Looks as if Karl Guttag will be reporting in detail about his experiences with the Apple Vision Pro 🙂

https://kguttag.com/2024/01/20/updates-ces-ar-vr-mr-la-sid-conference-apple-vision-pro-ordered/

I’m looking forward to this since Karl has good insights on AR/VR and while I’m not really looking at the Apple Vision Pro at the moment, based on Karl’s experience, I might change my mind.

In the above post, Karl also mentions the new Sony MR headset. That had only been in the periphery for me but given what he notes about the passthrough camera placement and the weight distribution of the headset, I might need to take another look.

#AR #VR #MR #AppleVisionPro

I've been a bit busy the last few months — family health issues, work, a possible move on the horizon etc. and haven’t really had much time to be on here.

Probably not going to get a lot more time for the next month or so either, but trying to get back to writing about stuff that interests me again …

#PersonalUpdate

@gobert If you need somebody to run your ideas/issues over with, I’m here 🙂

Sometimes, it helps to just talk it over and you get what’s going wrong yourself. Of course, stepping away helps too 😛

Good luck and if it helps, just found this which seems to be a recently updated project which might be useful (or might not)?

https://github.com/leminhcse/EpubReader-iOS

But possibly only if you are looking at iOS?

@gobert I’ve written several readers over the years but then abandoned each project for one reason or another 😛

EPUB is basically a renamed ZIP file with a specific structure but the issue I had with writing my own reader was the various ways that structure could be implemented. The content could be inside a folder with sub-folders or it could be in the root folder etc.

I used several different 3rd party frameworks for my later efforts and they mostly worked at that point in time, but since that was a few years ago, it’s certainly possible that none of them have been updated since then …

@davemark I do like Bard over the others because of the detailed answers it gives …

But of course, just like the others, it will feed you false info if you don’t pay attention 😛 Mostly happens to me when I’m trying to find actors from foreign movies/TV shows though … So I guess it’s kind of understandable?

@davemark This is what Bard says:

@davemark Can do the same right now with xReal glasses and an iPad — and much cheaper too 🙂

We, my wife and I, are looking at doing exactly this for an upcoming flight. I wrote an app which synchronises the playback of the same video on two different iOS devices via Multipeer Connectivity and with the xReal connected to the iPad, we can watch the same movie at the same time …

I was very bullish on the Vision Pro till I realized that they still didn’t have shared playback sorted out. So I went ahead and created my own for way less money 😛

"Three of Us" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23804378) is a wonderful, sometimes melancholic, movie.

It starts off with this air of melancholy that kind of persists throughout the movie. It might feel a little slow at times, but I loved the feel of nostalgia and, sometimes, whimsy that the movie evoked.

The actiing was brilliant — not just words, but emotions evoked through a gesture, or a glance.

I always notice Jaideep Ahlawat when he appears in a movie, but afterewards, i can't remember the movies themselves. Swanand Kirkire was great too, but the standout performance here was by Shefali Shah. Absolutely brilliant!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #SliceOfLife #QuietReflections

I generally like Nani's movies, but some of his recent ones have been especially good.

"Hi Nanna" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25433734) has to be at the top of that list as far as I'm concerned.

At first, it felt a bit like "How I Met Your Mother", but there is a turning point and once you hit that point, there is no looking back. I just had to finish the rest of the movie.

It was heartfelt and moving. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride of expecting something to happen and have something totally different happen.

One central premise might seem a bit unlikely, but it made the overall movie work.

Definitely recommended! 🙂

#Movies #Telugu #Nani #HiNanna

I used to develop apps for my own use and then distribute it as freeware.

Then life got busy, I stopped writing apps for personal use — just developed for the App Store.

I'm back full-circle now — coding apps for my own use ... but I don't release them in any form, just too much work/hassle.

How things change?

Or maybe we've become too used to centralized distribution points?

I don't know ...

All I know is that suddenly, after a long gap, at least a couple of my most-used apps are developed by me.

#Coding #SoftwareDev #PersonalProjects

"12th Fail" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23849204) is an inspiring story — a story of striving against all odds, against corruption, against classism, against hundreds of thousands to gain a coveted position.

This is more true-to-life than a lot of recent Hindi movies and so far I love every minute of it. I've lived some of it and I do understand where the people are coming from. Makes me nostalgic but also makes me want to stand up and cheer!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #AgainstTheOdds

@sgamel I totally agree that people don’t learn from history and repeat the same patterns — this is one thing that annoys me so much about humanity …

But at least in that case, you can argue that they don’t even see the pattern because they are so blind.

But in the case of the time loops, they know exactly what happens and what their actions were to cause a situation to occur. So it’s not quite the same as not learning from general history, at least in my opinion 🙂

"Parking" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28184712) is an interesting story about how a small incident can blow up to become a big issue due to egos, misunderstandings, and due to the opinions of others affecting our actions.

Maybe this is a (South) Asian thing, but I totally understand how the two characters came to be in the situation that they ended up in ...

A lot of us just rely way too much on what others think/say about us than just living life the way we want to.

#Movies #Tamil #Parking #RealLife

@timrichards This particular post was inspired by a Malayalam movie named “A Ranjith Cinema”.

I get so tired of movies where people know what happens (deja vu, time loop etc) and know that certain things will happen due to their actions and still do the same thing expecting to stop the events.

How does that make sense at all? If your actions cause a chain reaction, shouldn't you stop?

It's so annoying when they persist despite knowing what will happen instead of trying a different course of action ... Or not doing anything at all?

#Movies #Plot #Writing #DejaVu #TimeLoop

Watching "Kho Gaye Hum Kahan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15434074) I felt this strange sense of connection to both "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" and "Dil Chahta Hai" — it was almost like a journey across the years with different lives ...

KGHK brings home the fact how different things are in the digital age and how much things have changed since the other movies, which were like 10 years apart.

I was quite surprised to realize that it’s been 20+ years since “Dil Chahta Hai”. Where has all the time gone?

I liked the depiction of social media reliance in KGHK and how it probably is true for some and while I can understand the culture, I still feel like an outsider looking in on strange creatures 😛

What will it be like 10 years from now? Interesting to ponder ...

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #DigitalAge #Change

I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.

I’ve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.

All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.

I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.

Lately I’ve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.

I don’t do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?

Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:

- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?

I specifically avoid trap-style questions like “what is your greatest weakness?” or “why are you leaving your current job?”

I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. “are they good at acquiring new skills?” or “do they share the same values as the team?” and then structure the interview around that.

Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.

#jobs

"The Family Plan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16431870) was much better than I expected 🙂

In fact, I think the only other Marky Mark movie that I enjoyed more than this was "The Big Hit" and that was way back in the 90s.

Mostly good fun, a few stupid bits, but overall good family entertainment!

#Movies #English #Hollywood #MarkWahlberg

I’ve spent the past couple days battling with SwiftUI’s transferable protocol and ShareLink to export images to iMessage while retaining the gps data and I haven’t cracked it. Does anyone have experience with this?
#iosdev #swift #swiftui #indiedev #help

"Dhootha" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19868374) has an interesting concept but is marred by poor execution.

The characters over-explain everything and Naga Chaitanya has just one expression. I'm not sure he can make the main character believable ...

I'm still on the first episode and am on the fence about continuing, but I guess I’ll continue to watch just to see how the episode ends.

#TV #Telugu #Thriller #SuperNatural?