Hobbies. Where would the computer industry be without them? Arguably, there wouldn’t be a computer industry had it not been for hobbyists in the first place. The ineffable need to scratch an itch does still percolate even in this closed down world of big mainstream technology from big companies opposed to the little guy innovating. OSNews asks, what are you working on? We want to hear from you about your hobby projects (technology related or otherwise) to get a sense of what the community is cooking up for love of it, rather than because you’re paid to do so. Share and enjoy!
Random numbers and how to predict their patterns.
I am using Slackware + python …
-t
The whole point of random numbers is to be unpredictable, right?
The fun about this is to “discover” a way to determine if there is some kind order in the chaos world. Imagine if you can find the next lotto drawing or to decipher
a new alien signal from outer space…it would be nice!
God doesn’t play dice with man….
My $.02 cents…:-)
You do realize this is not possible right…
I used to try this when I was 10, and you won’t get anywhere. By definition, random numbers are random. You might succeed in finding a pattern in pseudo-random number generators (/dev/random, for example), but you might as well just look up the source code.
I should note, sometimes I wish the universe was open source. I hate trying to reverse engineer it.
The probability of finding it is astronomical but still a finite number.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
🙂
-2501
promoting AROS is my spare time work and my main hobby; i got an invitation to talk about it this month and have to prepare the slides and ensure the aros stick work properly; beside that i also do music on milkytracker and paint when i dont help keeping home clean and cook…
* Getting back into music and composing again. Been playing with Rosegarden and a bunch of soft synthesizers lately.
* Learning to play bass. At least planning on learning it before the year ends,
* Writing reviews for mobygames
* Going out for a few beers more often.
As a guitarist and avid Linux user, I’ve started developing a UI to work with Markus Grabner’s Line6 POD driver (no more dual-booting/virtualizing just so I can edit my POD XT Live). Still in the very early stages, though.
I also have a Nokia N900, so I’m trying to come up with an idea for a Maemo app, or seeing if anyone has started anything I felt like helping out with.
Here’s what I’m working on:
I’m building a trebuchet, because I think it’d be cool to have one to hurl things. I’m trying to modernize the design as I make it, to make it more efficient, so I’m working out the math on that.
I’m building a potato gun because I never have, it’s summer, and I think it’ll be fun.
I’m learning more physics because I love physics, and it’s so incredibly useful.
I realized I needed to develop my artistic side, so I’m spending a lot of time on photography. I bought a pro camera and some gear, and I’m working on learning how to do lighting. Using flash and reflectors correctly takes practice, and is proving to be rather fun. When you know how to use flashes with filters and reflectors correctly, you can create pictures that look like they came from Photoshop, but they come straight out of the camera looking that way!
I’ve been way too heavy on math/science/technology related hobby projects in the past, so I’m seeking balance now.
user inteface for non-profit operating systems. It’s name is Linea User Interface.
1. There is no desktop anymore. No more wallpapers, no more icons on desktop, and no more start menus.
2. Applications are running in full screen mode. No more minimizing and maximizing. Therefore, task manager is not necessary.
3. You don’t start or close applications anymore. All of them are preloaded. Number of heavy tasks performed depends on the quality of hardware. If the limit of hardware resources has been reached the rest of applications freeze.
4. There is a panel, but it only shows icons representing applications, settings for currently visible application, icon for general settings, and eventually hardware notification icons (sound volume, battery etc.)
5. Every application resides on its own virtual desktop.
6. It is possible to have as many as you want applications visible in one virtual desktop, but how usable it is depends on how large your screen is. You just drag’n’drop applications from the panel. They auto-magically fit into the screen area. There is smart resize function which means when you make one application bigger the others get smaller.
7. Gadgets are applications, so they behave the same way as other applications. That means when you want to switch to weather gadget it is in full screen mode. But as I said before you can have as many gadgets/application in one working area.
8. This user interface needs redesigning of applications. That’s why I am working on a new word processor with user friendly interface and new concept.
Every letter, number, etc. you type is a new layer. Every word, sentence and every paragraph is a group of layers. It is very easy to move layers around. Very useful for touch screen devices.
9. My second project is developing ultra tiny tablets which run only one application. Linux kernel modified to serve exactly that one application. I made a prototype where I have the whole operating system and just one application on one microSD card. My tablet prototype is just 6 mm tick.
Consulting IT startups and non-IT starups on IT
Coding some personally useful apps for Android
Writing business applications for fictitious entities, to keep my coding skills uptodate
My plan was to revisit my dead podcast and revive it, but my time has been sucked into a black hole known as home improvement.
Most of the major stuff I created without getting paid for is linked from my homepage – http://www.shlomifish.org/ . You can find their stories I wrote (most of them originally in English or with English translation), open-source software, presentations, essays and links. Enjoy!
The limited time I have is sucked up by various tech-related projects. Some in the past year have failed, so I won’t mention those to save face. Currently, I’m:
–Rearranging and, to some extent, remodeling my study (aka bedroom/office hybrid) for the ultimate nerdy experience (and to submit pictures of it to the Lifehacker workspace pool and feel sophisticated).
–Slowly ripping all of my DVDs to my computer to eventually convert my existing computer to a media center PC for the family room downstairs. I’ve also been accumulating new hard drives for the media center– that’s now complete.
–Slowly working through a few OSNews projects that’ll hopefully translate into delicious articles. Verrry slowly.
I’m working on a sequel to Amos BASIC Professional. It should be able to recompile old Amiga programs to newer hardware when it is finished.
There are several side-projects related to it including a wrapper for installing LLVM bitcode-based programs to multiple platforms without having to port the libraries manually. It’s called LLVM-LibC so you can search for it on SourceForge.net.
Another side-project that is contributing to this is the LLVM-PEG parser generator that my partner modified from the original to generate LLVM Assembly rather than C. It’s also hosted on SourceForge.net.
Hopefully we can make a business out of some of this stuff eventually. Among the things planned is a way to make modular programming languages.