Нотово 'риалити шоу'

Така. Новото риалити шоу се нарича 'Фермер търси жена'.
Коментар на жената*:

-Значи така, а? Аз ще ходя да му копая, да ора, да сера във външната тоалетна и да се къпя в коритото в кухнята! Няма да стане!

Мисля, че това е един шедьовър на краткия анализ!

PS: *ролята на жената е изиграна от моята майка, Дочка.

Banana Dalek

LOL (via BoingBoing )

Coud9 beautify

Just a small demo of the dev branch beautifier in cloud9. By the way it does not preserve the indentation as you can see in the video but I do not think it is a big problem. I think it is awesome.

cloud9 local and alsa equalizer

I am very pleased with recent cloud9 service (very nice thing is integration with github and the fact it is running fast enough with my new browser of choice (Chrome)). However it is kind of impossible for me to host all my projects on github and constantly sync the files to local file system just to test the code on local embedded device (the device mounts the files over NFS, there is no way I would make a change on Cloud9 service, git push to github, git pull to local copy for every simple change in the code I made, it is just too much work). I needed a way to run the editor somewhere on the local network.

For a while now it does not play well with node 0.4. Today I asked Google if there is a way around that. It happened so that there is a very simple way. You can follow the instructions from here (I have tested it and it all worked well).

I have also added some features to the music player in the browser, but I have more ideas (I hope it will not ravels into full fledged enormous memory hog it can easily become if I get carried away).

I had a problem with the music playback though, I dislike basses so I wanted to lower them. Maybe there is a way to do this in JavaScript with the audio API, but it sounds like too much work. Instead I wanted to regulate the playback tone volumes globally, so I used AlsaEqual. The installation is very simple and works well, just follow the instructions. I used the global setting because I hate basses on everything, including movies and I was not sure if Chrome can play back sound on selected card. You can adjust the tones in the console: alsamixer -D equal will do the trick.

Oh and by the way on cloud9 development there is a great feature - JS beautify! It works great, helps with very complex code (like the one I use to write when creating complex html with Element in mootools) and is configurable. Try it out!

How to write yourself a music player in 20 minutes

I am working as JavaScript developer.

I spend most of my work day in the browser (now days 'the browser' being Chrome).

I read my emails.

I read my news.

I talk to my colleagues, friends and family.

I do research.

I code.

I entertain myself.

All in the browser.

However I like to listen to music sometimes. I have a big collection of my favorite music collected over the past 12 years, however to be able to filter it and listen to it I need a separate program, a 'music player'. I asked myself: 'Why should I use an application I cannot modify. Isn't it in the spirit of OpenSource to be able to use something you can read, change and use however you like?'.

I do use open source music player, however it is written in C++ and GTK, language and library I do not understand very well. It does not decode the stream, and I am not really interested in that part. Chrome can decode audio in at least mp3 and ogg formats, so why not use the browser to play back my files. But then again I should be able to display my collection and filter it. How hard could that be to do in the browser.

Not hard at all. Enter OmniGrid. It is able to display your data in a table, sort it and filter it, all it require is that your data is loaded as JSON valid object. My regular music player is Rhythmbox, so I can download the xml file, convert the data with DOM however I like it and load it in the grid view, then filter it. It is very simple and straight forward. I will also need an audio tag and pause button.

So here it is:

OmniGrid requires mootools and mootools-more (of course not the whole of them, you can custom build for it), but it makes the application code very very small! Mine is 117 rows only and most o it is to create the tags and bind events to it because I do not like writing html files, I like creating them with JS on domready.

I encourage you try and write whatever you use on your desktop that is not available yet as web application and share it, so we can finally move on from the desktop paradigm and be able to live online and on whatever laptop/computer we are currently having.

I for example feel pretty awful when my laptop breaks or need to be taken for cleaning, this whole thing can be painless if my digital life was stored on a server and accessible from a web interface, then all i would need would be a browser. Kind of the idea behind 'Chrome OS'. I like it. I agree that maybe not all our data should be on Google's cloud, but I have my own server. I could just store my things on my server. On an encrypted partition. Yeah... and then I could just use any laptop. Any that is not with key loggers on it though...

UPDATE: The code for this small App is available here. It cannot be used as it is, because it assumes you have your rhythmbox DB file in the same directory and assumes the directly structure and your system user name, however it is pretty easy to modify. Enjoy.

This is the time we live in

First

I'd like to mention the inspirations for this post, number one being of course late Carl Sagan, the first face of the science I have met when I was very young, barely understanding English (my first language being Bulgarian). I was then hooked by this, in my opinion, most profound and wide introduction to the scientific world, the most interesting and important for a kid enlisting of all the achievements made for such a short period of time, considering the thousands of years we have been around. It was then when I knew I want to be part of this scientific advancement, I wanted to see us, human race, wandering trough the stars, exploring, looking for anything that awaits up there in the vastness of space and time. It was Sagan, who lighted up my mind and calibrated my point of view for this world, wonderful an magical even without the superstition and spirituality and 'real' magic that floats aroun

d us, obscuring so many real and great ways we can admire and contribute to the miracles of science!

I like to thank also Jill Tarter, the passionate researcher, who has devoted her career to SETI. I was amazed and inspired by her TED talk few years back and I truly believe it takes courage and passion in science to constrain your life to such a wonderful idea as to find the proof that we are not alone in this enormous universe. I hope the institute will get back on its feet, I hope there are still people who are willing to help considering the immense importance of the work those dedicated scientist are doing, regardless of the fact that more and more pressure is building up against spending money on such research, I still believe that even more money is wasted on stupid things, much more money, which used otherwise would have improved our lives beyond anything imaginable. Yet those people having those resource are not willing to help, so I urge anyone who can help to do it now, because as Carl said it - we need to take a look in the future, we need to embrace our unimportance and have the tiniest vision of tomorrow.

I also would like to thank the people behind the wonderful adaptation of Sagan's Contact for the wide screen, which inspired me to give a second thought on mathematics and physics, two disciplines I was not very interested in when I was in high school and in the university, I was barely understanding it, as much as to pass my exams. Now I understand the beauty and importance of those and without blaming it to the teachers and assistants trying to inspire us I now recognize it was a big mistake to just presenting the scientific knowledge without first trying to present its role and importance and beauty and application to the young minds. I am certainly hoping this will change soon and will produce a new generation of passionate scientists. Meanwhile I hope we will see more positive scientists as main characters in movies.

Next are all people that are tributing Carl Sagan all over the Internet, especially the wonderful clips from the young fellow over Milky Way Musings made me such a great impression. If you have the time and you like Sagan, please go and watch the clips.

I also want to thank the people behind the chrome and firefox projects for making the web experience such a joy as to allow me and countless other people to use the World wide web as easily and enjoyable as possible, which on the other hand inspired us to contribute in any way possible. It would have been a terrible experience without your work and I would have not discovered so much without it, so thank you guys and gals for your hard work!

SETI shutting down

The news is all over the Internet - SETI is shutting down ATA (Allen Telescope Array) due to lack of funding.
I know at least one great (dead) person that would be really upset because of this - Carl Sagan.
I happen to liked the idea and while some other (great) men (you know I am talking about you, Hawking!) are warning us to stop looking for trouble, I still think it is right inside your genes to be adventurous and look for the answers. Spirituality and religion did not bring it up, so maybe the ETI would? But first we need to find at least a single tiny minuscule proof of its existence. And maybe then we all can realize our real place in the vastness of the cosmos, our insignificance and awe in admiration to the miracles of the universe. And yet we have not succeeded in it. Instead mostly we are worried about the rising of the food prices and gas prices and all sort of other prices.

They need 5 million US dollars. This is not even half the price of the house of some asshole actor in some shitty production designed to distract us for less than two hours. And yet we prefer the distraction. Sometimes I think even such finding as proofs of extra-terrestrial intelligence will not be sufficient to unite us.

Still the solace remains that thanks to the technological and scientific advancements we get to live twice as long as our great great great parents. Maybe we will use this time wisely and start thinking more about other things, other than the rising prices....

Farewell SETI!

שקוף

Such a sweet song and such a sweet voice. Hen Aharoni:

Точно ти!

Значи, ходя си аз из Плевен (за това - някой друг път) и дочувам от някъде (явно хитът) песничка на София Маринова и Устата (тях вече не мога да ги сбъркам, известни са един вид). Честно си казвам - хареса ми се.

Днес реших да си я пусна, пиша 'Софи Маринова Устата' в кученцето (a.k.a. Google) и първият резултат е 'Точно ти' във vbox7 - "конкурентния" видео сайт.

Няма да казвам, че качеството на клипчето е отвратително, то се подразбира, ние (българите) като крадем идеи, винаги ги осираме. Направи ми впечатление обаче че песента е със "субтитри" (явно за глухите почитатели на Софи Маринова) и какво бе смайването ми когато текста на субтитрите се оказа нещо съвсем различно от това, което всъщност пее Софи. Следва пример:

точно ти, с горчиво вкусни с грешни дни ненаситни устни

Пример 2:

Влюбена в пустиня и летни дни, ето ме

И си викам : "абе да не би глухите фенове на Софи да са писали субтитрите?". После се досещам, че макар да няма смисъл на български така написаното изречение, може пък ромската общност в България да си го разбира така. Но всъщност предполагам, че авторите на субтитрите просто не мислят, а карат по слух, като преводачите едно време. А текста пък е както следва:

точно ти, със горчиво-вкусни, с грешни и ненаситни устни

Влюбена в усмихнати летни дни, ето ме

Поне на нормален български де. И хич да не е, Софи може да не е с перфектен български, но така или иначе едва ли си пише текстовете сама. Но пък е талантлива, на мен ми харесва как пее а и песничката е забавна. Това, което не е забавно е, как на национално ниво се изпростява. Но да не ви дреме, нали ще сме в 5* хотел и ще си мислим за любов...

А да, и клипчето е яко. Няма да го сложа от Vbox защото са олигофрени, вместо това, ето го в YouTube. Даже ако сте се записали да гледате webm/mp4 видео, вече така е ви излезе директно на страницата, без флаш. Яко а:)

Ode to the Brain

The amazing Ode to the brain from Symphony of Science!

I really enhoyed it, musically it sounds better than most of the previous videos published by this project.