Ghostty is the new Kitty

September 13, 2024


Hello!

Bit late and lean this week, for $REASONS.


-[ Create ]-
Google Slides Memes

Once in a while, I have a shower-thought idea for a silly meme. I'm terrible with all design applications, so my go-to for making sharable image-based content is Google Slides. Here's the workflow:

  1. Wash thoroughly, even behind the ears and the legs.
  2. Create an image that may trigger audible mirth in friends.
  3. Open the "Memes" Google Sheet, duplicate a black page and start being 🌟creative🌟.
  4. I copy and paste all manner of nonsense in until it looks cool (to a fifty-two-year-old).
  5. Maximise the window, click present, screenshot the area, paste onto the internet. Receive plaudits, nominations, or at least a thumbs-up.

pip install PyMemes

(It doesn't exist yet, don't try and pip install it)

Using Google Slides is okay (yes, I am aware it's a bit odd) for quickly banging out a silly image, it's no good for animated stuff like jifs and empegs. I recently decided I could do better, but not by learning a professional tool, oh no.

In my new adventures with Python, I created a "gifomatic" tool. The idea is that I can programmatically create gifs to go in daft social posts. Well, it works, and I posted my first silly thing. It's composed of three layers, with a couple of animated objects. It's all quite straightforward.

I used Pillow in a little Python to read a metadata file describing what I needed - layers and placements of images, and types of animation. It generates places everything on screen, starts animating, and saves the frames as a gif. Quite a fun way to make a little animation. Python and Pillow are super easy to learn and use for generating algorithmic images and animations. I foresee a lot more of this in my timeline.

I have yet to write a lot of code for this, just enough to make a simple image like the one linked above. Does anyone else know of a programmatic image/gif generator? Is popey wasting his time? Am I walking a well-trodden path? Has someone already done this?

(Please don't say, "Yes, popey, it's called SVG.")


-[ Consume ]-
Terminals, everywhere

You know how there are people who say there should be a GUI for everything, and terminals shouldn't be a primary interface?

A new terminal by Mitchell Hashimoto has entered the TTY. I learned of Ghostty via Andy Smith, owner of Bitfolk, purveyor of fine VPSs to popey towers (and others) since 2007, and recent contributor to the popey proof-reading team.

The video by (new to me) typecraft (Programming && fun) titled Is the Ghostty terminal worth the hype? triggers Betteridge's law of headlines, but delivers!

I haven't been so excited about a GPU-accelerated black box on my screen since May 2019 when Microsoft dropped the forty-four-second-long The new Windows Terminal trailer.

I still have the top "insightful" comment on that video. Neat. Also neat is the reply-guy saying "it's hardly the first. microsoft has been courting developers since before you were born". Nice try, John, but I, too, am old. I'm exactly three years older than Microsoft. They were founded on my third birthday. Where did I put that skull+birthday-candle emoji...

It's a shame that to get "in" on Ghostty's private beta, you have to join a Discord chat, (which is worst chat) and engage.

Maybe, like Andy, I'll wait for the open source builds.

Slim Pickings

I honestly expected my Virtual Zane Lowe bot would be the saviour of new music on my morning commute. Sadly, not, but here are three recent toons that I've had on repeat a bit.

They should be in the playlists below.


-[ Collateral ]-
A link or two


Thanks for reading.

-- popey


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