[W]e ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? … A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

– Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: QOTD: What books to read by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• Books I’m trying to read
• QOTD: Learning journalism
• Info revolution, delivered by camels
• Surprise finds
• Reading “The Brethren”

Julian Emmanuel turns three, originally uploaded by iandexter.

Happy birthday, Wild Mutt-Echo Echo-Power Ranger!

We love you.

– Kuya Gab, mom, and tatay

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Julian Emmanuel turns three by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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Directed by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, I’m Here is a “robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity.”

The movie is set in contemporary L.A., where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who live among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life — devoid of creativity, joy and passion — until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

/via Slashfilm

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Robot Sunday: Robot love by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• Robot Sunday: Stickers
• Robot Sunday
• Robot Sunday: Spare parts for power loaders
• Robot Sunday: Panic Attack!
• Robot Sunday: Better design

–

There is a theory — a “unified” theory, in fact — that the universe is connected by “wave tubes”. (Imagine traveling to other galaxies through wormholes ala-Star Gate.) But I digress.

On a less grander scale, but still beautiful, here is the Milky Way, represented as a transit (tube) map.

Credit: Samuel Arbesman

–

Speaking of tubes (what a segue…), ever wondered how the Internet is made? Wonder no more. Here is an Instructables how-to about making a replica of “The Internet”, as seen in the comedy hit, The IT Crowd. (Embedding is not allowed so here’s a link to the clip of that episode.)

Fun facts about the internet!

1. The internet is surprisingly small!
2. The internet is wireless!
3. The internet is very light! (Of course the internet doesn’t weigh anything!)
4. The internet lives at the top of Big Ben! (Where it gets the best reception.)
5. Before being borrowed, it MUST be demagnetised! Preferably by a Grand Master of The Internet such as Stephen Hawking.

–

Something totally unrelated, but very cool nevertheless: an SF story about vampires, with a twist. (Here is the link to the MP3.) I should look for more of these.

–

And here’s someone who loves typography: she bakes cookies shaped as Helvetica type. Lorem ipsum dolor sit yummy!

Credit: Beverly Hsu

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Link dump: Tubes, vampires, cookies by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• Link dump: Shuttles, monsters and Apple(s)
• On PTB: Content delivery via internet shops

He was doing journalism in order to eat, which is a very good way of learning journalism. Probably the only real way, come to think of it.

– Terry Pratchett on Neil Gaiman, in Good Omens

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: QOTD: Learning journalism by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• A master at work
• Gaiman writes Batman
• Christmas dinner
• Quickies

Up for bidding, among other things, are CNC six-axis robotic arms. Whoa.

Imagine how may power loaders and exoskeletons you could build from those. Enough to defend against Sentinels, hopefully.

/via Boing Boing

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Robot Sunday: Spare parts for power loaders by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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Read more:

• Robot Sunday: Robot love
• Robot Sunday
• $100 laptop first photos
• Robot Sunday: Panic Attack!
• Flash trash

–

Everything must go! NASA puts out a garage sale that includes space suits, engines and — get this — space shuttles. Discounts are available (about 30%, according to a New York Times report), but the buyer would have to pay for shipping. Assembly is required as well.

Credit: toptechwriter on Flickr

–

We all know that well-adjusted six-year-old kid with a pet tiger, Calvin, and his monster snowmen creations. Someone with an overly active imagination actually carved them! Talk about life imitating art.

Credit: justalby on Flickr

–

I miss my K&R classic, “The C Programming Language“, which was a handy reference in college. (I think I have the second edition.) What if you rewrite Kernighan and Ritchie’s opus in the style of H.P. Lovecraft? You get “C is for Cthulhu“, of course.

“Matt Elliot, Obed’s fust mate, he allus was agin’ it, but he saw it with his own eyes how that funct’n used to call itself up like a serpent eatin’ its own tail–

void Cthulhu (int Ia)
{
  if (Ia/10)
    Cthulhu (IA/10);
  putchar // ftagn!
  (Ia % 10 + '0');
} // neblod zin!

“Twistin’ and writhing like nothing of this Earth, it’d spit out those strings without no heap allocation in sight. It warn’t natural, any fool could see that much. Matt tried to line up folks on his side, an’ had long talks with the preachers– no use– they ran the Congregational parson out of town, and the Methodist feller quit– I was a mighty little critter but I heerd what I heerd an’ seen what I seen–”

–

The “real story” behind Newton’s apple anecdote goes online.

The legend of Newton’s inspiration coming from a falling apple is often dismissed as apocryphal, but the great physicist’s memoirs would seem to indicate otherwise.

A biography written by William Stukeley, one of Newton’s contemporaries, relates the apple story as Newton himself told it to Stukeley.

–

And since we’re on the subject of Apple(s)… Have you ever wondered why people (fanboys notwithstanding) are so enamored with Apple products? Prototypes are okay — they give consumers a peek at what is possible in the future. Apple, however, ups the ante: they ship actual products.

Credit: Diesel Sweeties

–

(Hey, how about that? I think I’ll make this another “regular”. It will help me maintain this blog, and pressure me to put out real content from time to time. Until next time.)

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Link dump: Shuttles, monsters and Apple(s) by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• Link dump: Tubes, vampires, cookies
• Kurt Vonnegut, 84

(The mouseover text reference, by the way, is a classic!)

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Robot Sunday: Better design by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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Read more:

• Robot Sunday: Stickers
• Robot Sunday: Robot love
• Robot Sunday: Spare parts for power loaders
• Robot Sunday
• Robot Sunday: Panic Attack!

I cycle through one-off passwords (of varying lengths). To generate these, I use the following shell script:

#!/bin/bash
 
usage() {
  echo "Usage: `basename $0` [length]"
}
 
[ $# -gt 1 ] && usage && exit 65
 
[ $# -eq 0 ] && len=8 || len=$1
 
strings /dev/urandom | grep -o '[[:alnum:]]' | head -n $len | tr -d '\n'; echo

To use:

$ ./genrand.sh 16
tFJNxyZk4EYaJiuz

And, no, that’s not my password. Or is it?

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Generate random strings by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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• Simple script to switch IPs
• FizzBuzz
• Windows-to-*nix public key authentication
• Writing a custom init script
• Using non-interactive FTP

I want one!

Posted on Coredump - Work, play, and everything in-between, under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. Original article: Robot Sunday: Stickers by Ian Dexter R Marquez
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Read more:

• ‘Chatspeak’ as type
• Robot Sunday: Robot love
• Robot Sunday
• This is why I’d love to work with Google
• Robot Sunday: Panic Attack!