jwz: Feb 2020 | Page 2

Rotary Cellphone

Because in a finicky, annoying, touchscreen world of hyperconnected people using phones they have no control over or understanding of, I wanted something that would be entirely mine, personal, and absolutely tactile, while also giving me an excuse for not texting.
The point isn't to be anachronistic. It's to show that it's possible to have a perfectly usable phone that goes as far from having a touchscreen as I can imagine, and which in some ways may actually be more functional. More functional how? [...]
The curved ePaper on tha back was a later development in the creative process but it's now my favorite part. I think of the screen as having two sections... the part that's facing toward the top of the phone, and the part that's wholly on the back. In this way I can have relevant messages display on the top part "pager style", like the most recent missed call.

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4 Comments

Tags: computers, mad science, phones, retrocomputing

Ok, well, I have completely failed to MITM Instagram on either iOS or Android. If you can show me how to do that, it would be greatly appreciated. However, if your answer isn't of the form "I just did it, and here are the steps I took" then you're probably just finding the same years-old instructions that I've already tried.

I am willing to throw money at this problem, because right now my nightclub has no promotion on Instagram, and sadly, that matters. But I would like a cheaper solution than "hire a full-time staffer to re-post everything by hand".

I have emailed every company I could find who offer a post-to-Instagram service (Later, Hootsuite, Onlypult, Crowdfireapp, Iconosquare, Bufferapp, Skedsocial, Sproutsocial) and asked them:

Does your service provide the ability to post to my Instagram Business account via an API? That is: I want my server to contact your site and say "post this image or video to my Instagram right now", without me needing to use a GUI or web app to manually schedule it.

Every one of them said "no". Though most or all of these companies appear to have access to the sekrit Facebook API, all of them require you to manually schedule each post by hand in their custom, idiosyncratic online calendar.

Previously, previously, previously.

20 Comments

Tags: computers, corporations, dnalounge, doomed, firstperson, lazyweb, phones, security

THE CYBERIZER!

3 years ago

THE CYBERIZER analyzes videos to find the scene breaks and then shuffles and re-assembles them with a burst of static in between. Twenty hours of music videos go in, and three hours later, six hours of mind massage squirts out. You can see this project making its live premiere at CYBERDELIA on Feb 28! I tried to upload six hours of it to Youtube last week, and that's what got me the record-breaking take-down notice, but it looks a little bit like this:

The audio de-synchronizes after a little while and I don't understand why. But I also don't care that much, since it's meant to be played silently. However if you find a fix, let me know.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

7 Comments

Tags: art, computers, copyright, dnalounge, firstperson, glitch, mad science, mpegs, music, tv, xscreensaver

Great Moments in Patents

3 years ago

US20190388785A1

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

5 Comments

Tags: computers, copyright, doomed, robots, the future

DNA Lounge: Wherein we HACK THE PLANET.

3 years ago

That's right, we're throwing another CYBERDELIA on Friday, February 28 -- which is just four weeks from now! It's a bit short notice, so please help us out by sharing this far and wide.

The last time we threw this party was three years ago, but now it's the 25th anniversary of the release of HACKERS, so we're going all-out this time.

A screening of Hackers at 7pm;
Hackers costume contest at 10:45pm;
Head-to-head Wipeout XL competition throughout the night;
Skate ramps! Rollerblades welcome!
Psytrance dance party in all four rooms, until late!

This is also the closing night of the RSA conference, so if you're in town for that, you've really got no excuse. (Would your company like to sponsor this and make it your official after party? Let's talk.)

Reserved seating for the movie is extremely limited, so get your tickets now...

Keep your eyes out for the flyers, which are the finest flyers you're ever going to find, hand-crafted and burned by me from new and used floppy disks. Normally flyers cost pennies each, but these cost like a dollar fifty, so we don't hand out too many of them. You can help us keep that cost down by participating in our FLOPPY DISK AMNESTY PROGRAM! That's right, surrender your used 3.5" floppies at the club and I will transubstantiate them into sweet-ass Cyberdelia promo material:

Also if you have any 90s hacker-scene memorabilia you'd like to donate as prizes for the costume contest, that would be awesome. You know: old laptops, blue boxes, a complete run of Mondo 2000, a CM-5, that sort of thing.

Comment at DNA Lounge

Tags: dnalounge

Location: 37° 46' 15.63" N, 122° 24' 45.70" W

So here's how my piece of shit Mac keeps crashing lately

3 years ago

Every few days, the UI locks up: the mouse still moves, but the menubar clock stops counting seconds, and the screen never changes. However, all apps are still running. Music still plays. I can ssh in.

I've run the "hold down D at boot" hardware diagnostic, but it completes quickly so clearly it doesn't test much. I also ran memtester, and it found no problems.

So is this, "Oh yeah, 10.14.6 just does that shit sometimes" or is it, "you need to taxi this thousand pound piece of shit into the shop to have its skull scooped out with a rusty spoon"?

Also it there some process I can ssh in and kill that will drop the Mac back to "log out and re-initialize the graphics subsystem", slightly less extreme than rebooting?

It's an iMac Pro 2017 8 core, in case that is relevant.

Previously.

25 Comments

Tags: computers, firstperson, mac

Today in Youtube's joke of a fair-use appeal process

3 years ago

So there I am, just trying to Exterminate All Rational Thought, you know, doing my part to Eliminate the Artist from the Creative Process, and I upload a little 7 hour movie constructed by robots and this is the indignity I am faced with. This is why we can't have nice things. Or nice remixes. Or in fact remixes of any kind.

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4 Comments

Tags: art, computers, copyright, corporations, glitch, mpegs

Google Maps

3 years ago

Create a virtual traffic jam in Google Maps by dragging a cart full of phones:

Look, it's another prank with an artist statement: "questions relating to power in the discourse of cartography have to be reformulated."

Previously, previously.

15 Comments

Tags: art, maps, phones, pranks, security

"Enjoy your dystopia!"

3 years ago

@kmlefranc: I had to get a background check for my job, and it turns out the report is a 300+ page pdf of every single tweet I've ever liked with the work "fuck" in it.

I came home to a package containing a printout of all 351 pages of it! Obv the dystopia cares about wasting paper. [...] The background check company is Sterling Talent Solutions, and it looks like they contracted with Fama Technologies for this part of the report. [...]
To those asking - I did not give them my handle or permission, I'm assuming they just found this via my (old) name. [...] The especially creepy part is this didn't turn up anything at all relevant or incriminating! I keep personal info on my non-public accounts. But their shitty algorithm means that my "reputation" and "character" is flagged as questionable and sent to my boss. [...]
Though I also liked the "positive flags" section that picked up the words donate and volunteer - most of which were critiques of capitalism and charity culture.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

6 Comments

Tags: big brother, corporations, doomed, security