Four Neat Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

I may not post here next Monday or Tuesday owing to major personal obligations.

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1. I once future-proofed an "obsolete" peripheral by running it with a virtual machine. That scanner is really nice to have at tax time!

Someone else has taken this approach to a whole new level with an unsupported, but perfectly good photo printer that he now shares with his non-Linux-running family:

How the web app works

The core of this app is the amazing v86, which emulates an x86 CPU -- and the whole machine around it -- in a browser. It compiles machine code to WebAssembly modules at runtime, which puts the whole arrangement just the right side of intolerably slow. I make it so this v86 machine runs Alpine Linux with CUPS, Gutenprint and supporting packages.

The browser connects to your printer over WebUSB, retrieving its make and model. It looks for the Gutenprint driver name that's the closest match using trigrams, and sends an lpadmin command over the emulated keyboard to install it.

Then, to print a file, it's uploaded into the emulated machine and an lp print command is sent. And, as if by magic, the raw binary print data produced in the emulated machine ends up at your printer.

The developer is optimistic that his web app will work for "a range of other Gutenprint-supported models."

2. My favorite tactical podcast, The Adam Clery Football Channel, has a nice, short history of soccer jersey numbering conventions (embedded below), starting with the first, odd failed attempt, and following the evolution of numbering conventions after the Football Association's initial assignments by position.

Why do Brits keep calling them center halves? They should know better. They invented the game!

A fun bonus is that fellow non-British Premier League fans who are bewildered by the Britishism centre half will learn why the term is applied by commentators to central defenders.

3. Fellow beer drinkers rejoice! There is now a crowdsourced effort called Pint Patrol that calls out establishments whose "pint" servings fall short.

4. If a trip to Japan beckons, you might wish to review this list of chopsticks faux pas.

I'd also peruse this discussion of same.

Commenters there note that not all of the items on the list are that bad, and that a few are common among Japanese diners themselves.

At least two are marked serious because they resemble parts of Buddhist funerary rituals. If I got nothing else from the list, I'd be sure to avoid those!

-- CAV