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I'm a bit of an eclectic mess ๐Ÿ™‚ I've been a programmer, journalist, editor, TV producer, and a few other things.

I'm currently working on my second novel which is complete, but is in the edit stage. I wrote my first novel over 20 years ago but then didn't write much till now.

I post about #Coding, #Flutter, #Writing, #Movies and #TV. I'll also talk about #Technology, #Gadgets, #MachineLearning, #DeepLearning and a few other things as the fancy strikes ...

Lived in: ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡พ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ถ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

Fahim Farook

Edited 1 year ago
"The Boys" is violent, rapey, murdery etc. But I think it's closer to how humans would behave if they had super-powers than what Marvel or DC thinks ...

So, I was ambivalent about "Gen V" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13159924) since "The Boys" is a bit over the top for me. But the first episode of "Gen V" was interesting and has enough in it to keep me hooked. Will watch more to see if the potential pans out or if this is going to just go with over-the-top violence โ€ฆ

#TV #English #TheBoys #GenV #Comics
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Fahim Farook

Edited 1 year ago
AnyType allows me to keep a list of movies I want to watch and create various views based on different criteria such as movie language ... but it's hard to automate adding data to AnyType. Easiest way is to type it all in manually.

My own app lets me do things as I wish and I can automate movie information retrieval easily from say IMDB, but it is task-specific and I can't easily store (or rather, store in an organised fashion) movie information side-by-side with say, book info, or a comic book collection.

Can I find a middle ground?

#PersonalDataManager #AnyType #Swift #SwiftUI #Automation

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Fahim Farook

I started using AnyType (https://anytype.io/) to maintain my movie/TV watchlist, tasks, notes and a few other things ...

So of course, I start working on a #Swift app which will allow me to add movies to AnyType easily by doing a simple IMDB search ๐Ÿ˜›

Only about a day of work so far, but the search works. The transferring data easily to AnyType part is a bit more involved but thereโ€™s some light at the end of the tunnel.

#Swift #SwiftUI #macOS #AnyType #DataManagement
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Fahim Farook

The second episode of "The Continental" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6486762) is much better.

It gives you a hook, a slightly bigger world, and a wider cast of characters (and backstories for existing characters) that makes things interesting.

Much better than the first episode, IMO. I think I'll watch for a little longer to see how things develop โ€ฆ

#TV #English #TheContinental
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@FalconMarkSix My issue is with how slippery that initial glass implementation was ๐Ÿ˜› Later stuff wasnโ€™t that hard to keep on a surface โ€ฆ

Iโ€™ve been using the iPhone X for an hour or so today and without the case itโ€™s a nightmare! It wonโ€™t stay on any slightly inclined surface โ€” it just slides off.
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Fahim Farook

Got my old iPhone X out to do some testing ...

The case was falling apart and I took it off. That was the first time I'd ever bought a case (back then) for a phone ...

I had forgotten how slippery the iPhone X was without a case. Just leave it even on a (mostly) flat surface and it starts sliding โ€ฆ

Was that a deliberate design decision on Apple's part to drive case sales? I have to wonder (in hindsight) given that I've bought a case for every new iPhone since then ๐Ÿ˜›

#Apple #iPhoneX #iPhone #Cases #SlipperySlope
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Fahim Farook

"The Continental" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6486762) has the bones of a story, but not much to actually like/care for till the very end of the first episode.

I wasn't going to watch further, but the ending did hook me. So maybe one more episode to see where it goes, possibly?

#TV #English #TheContinental #JohnWick
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Fahim Farook

Edited 1 year ago
At least some open source projects seem to go to great lengths (intentionally or unintentionally) to make the PR submission process convoluted ๐Ÿ˜›

I just want to make the code better because I feel that others can benefit from it. I don't want to jump through multiple hoops to do that ...

Instead, I just shrug and move on most of the time. There's only so much time to work on stuff, after all.

Maybe I just donโ€™t work well with people? Thatโ€™s certainly possible ๐Ÿ™‚

#OpenSource #GitHub #PullRequests #Hoops
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Fahim Farook

"Adiyae" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27618123) started out as an interesting movie, but the protagonist's utter confusion at anything and his apparent inability to understand anything or to cope with anything except by screaming at the universe just makes it very annoying to watch ...

The protagonist seems to be only capable of showing a confused look throughout (at least the first part) of the movie. I donโ€™t feel anything except annoyance at having to watch him ๐Ÿ˜›

#Tamil #Movie #Kollywood #SciFi #ParallelUniverses #AlternateReality
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@AngelaPreston That looks like an interesting place to visit โ€ฆ now I guess Iโ€™ll have to find out more about it ๐Ÿ™‚
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Fahim Farook

Interesting ...

I use Bodega (https://github.com/mergesort/Bodega) in my Mastodon client app to cache old posts, and my app has gotten progressively slower over time.

In fact, trying to open an image or the post detail screen takes several seconds while the app just sits and churns ...

Since nothing else had changed, I tried deleting the Bodega data folder and re-launching the app. Instant speed boost ๐Ÿ˜›

Now if I can figure out if this is just an issue of there being just too much data to read quickly (which I thought Iโ€™d eliminated by clearing the cache โ€ฆ) or something else, that would be the real win ๐Ÿ™‚

#iOS #Catalyst #Swift #Performance #Caching
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Fahim Farook

This weekend's project was to create a 2FA key manager that was cross-platform and uses the latest Swift stuff like SwiftData since I want to move away from Google Authenticator.

Both targets achieved โ€” plus, has migration from Google Authenticator built in by importing the export QR codes that Google Authenticator creates ๐Ÿ™‚

But iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma only since some of the functionality I used isn't backward compatible ๐Ÿ˜ž Doesn't really matter as a personal app though, so all good?

#Swift #SwiftUI #macOS #iOS #2FA #Authenticator #SwiftData
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Fahim Farook

Another post in Karl Guttag's series of posts discussing Apple Vision Pro is now up:

https://kguttag.com/2023/09/26/apple-vision-pro-part-6-passthrough-mixed-reality-ptmr-problems/

I find the passthrough mixed reality issues he mentions interesting, and am curious as to if the released product has the issues he mentions and how much it would impact your eyesight when you use the AVP over a long period of time ...

Also, curious as to how well the Quest 3 handles this given the placement of cameras on the Quest 3.

To be frank, I am less and less inclined to get an Apple VisionPro (even to try it out to see if it meets my requirements and/or will serve as a platform to develop for) as I continue to read Karlโ€™s posts on the subject โ€ฆ

#Apple #VisionPro #Hardware #MixedReality #Analysis #Passthrough
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@afchristopher I do reazlie that this happens immediately after update (and I have been using the betas for a while) but it shouldn't take this long โ€” at least, it hasn't in the past ๐Ÿ™‚
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Fahim Farook

New iOS, and my phone seems to drain battery faster ...

Created a document with all the ways to turn off battery draining processes. Seems to have made a huge difference.

Now experimenting with Shortcuts to turn on/off battery drainers as needed. Looking pretty good.

Mix in automated Shortcuts to turn off stuff when I go to sleep and turn them back on when I get up, and things hopefully just work? Maybe? ๐Ÿ˜›

#iOS #Battery #Automation #Shortcuts #PowerDrain
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Fahim Farook

Recently, British detective shows have not had the quirkiness and humour which makes them so enjoyable and watchable ...

Enter, "Mrs. Sidhu Investigates" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21259542)

It has the humour, the quirkiness ... and it has Meera Syal.

What's not to like? ๐Ÿ™‚

This is one of the good ones. Give it a try, you wonโ€™t regret it!

#TV #Detective #Mystery #British #UK
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Fahim Farook

I'm trying to get going on a game since I've got the itch to do another game ...

I've been looking at free assets to build a quick demo version to see if the idea holds up and it seems sword wielding men are the most common characters you can find?

What about women/children? Or people not prone to violence?

I just find this interesting ... and telling ...

I can go into more detail โ€” like how the first female character I found was tagged with โ€œextra breast bouncing for sexinessโ€ (or something similar). I found that rather disturbing โ€” is the only attribute to identify you as female, bouncing breasts?

Is this how that particular person sees the world? Or are they just trying to be โ€œmarketableโ€?

#Games #GameDev #Artwork #Characters
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Fahim Farook

"Blue Beetle" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9362930) is just mostly annoying ...

His family are annoying, the situations aren't funny, the beetle AI is stupid, and generally, it was a huge disappointment since I expected so much more from the movie ...

#Movies #DCComics #Hollywood #DCHeroes #BlueBeetle
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@whoosh Yep, we really enjoyed the first episode as well ๐Ÿ™‚ So looking forward to watching the rest โ€ฆ

The Indian version tried too hard to add comic elements and it just didnโ€™t work โ€ฆ The Indian version of โ€œFlower of Evilโ€ was much better, but maybe a flash in the pan?

Since Indian remakes of KDramas seem to be picking up, I guess weโ€™ll know soon?
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Fahim Farook

"MY3" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28744259) is the Indian remake of "I'm Not a Robot" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7521778)

Watched the first episode of "MY3" and it was rather horrible. Tried the first episode of the Korean original and that actually looks much better ...

#TV #Indian #Korean #Hindi #SciFi #KDrama
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