TechnologyIQ

@print3ddesign 3D Scanner! #einscan #3dscanner #3dscan #3dprinting ♬ original sound - James Baldwin

Recently, we’ve stumbled upon the extensive effort that is the BirdNET research platform. BirdNET uses a neural network to identify birds by the sounds they make, and is a joint project between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Chemnitz University of Technology. What strikes us is – this project is impressively featureful and accessible for a variety of applications. No doubt, BirdNET is aiming to become a one-stop shop for identifying birds as they sing. There’s plenty of ways BirdNET can help you. Starting with likely the most popular option among us, there are iOS and Android apps – giving the microphone-enabled “smart” devices in our pockets a feature even the most app-averse hackers can respect. However, the BirdNET team also talks about bringing sound recognition to our browsers, Raspberry Pi and other SBCs, and even microcontrollers. We can’t wait for someone to bring BirdNET to a RP2040! The code’s open-source, the models are freely available – there’s hardly a use case ...

This is a pretty geeky post, but if you are interested (or concerned) about digital archives, this should provide some great info on the wide variety of file formats available both in the present and historically. – Douglas Are you a file format fan? If you’re curious how to pronounce the still image format HEIF (spoiler alert: it rhymes with “beef”) or the difference between PDF/A-3 and PDF/A-4, the Library of Congress’s Sustainability of Digital Formats (a.k.a., Formats) is the place for you. To help you satisfy your need for in-depth technical, and perhaps more than a bit nerdy, knowledge about all things digital file formats, we’ve decided to start a regular series about what we’re up to. Welcome to Issue Number 1 of Fun with File Formats! The Formats site is one of the premiere resources in the world for in-depth information about digital file formats. It covers over 525 formats, encodings and wrappers in a variety of content categories – sound recordings, still images, datas...

This is much geekier than I usually post, but I found it very cute and interesting. Can your cat be a programmable computer? Perhaps. – Douglas Meet Peluche Peluche (meaning “plush” in French) is a smooth cat that somehow lives in my house. She will be our test subject today. Is Peluche Turing-complete? What is Turing-completeness Turing-completeness is the notion that if a device can emulate a Turing machine, then it can perform any kind of computation1. It means that any machine that implements the eight following instructions is a computer (and can thus execute any kind of computation): . and ,: Inputting and outputting a value + and -: Increase and decrease the value contained in a memory cell2. > and <: Shift the current memory tape left or right. [ and ]: Performing loops. So, if Peluche can perform these eight instructions, we can consider her Turing-complete. Read Is my cat Turing-complete? via Belay the C++ An interesting link found among my daily reading...

BASIC interpreter + DOS environment, reimagined.   BASIC interpreter EndBASIC is an interpreter for a BASIC-like language and is inspired by Amstrad’s Locomotive BASIC 1.1 and Microsoft’s QuickBASIC 4.5. Like the former, EndBASIC intends to provide an interactive environment that seamlessly merges coding with immediate visual feedback. Like the latter, EndBASIC offers higher-level programming constructs and strong typing. EndBASIC’s primary goal is to offer a simplified and restricted environment to learn the foundations of programming and focuses on features that can quickly reward the learner. These features include things like a built-in text editor, commands to manipulate the screen, commands to interact with shared files, and even commands to interact with the hardware of a Raspberry Pi. Implementing this kind of features has priority over others such as performance or a much richer language. DOS-like environment EndBASIC’s command line features a set of commands to inter...

The Magna Doodle is a classic children’s toy that works by embedding a layer of iron shavings just below the surface of a canvas and then using a magnetic pen to pull them up, thus showing whatever lines might have been drawn. Steve Turner had the idea to automate this drawing process by converting his Magna Doodle into a clock for displaying the current time in almost any TrueType font. Read Sketch the current time with this Magna Doodle clock via Blogdot.tv An interesting link found among my daily reading