Hack-The-Planet Podcast: Episode 009

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

One Soundcard to rule them all

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

The first sound card I got as an upgrade to a PC without sound back in 90s was the glorious Sound Blaster 16:

By Konstantin Lanzet – Camera: Canon EOS 400D, GFDL

There were several different sound card options back in the days and all sounded a bit different.

A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces used for professional audio applications.

Wikipedia

With the synthesizers and audio processing each series and make produced a distinctive sound. Some of us want to bring these sounds back. But keeping the (old) hardware running is an increasingly difficult task.

For example: The interface used by the above mentioned Sound Blaster 16 card is the ISA bus interface. This interface was introduced in 1981 and replaced in 1993. If you want to hear how such a sound card sounds today you would have to run hardware from this time period.

But some people are working towards getting at least some authentic sound back.

In this talk, Alan Hightower takes a look at the complexities, challenges, and even current progress at integrating all of the above cores into one FPGA based ISA sound card.

This is what the concept would bring if done:

Oh that would be soooooo nice to have all these vintage sound interfaces available and to be able to actually use them for audio output.

a source of iptv streams

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Collection of 8000+ publicly available IPTV channels from all over the world.

Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Github: iptv-org/iptv

Using the streams is as simple as it gets: Just open the provided playlilst files in your favorite media player. The above example is th VLC media player.

Experimental Audio Tool: SuperCollider

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

SuperCollider is a platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition, used by musicians, artists, and researchers working with sound. It is free and open source software available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

SuperCollider features three major components:

scsynth, a real-time audio server, forms the core of the platform. It features 400+ unit generators (“UGens”) for analysis, synthesis, and processing.

sclang, an interpreted programming language. It is focused on sound, but not limited to any specific domain. sclang controls scsynth via Open Sound Control.

scide is an editor for sclang with an integrated help system.

By User:Sooberkollydr, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Hack-the-Planet Podcast: Episode 006

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Episode 006: “Monitoring Release Pipeline” ist fertig und steht bald zum Download und zeit-sourveränem anhören bereit.

Auf der Homepage, im Feed und auf YouTube:

Diesmal unterhält Andreas sich mit mir über:

Convert HEIC to JPEG or PNG

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

If you own a modern age phone it’s very likely that it will store the photos you take in a wonderful format called HEIC – or “High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF)”.

Now the issue with this format is that your average toolchain is based upon things like Portable Network Graphics (PNG), JPEG and maybe GIF or Scalable Vevtor Graphics (SVG).

So HEIC does not quite fit yet. But you can make it fit with this on Linux.

Imagemagick and current GIMP installations apparently still don’t come pre-compiled with HEIF support. But you can install a tool to easily convert an HEIC image into a JPG file on the command line.

apt install libheif-examples

and then the tool heif-convert is your friend.

An Introduction to D3.js

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Browsers can do many things. It’s probably your main window into the vast internet. Lots of things need visualization. And if you want to know how it’s done, maybe do one yourself, then…

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.

D3.js

And to further learn what it’s all about, go to Amelia Wattenbergers blog and take a stroll:

So, you want to create amazing data visualizations on the web and you keep hearing about D3.js. But what is D3.js, and how can you learn it? Let’s start with the question: What is D3?

While it might seem like D3.js is an all-encompassing framework, it’s really just a collection of small modules. Here are all of the modules: each is visualized as a circle – larger circles are modules with larger file sizes.

An Introduction to D3.js

the appropriate case for your hackintosh

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

It’s been a year since Zenvent posted this:

Created a custom case for my hackintosh, it resembles a minified Power Mac G5. I have uploaded the parts to Thingiverse in case you’d like to make one of your own. 

https://www.zenvent.com/blog/hackintosh/

A Hackintosh (a portmanteau of “Hack” and “Macintosh”), is a computer that runs macOS on a device not authorized by Apple, or one that no longer receives official software updates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackintosh

Hack-The-Planet Podcast: Episode 003

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Wir haben wieder etwas aufgenommen. Der Release heute ab 15 Uhr wie gewohnt hier und hier sogar mit Live-Chat.

Diesmal geht es um:

  1. Scanner Pro auf iOS – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scanner-pro/id333710667 
  2. Scanbot auf iOS – https://scanbot.io/en/index.html 
  3. Abo-Modelle bei Software und Diensten
  4. RING Kamera und Überwachungssystem – https://de-de.ring.com/
  5. Canary Indoor Camera – https://canary.is/
  6. Surveillance Station – https://www.synology.com/en-global/surveillance
  7. Ring has more than 400 police “partnerships” – https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/ring-has-more-than-400-police-partnerships-company-finally-says/
  8. Jumbo Privacy – https://blog.jumboprivacy.com/ – App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jumbo-privacy/id1454039975?ls=1
  9. Tim Berners-Lee Projekt “Solid”: https://solid.mit.edu/ – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_project) – https://solid.inrupt.com/how-it-works 
  10. Ubuntu – https://ubuntu.com/
  11. Throw-Away Remote VNC Linux Desktop in a Docker container – https://www.schrankmonster.de/2019/08/27/a-throw-away-linux-desktop-in-a-container/ 
  12. Virtual Network Computing – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing
  13. Stephen Wolfram – https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/
  14. Speed of Light in Medium – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

Walk through Tokyo

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Let me introduce you to a wonderful concept. We are using these movies as backdrop when on the stepper or spinning, essentially when doing sports or as a screensaver that plays whenever nothing else is playing on the screens around the house.

What is it you ask?

The thing I am talking about is: Walking Videos! Especially from people who walk through Tokyo / Japan. And there are lots of them!

Think of it as a relaxing walk around a neighborhood you might not know. Take in the sounds and sights and enjoy. That’s the idea of it.

If you want the immediate experience, try this:

Of course there are a couple of different such YouTube channels waiting for your subscription. The most prominent ones I know are:

In addition to attract your interest there’s a map with recent such walks in Tokyo. So you can specifically pick a walk you want to see by a map!

don’t forget to zoom out – there is more than just the Tokyo area

Train Melody / 武蔵小杉駅

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

In hearing distance of the place I am usually staying when in Tokyo is a train station. So if the wind is right and the window is open I hear all these train station chimes and sounds.

If you don’t know what it is, let Wikipedia educate you:

A train melody is a succession of musically expressive tones played when a train is arriving at or about to depart from a train station. As part of train passenger operations, a train melody includes a parade of single notes organized to follow each other rhythmically to form a lilting, singular musical thought.

In Japan, departing train melodies are arranged to invoke a relief feeling in a train passenger after sitting down and moving with the departing train. In contrast, arriving train melodies are configured to cause alertness, such as to help travelers shake off sleepiness experienced by morning commuters.

発車メロディ

With this post I also want to have you hear what I mean. These sounds are having interesting pavlovian effects anyways.

before the train exits the station
played beforehand any announcement
doors are closing

Find more here and here and here.

Hack-The-Planet Podcast: Episode 0

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

A friend of mine started something and I have the honor to be part of it. The world now has one additional podcast to listen to. It’s in german though. For now at least.

We are still working on the website, the feed and the audio mixing and recording quality. So bear with us.

And now: Episode 0 is upon us!