Technology

(posted for discussion, not necessarily in agreement with author) https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/08/thematic-books-series/ Links to articles used in book (not linked on the site, presumably this is the book's contents): ... Why we need a speed limit for the internet https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/why-we-need-a-speed-limit-for-the-internet/ Email in the 18th century: the optical telegraph https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/email-in-the-18.html How to build a low-tech internet? https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet How to build a low-tech website? https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-low-tech-website/ How sustainable is a solar powered website? https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-is-a-solar-powered-website.html How and why I stopped buying laptops https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops Why the office needs a typewriter revolution https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/11/why-the-office-needs-a-typewriter-revolution.html

hackaday.io

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/664390 > Braille displays can be expensive, so this project idea focuses on making them cheaper and open source

If you're involved in the world of cryptocurrency, you may find it useful to retrieve the balances of ERC20 tokens owned by a specific address. By using the Chainbase API's `getAccountTokens` endpoint, you can effortlessly obtain the balances of all ERC20 tokens associated with a particular wallet address. This article will guide you through the process of setting up a Chainbase account, writing a script using the Chainbase API, and getting the ERC20 token balances. Let's get started! # Outline: > 1. Introduction 2. Overview of Tools Needed 3. Set up a Free Account at Chainbase 4. Write a Script Using Chainbase API 5. Print the ERC20 Token Balances 6. Conclusion 7. FAQs > # 1. Introduction Cryptocurrency enthusiasts often seek ways to efficiently manage their token holdings and check their balances. With the Chainbase API's `getAccountTokens` functionality, you can automate the process of retrieving ERC20 token balances owned by a specific wallet address. This not only saves time but also provides a convenient way to stay updated on your token investments. # 2. Overview of Tools Needed Before diving into the implementation, it's essential to ensure you have the necessary tools in place. Here's what you'll need: **1. Free Account at Chainbase with an API Key** To leverage the power of Chainbase, you should register for a free account. This account grants you access to various APIs and data cloud services provided by Chainbase. **2. IDE Recommendation: VS Code** While the examples provided in this article are in JavaScript, you can use any IDE of your choice. However, we recommend using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) due to its extensive features, code editing capabilities, and popularity within the developer community. **3. Wallet Address as Input** To retrieve ERC20 token balances, you'll need a known wallet address as your input. This could be your own address or any other address you wish to inspect. # 3. Set up a Free Account at Chainbase To begin, let's set up your free account at Chainbase and obtain an API key. Follow these steps: 1. Register for a free account at Chainbase by visiting our [website](https://chainbase.com/). 2. Once you've [registered](https://chainbase.com/blog/article/how-to-register-a-chainbase-account) and logged in, navigate to the dashboard to get an overview of the available features. 3. Create a new project in the Chainbase console. This project will be associated with your account and allow you to manage your API key and other settings. 4. After creating the project, you'll be provided with an API key. This key serves as a unique identifier for your account when making API requests. # 4. Write a Script Using Chainbase API Now that you have your Chainbase account and API key, you can proceed to write a script that utilizes the Chainbase API. Here are examples using both the Fetch and Axios libraries in JavaScript: **Using Fetch in JavaScript:** ``` network_id = '1'; // See to get the id of different chains. wallet_addr = '0xd8dA6 BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045'; // Take Vitalik's wallet address as an example. fetch(`https://api.chainbase.online/v1/account/tokens?chain_id=${network_id}&address=${wallet_addr}&limit=5&page=1`, { method: 'GET', headers: { 'x-api-key': CHAINBASE_API_KEY, // Replace the field with your API key. 'accept': 'application/json' } }).then(response => response.json()) .then(data => console.log(data.data)) .catch(error => console.error(error)); ``` **Using Axios in JavaScript：** You need to install `axios` using `npm install axios --save` in the terminal first. ``` network_id = '1'; // See to get the id of different chains. wallet_addr = '0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045'; // Take Vitalik's wallet address as an example. const axios = require('axios'); const options = { url: `https://api.chainbase.online/v1/account/tokens?chain_id=${network_id}&address=${wallet_addr}&limit=5&page=1`, method: 'GET', headers: { 'x-api-key': CHAINBASE_API_KEY, // Replace the field with your API key. 'accept': 'application/json' } }; axios(options) .then(response => console.log(response.data.data)) .catch(error => console.log(error)); ``` Make sure to replace `CHAINBASE_API_KEY` with your actual API key obtained from your Chainbase account. # 5. Print the ERC20 Token Balances The Chainbase API's `getAccountTokens` endpoint takes the chain ID and wallet address as parameters and returns the ERC20 token balances associated with the provided address. You can also specify a particular token by supplying its contract address. To print the ERC20 token balances, follow these steps: 1. Save your script file with a `.js` suffix. 2. Open your terminal. 3. Navigate to the directory where you saved the script file. 4. Execute the command `node .js`, replacing `` with the actual name of your script file. Upon running the script, you'll receive a response similar to the following, displaying the balances of ERC20 tokens owned by the specified address: ``` { "balance": "0x2386f26fc10000", "contract_address": "0x954b7997b8bfa9b3d642c477549e284551012f05", "decimals": 9, "name": "Eterium", "symbol": "ETE" }, { "balance": "0x97e328b058fe88019f7b", "contract_address": "0xff58ece2d4584139e3f136e18cae27deda947d3b", "decimals": 18, "name": "Uniswap V2", "symbol": "UNI-V2" }, { "balance": "0x186a0", "contract_address": "0xa6de609807c7258a0d34f5307c1808f062a59794", "decimals": 0, "name": "$ USDCDrop.com", "symbol": "$ USDCDrop.com <- Visit to claim" }, { "balance": "0x36f4bc072a511af5", "contract_address": "0x92 d6c1e31e14520e676a687f0a93788b716beff5", "decimals": 18, "name": "dYdX", "symbol": "DYDX" }, { "balance": "0x4700c3e20f38dcc", "contract_address": "0xa0a85f43c5e286187266833a5e986cb8a1a8b9f9", "decimals": 9, "name": "Apollo 11", "symbol": "APOLLO" } ``` Congratulations! You have successfully retrieved the ERC20 token balances owned by the specified wallet address. # 6. Conclusion In this article, we explored how to retrieve ERC20 token balances owned by a specific address using the Chainbase API's `getAccountTokens` endpoint. We covered the necessary tools, such as setting up a Chainbase account and obtaining an API key, as well as writing a script using JavaScript and popular libraries like Fetch and Axios. By following the provided steps, you can automate the process of checking your token balances, saving both time and effort. Remember to keep your API key secure and adhere to our usage guidelines. Now you can confidently build a simple wallet or integrate ERC20 token balance checks into your cryptocurrency projects! --- # 7. FAQs **Q1: Can I use any wallet address with the Chainbase API's `getAccountTokens` endpoint?** Yes, you can use any wallet address as input for the `getAccountTokens` endpoint. It will return the ERC20 token balances associated with the provided address. **Q2: How can I obtain an API key from Chainbase?** After [registering](https://chainbase.com/blog/article/how-to-register-a-chainbase-account) for a free account at Chainbase and creating a project, you'll be able to generate an API key associated with that project. The API key serves as a unique identifier for your account when making API requests. **Q3: Are there limitations on the number of tokens I can retrieve using the `getAccountTokens` endpoint?** The `getAccountTokens` endpoint allows you to specify the number of tokens to retrieve using the `limit` parameter. By default, it returns the first 5 tokens. However, you can adjust the limit according to your requirements. **Q4: Can I retrieve balances for tokens on different blockchain networks using the Chainbase API?** Yes, you can specify the chain ID when making API requests to the Chainbase API. This allows you to retrieve balances for tokens on different blockchain networks. Refer to the our [documentation](https://docs.chainbase.com/reference/balance-api-overview) for a list of supported chains and their respective IDs. **Q5: How often are the token balances updated by the Chainbase API?** The token balances provided by the our API are based on real-time data from the blockchain networks. Therefore, they are as up-to-date as the underlying blockchain itself. However, keep in mind that delays or congestion on the blockchain network may affect the accuracy of the balances output. --- ## About Chainbase **Chainbase is an all-in-one data infrastructure for Web3 that allows you to index, transform, and use on-chain data at scale.** By leveraging enriched on-chain data and streaming computing technologies across one data infrastructure, Chainbase automates the indexing and querying of blockchain data, enabling developers to accomplish more with less effort. ### Want to learn more about Chainbase? Visit our website [chainbase.com](https://chainbase.com/) Sign up for a [free account](https://chainbase.com/register), and Check out our [documentation](https://docs.chainbase.com/docs). [Website](https://chainbase.com/)｜[Blog](https://chainbase.com/blog)｜[Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChainbaseHQ)｜[Discord](https://discord.gg/kYrpZuwv6e)｜[Link3](https://link3.to/chainbase)

Channels? Clients? Commands? Other thoughts? Here's what I saw on a cursory glance: list of clients: https://www.slant.co/topics/1323/~best-irc-clients-for-linux how to get started (dated?): https://www.linux.com/news/beginners-guide-irc/ basic commands: https://www.mirc.com/help/html/basic_irc_commands.html channel list? https://www.irchelp.org/chanlist/ A lot of people use other chats like element / matrix these days too

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/425638 > cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/425629 > > > https://www.pdos.org/vlog/vlog.htm > > > > Main site: https://www.pdos.org/ > > > > PD Software Philosophy: https://sourceforge.net/p/pdos/gitcode/ci/master/tree/pdpgoal.txt > > > > In the public domain software world I still mostly only see PDOS and various TempleOS related projects and forks

From a post over a decade ago: https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/ Does this appear to still be true today or how have things changed?

living.ai

He talks to you, walks around and learns and dances. Also chat gpt

I liked the idea of Colemak, but it never became faster than QWERTY for me: https://colemak.com/ Dvorak seems interesting just older I saw some people promote "Halmak" but it's a minority interest (may have been an attempt to tweak Colemak) The Carpalx people have some exotic designs: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ Of course going in a different direction is stenography, the open steno project: https://www.openstenoproject.org/ or the Characorder: https://www.charachorder.com/ Have you tried an alternative keyboard layout to QWERTY or an alternative to keyboard designs altogether with steno?

www.vance.senate.gov

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/113850 > “Taxpayer-funded innovations should benefit American workers and industry, not our foreign adversaries. For far too long, we’ve allowed American breakthroughs to be offshored to nations like China and Russia – this legislation will bring those abuses to an end,” said Senator Vance. “It’s common sense: products developed with American taxpayer dollars should be manufactured by American workers on American soil.” > > “When taxpayer dollars are used to fund innovation, American companies and workers are the ones who should be reaping the benefits,” said Senator Baldwin. “By building on the progress we’ve made to manufacture more products in the USA, the Invent Here, Make Here Act ensures cutting-edge American innovation is also American-made, strengthening our manufacturing sector and our domestic supply chains, and supporting American jobs.”

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/109997 > I've seen in programming that apparently naming things like variables or files is hard (?). So that could be a topic of discussion. I'm not sure if it's felt that hard, to me. > > I have encountered a lot of problems with downloading files with irregular filenames, and then I can't find them, though. I'm guessing maybe that's on me to manually put the filename in whenever I download these things, but I guess sometimes I might just click "save" and the name of the file is not like a description of the file and it makes it difficult to find them when searching for them. > > Now on the other hand, sometimes people don't want the files labeled so that people find them easily, so that's another issue too. > > I've also wondered if a motion could be made to get more websites to automatically update certain filenames with titles of the page; for example, say a book on archive.org is gibberish, and you could select an option to automatically set that filename to the title of the page which would presumably be the name of the book. > > Has anyone encountered either of these issues of trying to figure out how to name files, or of downloading files with lots of random names that might have a tendency to get lost without them being labeled as they are downloaded?

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/90729 > I saw a vid pop up about how this distro could be the "end of distro hopping", by which I think they have a simple installer and can run lots of software > > (Ubuntu based currently, moving to Debian eventually as a base)

www.semafor.com

A: By 2014, it was clear to me most media would be generated by an AI. In our 2017 fundraising deck, we used the term “synthetic media” — which is now DALL-E. Five years ago we invested in this company called Splash in Australia. This sounds ridiculous, especially five years ago, but the founder said to me, ‘I want a top 10 music hit, produced by me, composed by AI, the instruments by AI, sung by an AI. No humans touching the music.’ It sounds inconceivable, but I could see why AI would generate media. There was a term called style transfer. You take a photograph. Can I turn it into Picasso’s style? Could you do my portrait in the Mona Lisa style? This idea of transferring the style from an artist or a painter, it was highly probable it would evolve to more and more capability. Q: Transformer models (the models used to create DALL-E and ChatGPT) hadn’t even been invented yet. A: But new models were being invented all the time. Which ones would be a quantum jump? I didn't know, but I did know the following: The best talent out of every university was going into AI. And AI was making quantum leaps. ... A: Sam was looking for other ways. He cared about the mission and what AI could do for humanity. It was clear it was going to become expensive and you needed a lot more money. Google could afford to do it. And the Chinese could afford to do it. Q: In other words, you saw this as a geopolitical issue, too? A: I’ve always thought it’s a huge geopolitical issue. In 25 years, 80% of all jobs will be capable of being done by an AI. This large transformation is the opportunity to free humanity from the need to work. People will work when they want to work on what they want to work on. That's a utopian vision. But getting from here to that utopia is really disruptive and it is terrible to be the disrupted one. So you have to have empathy for whoever's being disrupted. And the transition is very messy. It hurts people, hurts lives, destroys lives. Q: If China develops AI first, what is the world that we end up living in? A: Whoever wins the technology race in 20 years is up for grabs. The Chinese Communist Party’s most recent five-year plan commits to dominance in AI. These are asymmetric technologies. A country like Rwanda can't afford to have their own AI. Even Brazil can't afford to have their own AI. Whether Western values win the technology race and hence the economic race will determine what political philosophy is dominant on the planet. It's higher stakes than a war or a cyber war, and that bothers me. I do want us to be sensitive to the fact that a couple of these technologies — AI being a dominant one and I think fusion is like that — will determine whether in 2050 we are looking at Western values increasing in the world or Chinese values increasing. They have a very different political philosophy. I'm not critiquing their philosophy. I just don't want it to win. Q: That’s a critique in itself I guess. You've also talked about the need for fundamental research. Typically that's a government role. What role do the VCs play versus the government in this race? A: Fundamental research is important. Germany has some of the best research. Cambridge in the UK is great at research. In Japan, there's really good research. They've not been able to commercialize it and turn it into societal impact [at the same rate that you see in the U.S.]. Pat Brown [Founder of Impossible Foods] took a bicycle from Stanford, came to our office, and said: “I want to change animal husbandry on the planet.” We worked with him on starting the whole thing that is now called plant proteins. That is the venture community’s traditional role.

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/september/now-everyone-can-build-battery-free-electronic-devices/ Example implementing principles: ENGAGE - the battery-free gaming console https://github.com/tudssl/engage

www.debugpoint.com

This topic interests me for helping those who have visual impairment or blindness, as well as being prepared for the possibility of having such a condition when older myself, as well as the interesting experience of computing blindfolded. Any better distros you'd recommend for blind computer usage?

t.me

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/82968 > Here is an interesting twist. The X7 development team are anonymous and only communicate with the community through blockchain messages. The community then copy those blockchain messages into this Telegram channel for easy viewing. > > It made me feel uneasy at first, but the dev team seem to be delivering and by being anonymous they cannot be pressured into censorship or privacy breaches. > > Has anybody else heard of a set up like this?

Do you have personal tips on how to clean electronics? Should you rubbing alcohol to clean sensitive electronic parts? Do you have compressed air or an electric compressed air duster or recommendations on tools to acquire? What other tips would it be valuable for people to know?

For anyone wondering I am [@Owner_of_donky@donky.social](https://donky.social/u/Owner_of_donky) cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/746345 > Hello, > > I tried to update my instance but I forgot to read the release notes and used ansible to update. Of course it failed. After the update I decided to check what is new and I realized my mistake. I tried to run the postgress update script but it fails with the message > > ``` > Error response from daemon: Container {container hash} is restarting, wait until the container is running > ``` > > The logs say that the db hasn't been updated. > > I don't know what else to upload here to help troubleshooting. Thanks in advance!