A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
With the help of many YouTube tutorials 1 I created a macOS app that is a GUI for YT-DLP. It lets you save videos2 from the Internet to be viewed later. It’s like a VCR for the digital age.
It’s my first attempt so I don’t know if I’ve set up the Git repository correctly but I think this how one does it: YTDLPDownloader on GitHub.
The DeLorean is a two-door, two-passenger, rear-engine powered sports car manufactured and marketed by John DeLorean’s DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) and was sold in the United States from 1981 until 1983. Although it was a commercial failure, it captured the public’s imagination when it was featured as the vehicle Doc Brown used to make a time machine in Back to the Future.
Here’s a paper craft project for fans of the Back to the Future DeLorean, (you’ll find each pdf has a different version — one for each movie).
Translated from the archived source, the author describes them as such:
Tomo is a work designed for children, which can be assembled by simply inserting it without gluing for a certain presentation. I made four types that appeared in the movie, but the flight type was impossible.
I used glue on the ones I put together. I’m not sure how it would have worked otherwise.
DELOREANpart1
DELOREANpart2
DELOREANpart3
DELOREANpart3R
parts
Although the original plans are gone from the source site, they have been replaced with updated designs. Check out the pop-up style Delorean with an accompanying YouTube video.
Frederico Viticci has a handy shortcut that allows one to take his or her screenshots from iOS and watchOS and automatically superimpose them onto a template mock-up of the Apple device they were taken on.
Like this:
(Via macstories)
With the new M1 MacBook Air comes the need to once again figure out how to get a modern, highly secure, 64-bit operating system to communicate with a device made in the early 2000s. The device in question being a Dell 1100 Laser Printer.
After some searching online, a little trial and error, some attempts at using an old driver from an old computer (nope) and a little more searching online I finally came up with the solution. I’m posting it here in the hopes that it will help someone else save some trouble and probably for my future self at some point.
Before I even started, I knew I would need a USB-C to USB-A adapter.
I’ll save you the trouble of going through all my trial and error and just say that the solution to get Andrea’s MacBook Air (M1, 2020) running Big Sur 11.0 to work with the Dell 1100 Laser Printer was to download this collection of drivers:
Open it and when it’s done installing head to the System Preferences Printer icon (with the printer plugged in and turned on) and add a new printer.
When selecting software, choose Samsung ML-2160 Series.
Albeit there was an error the first time I printed (or maybe it was just a warning) but then it began its typical whirling sound and out popped the printed page. It continues to work every time without issue.
I’m going to mirror the Samsung drivers for safe keeping.
Update: And after a new version of MacOS, this no longer works. I guess it’s time to retire the old laser printer. Too bad, we just bought a new drum after 15 years on the old one.
Back in December I created a papercraft project for my grade 5 students. It’s a cute Christmas scene that I had the students cut out and paint and then glue onto cardstock. I based the Santa design on another papercraft that I found a link for on Pinterest but the original was gone so I whipped up my own version in Adobe Illustrator.
Here’s my version in case you’d like to make one yourself, modify it, or use it as a class project (next holiday season, obviously): holiday scene papercraft.pdf. (430KB)
Secret Hitler is a fun hidden identity social deduction party game for 5-10 players about finding and stopping the Secret Hitler.
Players are secretly divided into two teams: the liberals, who have a majority, and the fascists, who are hidden to everyone but each other. If the liberals can learn to trust each other, they have enough votes to control the elections and save the day. But the fascists will say whatever it takes to get elected, advance their agenda, and win the game.
A couple of years ago I found that the creators of the game released a black and white Creative Commons copy for printing. I later found a colour version and made a few changes as well added my own printable box template to go with it. I sent it out to the local printshop to get it printed on large card-stock and decided to share in case you’d like to print your own:
If printing and cutting aren’t your thing, you can find purchasing options at https://www.secrethitler.com.
Update: Reddit user NarrowMountain2276 improved the design of the box so check out their Print and Play.1
I think VLC is the best media player out there. No more worrying about codecs or corrupt files, VLC does it all—not to mention, it even plays DVDs!
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Get VLC now.
It’s time! Right now, go download Firefox 3 and help set a new world record.
Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day, [today], to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours—it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.
Ganstagrass: When bluegrass and HipHop collide.
Introducing block rockin’ honky-tonk, New American music for the 21st century, built with love in a little studio, hand crafted, running on inspiration and imagination and duct tape, calling on the spirit of Gram Parsons and Otis Redding and KRS-ONE and Dolly Parton and Nina Simone and Willie Nelson and Missy Elliott and Johnny Cash, to write about what we feel and play what our hearts tell us, because to make it happen is reason enough, and to share it with the world is all the reason you need, because we tell the truth with music and the truth is beautiful.
I’ve listened to the first few tracks and though I’m not a big hip-hop fan, the mixes are fun in that, “Hey, who knew those two seemingly incongruent genres would work so well together?”
Some lyrics may offend: You can take the gansta out of the Rap but he’s still going to swear like a pirate.
The other day I came across a neat collection of “Heraldry Brushes” by MrTentacleGuy on deviantART. I was disappointed to find out that the brushes were actually in vector format and while great for resizing and maintaining their original integrity in Illustrator, not very handy for quick and dirty Photoshop work where a brush set (.abr) is all you really want.
So I took his heraldry vector collection and made it into a brush set. I’m releasing it under the same Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Here is a little sample I threw together using the new brushes (sorry the red background is not part of the set).
Download the Heraldic Brush Set (.zip)
There are over 70 high resolution brushes in this set! If you use it, please leave a comment and don’t hesitate to link back to your work as well.