Probably many of the micro usb cables that you have around the house are ones that came with bike lights or power banks that don’t support data transfer, while looking identical to ones that do… https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1920b85/quick_and_easy_test_to_see_if_a_usb_cable_is/

there’s been talk about usb-c cables unpredictably having different capabilities, but my Kobo E-reader is super-specific about syncing with usb-a to micro-usb cables, had to test several to find a few that work (no idea what exact cable it came with).

Of 9 cables 3 worked, incl. one for JBL speakers and a really old one that says Sony.

Bizarre adventures in audio processing (2/2):
Discussed this with my knowledgeable friends, who suggested that the cable might phase invert one channel, and when they are added up as mono the audio watermark cancels itself out as it is identical in L&R channels. But the music typically is not, so you still hear what’s left over from the phase cancellation.

True enough, I was able to recreate the effect with Adobe Audition.

So Magic Watermark – and sound-quality – destroying 3.5mm cable!

Bizarre adventures in audio processing (1/2):

Partner was making a short video with some royalty-free music. When she showed it on the laptop, there were VERY obvious audio watermarks on it, but she hadn't heard them at all while making the video!

Tested, and the watermarks were indeed inaudible with the Marshall IV headphones, when using a particular 3.5mm cable. I think it must be a balanced mono cable. Swapping the cable, watermarks reappear.

https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/tickle-time/135751

@calli yeah, that's true. Although IMO continuous size classes can work to give a suggestion of not all being the same, but then you just show three classes in the legend.

Having composer-specific control of labelling in QGIS would be a significant usability improvement.

I find it is pretty hard to get the sizing right for proportional symbol maps (and if you use the same layer for a map with a different projection, it will be wrong again).

#qgis

scarabble

like the normal game but all the pieces are scarab beetles with letters glued to them, wandering off the board…

POV the brook

Thanks to old field recording recommendations on here!
Literally at the ”I have no idea what I’m doing” stage but here’s some birdsong and brook sounds from Central Finland recorded with a Zoom H2e and Roland CS10-EM binaurals.
#fieldRecording
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/f570ihcy5pfndvlqlfp0k/250510-b-ck-f-glar-sumiainen.wav?rlkey=989kt4e8bihpf2hvaff0inkyr&st=oy6kzf24&dl=0

@tml @magnetic_tape Fast co made an article about it 😅

https://www.fastcompany.com/91324550/kerning-on-pope-francis-tomb-is-a-travesty

@w__h_ @Tilmann In this case, the government of the Netherlands replaced many licenses of sub-brands with one custom font and identity. Saving a lot of money.

Some people liked the diversity before that rebrand, but the fact that everything communicated by the government is having the same ‘voice’ really builds trust for me.

Elevating bad kerning to Religious Art is undeniably a whole new typographical angle. #typography

Well, not sure if there was another workaround, but unistalling and reinstalling Anaconda seems to have solved this. I guess Anaconda was stuck on the old architecture version, which caused all kinds of issues.
https://www.anaconda.com/docs/getting-started/anaconda/uninstall

Upgraded to the M4 Mac with Sequoia and now all my Jupyter kernels in VSCode do this ”missing module ‘jupyter_server.contents’". Suggestions? Running Jupyterlab from the terminal started working again after running `conda install -c conda-forge jupyterlab`, but in VSCode it is still broken. #vscode #jupyter

@tml Really can’t say, maybe it is a smaller step up from M1 to M4? My 2016 is still ok, it will be the kid’s computer now. And the old-old 2011 machine will go to the recycling center, probably. It is still okay for basic browsing & the like!

The neat thing about spacing out computer upgrades is you really feel the improvement. The new 16" MacBook pro is slightly heavier than my 2016 MBP, but some 7 hours of graphics work and over 50% battery remaining. I

And it is actually lighter than the 15" 2011 MBP (2.14kg vs 2.54kg)!

Oddly, path drawing and snapping inexplicably works better in Illustrator? Can only assume Adobe has done some upgrades that they only pushed to the Apple silicon architecture version?

@jussi_og Might have hallucinated, but then again, some observation here so… https://www.eurobirdportal.org/ebp/en/#home/APUAPU/r52weeks

Siellä on sisällä Cthulhu, joka on pahalla päällä.

Weird how I hadn’t heard about this OCLP thing that allows you to patch older Macs to support newer OS versions until yesterday, when looking up some info to determine what to do with my 2011 MacBook Pro. Always assumed it was Linux for old macs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/s/QgGaPRjYwc

#macOS

I went ”oho!” at the dinner table yesterday and partner and older kid, backs to the window, immediately assumed that it had started snowing.

Actually the reason for using the Universal Finnish Exclamation was that I think I saw a common swift (Apus apus) fly past. If so, almost a month early. I usually spot them in Helsinki in mid to late May. #birds