AlSweigart

AlSweigart, 11 months ago to random

Hey macOS and Linux Pythonistas: do you run pip or pip3 from the terminal?

AlSweigart, 11 days ago to random

What are the recommended ways to install Python on Windows, macOS, and Linux? Is it downloading from python.org for all of them? Or is it Microsoft Store, Homebrew, and apt-get?

AlSweigart, 11 months ago to random

I want to write a simple 2D game that can run on the web, mobile, and desktop while being freely available on Steam, Google Playstore, and the Apple Appstore.

Is Electron a good idea? I want 5 year old tablets to be able to run it.

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

Tell me it's okay for my open source projects to drop Python 2 support.

AlSweigart, 3 months ago to random

I watch YouTube videos at the lower 360p resolution out of some weird environmental conservation sense. It uses (roughly) 10x less bandwidth and (I assume) 10x less computing power for the server. Most videos I'm just watching at 2x to get some general ideas or info out of, and I don't really need the extra resolution.

Anyone else?

AlSweigart, 10 days ago to random

How big of a problem is it for Python that when a non-technical Ubuntu user searches App Center for "python" they don't find the Python.org interpreter at all? (But do find other random packages.)

The python.org downloads page for Linux users just links to the source code downloads, which is less than ideal for non-technical users who just want to write some scripts.

AlSweigart, 10 days ago to random

Silly project idea: Build a robot to move chess pieces around a board and take photos of common configurations, then open it to let people play chess that shows a photographed board instead of computer graphics. I'd build up a cache of openings, and have the robot take more photos as needed.

AlSweigart, 11 days ago to random

If you could lay out bad statistics end to end, they would stretch across the Milky Way Galaxy over a million times.

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

What would the next RMS figure look/sound like? What ideas would they put forth and how would they go about it? It'd have to be more than just open source, but also open platforms and standards and data, too. But what else?

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

LLMs like ChatGPT tell you wrong information not because they're consulting databases with wrong information, but because they hallucinate responses that sound plausible.

The thing to keep in mind though, is that they are hallucinating just as much when they produce correct information.

AlSweigart, 11 months ago to random

I keep thinking that every programmer knows regular expressions, but the fact that somehow the bit flags like re.IGNORECASE somehow made it into Python 3 without being refactored makes me think not a lot of people are paying attention to it.

AlSweigart, 11 months ago to random

When did browsers stop showing the alt text when you hover over an image?

AlSweigart, 21 days ago to random

I'm filling out the #PyConUS attendee survey and they asked what the highlight of the conference was for me.

Finding out 1) what funiculars are 2) riding a funicular and 3) finding out that "Funiculi, Funicula" opera that Pavarotti sang is about funiculars are in the top 10.

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

The wrongness of this math from ChatGPT makes me irrationally angry: https://chat.openai.com/share/7c2b4d3c-31bf-4f15-8598-245b627e25a2

AlSweigart, 21 days ago to random

I just did my post-#PyConUS covid test and it came up negative. Sharing a sold-out conference with 2,500 people and not coming home with some bug is no small feat, and I'm glad that PyCon has a sensible mask policy (mask indoors, but not at meals or when speaking or taking photos).

We keep each other safe.

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

I've created a simple tool in Python that records the text you copy to the clipboard, so you don't have to go back and forth copying and pasting several times. It's called cliprec. Windows .exe available in the GitHub.

https://pypi.org/project/cliprec/

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

I really like this lamp I got from Lifelong Thrift in Seattle. Touch lamp. Three settings. LED bulb.

I miss Seattle.

AlSweigart, 1 year ago to random

I'm going to Rome tomorrow. What should I do when I'm there?

AlSweigart, 3 months ago to random

AI-generated text is spam that can pass the Turing test.

AlSweigart, 3 months ago to random

I'd like to be able to type a partial filename and get a list of all files on the computer that have this. Does anyone know of a free/open source macOS app that does this?

"Everything" on Windows (downloadable from ninite.com) is exactly what I'm looking for.

AlSweigart, 21 days ago to random

When I am a deranged millionaire, I will create an art museum that features reproductions of famous painting that are horizontally flipped.

Starry Night horizontally flipped.

AlSweigart, 11 months ago to random

Crime is a social construct.

"Isn't that just something people say so they don't feel bad about committing moral atrocities?"

Sometimes, yes. But so is, "People should obey the law."

AlSweigart, 12 days ago to random

Screenshot from the web comic Dresden Codak.

AlSweigart, 3 months ago to random

Web form: "Please enter your email address."

Me: "Okay. It's aswei-"

Web form: "THAT IS NOT A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS."

AlSweigart, 5 months ago to random

Nothing that only rich people like is cool.