@mark@tapbots.social
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

mark

@mark@tapbots.social

Designer/co-owner https://tapbots.social/@tapbots. Currently busy building https://tapbots.social/@ivory, a Mastodon Client for iOS and the Mac with @paul and https://tapbots.social/@todd!

Obsesses over bikes (MTB, Trials, Dirt Jumpers) Apparently I get hurt too much doing dumb (yet fun!) things on bicycles for a kid in his mid 40's. Before bikes I obsessed over racing cars and go-karts on the track for 10 years.

๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ+๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ท

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mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

Pro Tip: In a pinch, you can charge your Apple Pencil on the back of an iPod.

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

Texas has some of the strangest town names.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

And then there's places like Paris, Texas that has an Eiffel tower monument with a cowboy hat on top. Though in this small town, they hold the Redbull UCI Pump track World Championship qualifiers. I've ridden there once, but should probably get out there more often. https://www.redbull.com/us-en/events/red-bull-pump-track-world-championship-paris-texas-usa

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

Been working on a redesign of our website for awhile and I keep looking at the current homepage (https://tapbots.com) and still think it looks great (okay, maybe not the mobile version). Makes it hard to keep pushing forward on a new design when the "work in progress" doesn't look nearly as good as what's already there. I'm sure something will click if I just keep pushing forward. Design is hard.

mark, to random
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We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to share a candid photo of my furry pigโ€ฆ (Edit) I mean dog.

mark, to random
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Was trying to rent a truck at Home Depot to transport something and was turned down because my driver's license expired at the beginning of April. ๐Ÿ˜ณ Not sure how I missed that. Went back into my car, pulled up the Texas DOT website, paid the fees ($30) and my license now expires in 2032. Walked back into Home Depot, showed the guy my temporary ID from my phone and rented the truck for $24 (had to return within 75 minutes). That was easy considering how things started!

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

My first NAS. I should have gotten one years ago, but better late than never. I retired my 12 year old Promise Pegasus 2 R4 which has been running flawlessly on the original drives, but getting it to connect consistently after the move to Apple silicon Macs has been annoying.

What I'm more excited about is the fact that I just cancelled my Dropbox account after what must be around 15 years of use? Their service has gotten worse over the years and I'm glad to be done with it. Notes in ALT text.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

@andycarolan The software has been great so far.

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

This little Kei truck is far from home. ๐Ÿ˜

Photo of the original Japanese license plate on the front of the car.
Photo of the truckโ€™s tailgate that says โ€œrealtime 4wdโ€ and some Japanese plaque.
A sticker in Japanese on the front windshield.

stroughtonsmith, to random
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Hereโ€™s your AI astonishment/nightmare fuel for today:

"TL;DR: single portrait photo + speech audio = hyper-realistic talking face video with precise lip-audio sync, lifelike facial behavior, and naturalistic head movements, generated in real time.โ€

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/vasa-1/

video/mp4

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith That Mona Lisa demo... ๐Ÿ˜ณ๐Ÿ˜…

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

We've finally got around to fixing the MacOS share sheet for Ivory and @todd has been killing it! Still have a few more things to fix, but can't wait to get this out to everyone and then get working on the iOS version. ๐Ÿซฃ These are screenshots of the actual share sheet (the backgrounds have vibrancy, but screenshots disable them for whatever reason).

Preview of Ivoryโ€™s share sheet on MacOS showing an example of sharing a website from Safari. Also showing dark mode.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

@dordio @todd Bookmarked for future reference. ๐Ÿ™‚

mark, to random
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

If you have a Synology NAS and use Safari's "Add to Dock" feature for your DSM, I threw together a quick icon for it.

https://d.pr/f/EjNwMC

There's probably better ones out there, but I did a quick search and didn't see anything so I just created this one. Figured I'd share it.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

Synology and DreamMachine icons are like two peas in a dock.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

@masukomi itโ€™s just the web interface with safariโ€™s โ€œadd to dockโ€ option.

mark, to MTB
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

My bike now has spokes made out of strings. Itโ€™s actually a material called Dyneema which is polyethylene. Itโ€™s said to have 15x the strength to weight ratio of steel spokes and floats on water. My wheels lost over 200 grams in weight. But whatโ€™s bigger is these spokes dampen chatter on the trail. It feels like Iโ€™m riding with half the air in my tires, but without being slowed down.

Iโ€™ve done 2 rides on them so far and Iโ€™m very impressed by the ride quality improvements they have.

Photo of a closeup of my mountain bike front hub which shows the spokes.
Photo of a closeup of my mountain bike rear wheel which shows the spokes.
Photo of a closeup of my mountain bike rear wheel which shows the spokes.

mark,
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@onpaperwings they provide a very unique feel. Iโ€™m just curious how long they will last compared to steel spokes. This is my short travel bike and so I tend to break spokes often on it.

mark,
@mark@tapbots.social avatar

@onpaperwings That's a good question that I probably won't be able to answer as I have no roadbiking experience and I'm running 24-26psi on mountain bike tires so even if I tested on pavement, it probably wouldn't be useful data. Are there any known road bikers running berd spokes?

schwa, to random
@schwa@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    mark,
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    @schwa Near the ocean? I have 2 of those and they have lasted 5 years in the Texas sun.

    mark, to random
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    Playing around with the new Redshift toon shader. The results are okay, but I'm sure it's mostly because of me. Just need to spend a lot more time playing around with different values.

    christianselig, to random
    @christianselig@mastodon.social avatar

    Loving the Fujifilm X100VI so far, but my hottest take is I so prefer Sony's controls

    mark,
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    @christianselig @curtisbridges I changed all my exposure/iso/aperture settings to use the dials on the front and back. I like the top dials from an industrial design POV, but in practice they are very slow and painful to use.

    It took me a month of fiddling with the settings to get comfortable with the camera and set up in a way that works for me. There's a lot of great youtube videos that go into details on how to configure the camera to work better for you. I like it more and more each day.

    mark, to random
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    My Rayban Meta Sunglasses seem to do 90% of what the Humane AI Pin does, but with a much better quality camera for taking photos/videos, better sounding speakers that no one else can really hear, less than half the price with no subscription, and you don't stand out as a tech bro. Oh and sunglasses are something I already wear all the time outside anyways.

    mark, to photography
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    Finally received a few SmallRig goodies to my X100 (grip extension and thumb rest). Holding the camera feels so much more comfortable and stable. SmallRig always makes well-designed accessories at a great price. I love that I can still access the battery without any issues and have an arca-swiss plate right on the camera as an added bonus.

    mark, to photography
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    No success getting a good focus lock on a ๐Ÿ today.

    Photo of a bee flying between blue bonnet flowers. The bee in motion is always slightly out of focus.
    Photo of a bee flying between blue bonnet flowers. The bee in motion is always slightly out of focus.
    Photo of a bee flying between blue bonnet flowers. The bee in motion is always slightly out of focus.

    mark, to random
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    Shot with my iPhone using one of the cheap eclipse glasses over the lens. The light outside is kind of eerie.

    mark,
    @mark@tapbots.social avatar

    2 more.

    image/jpeg

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