Share' dialogue and upload to your server through Files without having to scroll and select tons of individual pics. Keep in mind that you can't use a '-' in place of the word 'to' when specifying a date range for some reason.

If your images are family memories, you might be interested in Immich[1] (if you're open to making changes to your photo storage setup). Stand up and configure the local server, install the smartphone app, enable automatic sync, and it'll automatically upload new photos from your phone when you open the Immich app. No need for you to manually keep track of your photo syncs. Built to be a local Google Photos replacement. Has features like shared albums, face recognition/person naming, smart search, etc. AI tasks, like everything else, are done entirely locally. It's a nice piece of software, and lots of people (including privacy advocate Louis Rossmann) vouch for it.

[1] https://immich.app/

I found Krunner entirely by accident after switching from Windows. PowerToys has a quick launcher that's triggered with Alt+Space. Used the shortcut out of habit after switching to a KDE environment, and was pleasantly surprised to see a similar interface pop up!

I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised. AT&T has been complicit in mass surveillance in the past. The first example that comes to mind is Room 641A: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Frankly, I think it’s safer to assume that most (American) communications companies are involved in some level of surveillance.

I reluctantly admit that a friend recently tricked me with something similar using a website called “Peter Answers”

Same exact concept: you ask a question, your friend types a “petition” (which is actually the answer, disguised as another phrase), then types in the question. Then they submit and the site displays the answer your friend typed in.

Initially this had me freaking out thinking there was some AI super scraper pulling from the chasm of shadow data. Then the logical part of my brain kicked in and asked a question only my friend would have the answer to, then watched his fingers as he typed, which quickly cleared things up.

It’s a smart concept though, and a damn good prank.

I got around this limitation by adding my home NAS to the Files app. On the iOS side: set up the SMB connection in Files, hit the Share button on files I want to transfer, point it to a folder on the NAS, and transfer. On the PC side, I just grab the file in Explorer.

Airdrop works well for sharing files to other people's iOS devices, but I'd argue SMB is actually better for my use case. Airdrop sends files to a Mac's Downloads folder. SMB transferred files go exactly where I want them on the first try. The difference is just a couple extra taps in the 'Share' modal.

Though I must admit this isn't a solution for everyone. I doubt many iPhone users have a NAS stood up at home and would be happy to spend money on the 'simpler' solution of purchasing turnkey products and services from Apple.

I definitely believe that. Years ago, I had an interview scheduled with a bank’s IT department. Checked their Glassdoor page and it was littered with negative reviews, with obviously fake positive reviews peppered in.

I took the interview anyway because I really needed work at the time. Got some 1-on-1 time with the IT guys and the first thing they said was,

“You read the reviews on Glassdoor, didn’t you?” “Yes..” “Well, don’t worry, IT is pretty isolated from all that”

Cool, I guess?

Next, I got some time with a VP. He saw on my resume that I’d done some work for a Christian church. He said,

“Yeah, I love to debate religion at the water cooler!”

Had he taken some time to get to know me, he’d know I’m not religious and probably would have held his tongue.

I got offered the job. Naturally, I didn’t take it.

Like others have said, Glassdoor is good to see problem spots in negative reviews. Positive reviews are meaningless in my eyes.

For reference, the bank was called Bank of Internet at the time. They’ve since rebranded to Axos and I continue to recommend against them. I know nothing about their financial credibility, but I can’t in good faith recommend anyone support a company that allows people in positions of power to “debate religion at the water cooler.” That’s a hostile work environment.

This “hold an object while falling asleep” technique sounds very similar to a technique I read about maybe 15 years ago at an avant-garde sleep away arts camp. It was in the context of lucid dreaming and not increasing creativity, though.

That technique didn’t involve holding an object, but going to sleep with your elbow against the floor/bed and your forearm raised. When you started to fall asleep your arm would fall and wake you up as it hit the floor/bed.

It also suggesting sleeping with your head facing north, but that part seems less scientific to me. Nevertheless, very interesting how this came back around.

This is especially disappointing considering CBS owns what seems to be one of the more popular sports statistic suites: https://www.statcrew.com/

It looks to me that this is a similar concept to those malicious “virus alert” websites that instruct you to call someone in India. Then (after some fearmongering, and maybe bullying) they commandeer your computer, run netstat, and tell you that you have viruses that only an expensive yearly subscription can fix.

I also have to wonder how many people are outright ignorant about iOS’s subscription cancellation menus. The menu is kind of hidden away in the Settings app. Not only that, but in my experience, subscriptions through iOS show up as charges from Apple on bank statements; no indication of what you were charged for. Hell, even payments to the Apple Store for physical products show almost the same nomenclature, with no indication that it’s a different type of purchase.

That Stephen Malinowski link was great. I don’t know that song by name, but I could unmistakably tell what song it was just by looking at the visualization (even though I left the video muted)!

You should like the JSR site then! The creators have put a lot of love into their site.

They have multiple music stations, multiple “TV” channels, a graffiti board, and a chat box that all try to recreate that Jet Set vibe. Just be cautious opening that graffiti board at work...

If you like video game music in the background, you might like these sites:

Rainwave (general VGM): https://rainwave.cc/all/

Jet Set Radio (more high-energy, but they have a lo-fi station or two now): https://jetsetradio.live/

Nightwave Plaza (not exactly VGM, but vaporwave makes good ambient music IMO): https://plaza.one/

Speaking of Krisp, I’m curious about other people’s experiences using their noise suppression with Discord.

I personally had it enabled (by accident) for over a week, and during that week I noticed people were either ignoring me or not hearing me. I discovered it was the latter when I disabled the noise suppression option. Krisp was suppressing my voice in addition to noise.

Other people I know who’ve tried it have had similar results, so I’m wondering if we’re using it wrong or if Krisp just isn’t worth using at this point.

I spent a bit of time on Recompose’s site a couple of months back out of curiosity. One of the things that stuck out to me was that there were stipulations regarding a person’s medical records. The presence of prion diseases or hepatitis were listed as reasons one could be rejected by Recompose, among other illnesses.

I want to say they’re aware of the issue, but when I went back to look for this info today I couldn’t find it. So unfortunately you’ll have to take this with a grain of salt.

What you said makes perfect sense but I still refuse to use a platform whose founder called people “dumb fucks” for trusting him and using the platform.

I want to think they’re referring more to the culture of doing things you wouldn’t normally do in order to gain popularity. Like that one girl who drank a ton of Benadryl.

The problem is that those people exist on every social media platform, not just TikTok.

My experience in tech support was similar though, of course, it also depends on the person. I’ve met CAD folks who didn’t understand a password reset, and secretaries who gave great feedback on infrastructure.

I usually experienced much less resistance explaining tasks and problems to people close to my age. Younger people would listen to a point until I saw their eyes gloss over, waiting for me to get to my point. Many older folks were tuned out from the start and just wanted to hear their problem was fixed. I’m sure part of this involves my lack of skill in explaining technical concepts to non-technical people.

Someone else mentioned that the internet changing over the years affected this. I think part of this also has to do with the pranks of our generation:

-“how do I [x] in this game?” “Alt-F4”

-“how do I get rid of this virus?” “Delete System32”

We’d either look it up first and call BS, or follow the instructions with reckless abandon and learn the hard way.

Somewhat recently we had people microwaving iPhones thinking it’d charge them. I saw more news stories about this than I’d have expected, given it’s metal in a microwave. Something that many of us were taught not to do from a young age.

I’d have to see more of the can design but this looks weak to me. The 'S' and 'E' are each one color. The ‘X’ is both red and blue, and seems to only exist because part of a 'P'(?) intersects the background. But what do I know?

Cuba is amazing at making the most of what they have. I hadn’t heard of SNET before this, but I know they’ve kept classic cars running for decades out of necessity

I just ordered some WD Reds and a Synology box a couple of days ago, not knowing about this issue. Should I cancel the HDDs and go for another brand, or will I be okay if I don’t use ZFS?

I think someone in the comments of that thread said Maxis was the original publisher, and looking it up I do see Cinematronics listed as developers.

However, the taskman OP didn’t necessarily say that he wrote Space Cadet pinball, he said he “wrote/ported Space Cadet pinball, zip folders, . . .” My money is on him porting SC pinball, not writing it

Part of the necessity of Office at the company I work is that they use macros in Excel to help with certain tasks. Looking at it now, GSheets has macros but I’m not sure that they’re as functional as a VBA macro.

GDocs has found a nice spot in one of our departments as a scheduling tool, though.

How well would this work if it was only once a year? Many pop culture references and memes change on a monthly, if not weekly, basis

Yeah, that’s a big mistake. The author should have at least had a new key cut, preferably one with a difficult-to-pick bitting.

From a security perspective (which is presumably the point when discussing locks), one would use different keys for all doors; or at least for all external doors. I understand the convenience of using a single key, but the author really should have cut a new key instead of using an existing one.

This happened to me once, the second time I ever had a panic attack (the first being when I was a toddler). My heart started racing and I hyper focused on it; took my blood pressure and it was a high so I called the advice nurse who told me to have someone take me to the ER. Basically the only way the situation could have been worse is if I’d actually been having a heart attack. I was preparing to accept death at age 20.

What made it worse was the doc in the ER did an ultrasound on my heart as I was coming down from my freak-out. I was thinking “wow, that’s amazing! That’s my heart inside of me!” Then the doctor says, “this side of your heart looks a little thick but otherwise it looks fine” and never followed up. I try not to think about that too much.

One of the most frightening experiences of my life at the time, but it was super interesting in retrospect.

You might benefit from a Tile. Put one on your keys and/or wallet, they locate bidirectionally via sound blasting (e.g. keys > phone, phone > keys). Or maybe Bluetooth beacons would work just as well?

Though if you’re in it for the fun factor then go for the wifi option!