Roll the dice

I’ll try to keep this one short – it’s not exactly tech-related, but it kinda is. A tiny story about a tiny story that you might enjoy, in three parts.

Part One

I got into some speculative short story reading during the pandemic and Ray Bradbury was one author I got into. I think it started with some of my comic book research from the 1950s. Now I won’t go as far as Rachel Bloom on ol’ Ray, but the man definitely knew how to spin a yarn. In terms of sheer volume of interesting ideas, he beats out Isaac Asimov for me big time.

Anyway, in 1950 Ray Bradbury wrote this great short story called “The Veldt”. It’s only 13 pages and, rather than read a synopsis about the story, I think you should read it. Here’s a free copy I found, though I noticed some typos. G’wan read it, I’ll wait.

Back? I thought it was great, what about you? I think it’s got a lot to say about how tech has invaded our lives, de-sensitized us from each other, maybe other things that are way over my head. And it holds up today – nice and dark.

Part Two

Ever hear of deadmau5? He’s an electronic music artist from my homeland. Not sure if you’re into progressive house or the techno scene, but the guy has earned a lot of awards for his work. Anyway, he wrote a song called The Veldt in 2012 (the year Ray Bradbury died). Here you should watch the video:

Rolling Stone thought it was one of the 50 best songs of 2012. My musical wheelhouse is more the 1990s and early aughts, but I really love the tune.

Part Three

And how did this come to be? Apparently deadmau5 created the music in a “22-hour live streaming session” back in March 2012. Crazy, but what’s even crazier is that one day later, deadmau5 discovered that a fan named Chris James had posted vocals for the track. He was ready to shred the guy on his live stream but instead this happened:

So yeah, that music video you watched, the song that officially landed on the album, the one that Rolling Stone thought so highly of, is the combination of deadmau5 and Chris James’ vocals weaved together over the course of 48 hours.

In some way, I find this a satisfying balance to Ray’s meditations on technology… Anyway, I’m off to play in Africa!

§1343 · May 17, 2023 · Entertainment, Music, Technology · (No comments) ·


Logo for Feedly

Hey, if you are into Comic Books or Superheroes, I started another blog here. That blog takes the place of this Google+ Collection that I was occasionally posting to, but I decided to own the data this time and start at the beginning… so far I’ve made it to the debut of Superman… it should be more interesting going forward 🙂

Feedly has some buttons you can add to your blog here, but I wanted one that didn’t involve a network fetch unless the user clicked it, so I made one (thank you inline SVG):

<a href='https://feedly.com/i/subscription/feed%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.codedread.com%2Fcomicbooks%2Ffeed%2F' target='blank' title='follow us in feedly'>
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="70" height="30" viewbox="0 150 1400 530">
    <rect x="0" y="150" width="1400" height="530" fill="#6CC655" />
    <path fill="#6CC655" d="M111.615 420.945L297.64 234.92l186.025 186.025L297.64 606.97 111.615 420.945z"/>
    <path fill="#FFF" d="M201.837 622.782L64.179 484.193c-16.742-16.742-16.742-53.017 0-68.829l197.187-198.117c15.812-15.812 51.156-15.812 66.969 0L526.45 415.364c16.742 16.742 16.742 53.018 0 68.829L388.792 622.782c-8.371 8.371-21.393 13.952-34.415 13.952H234.392c-12.092 0-24.184-5.581-32.555-13.952zm125.567-53.947c2.791-2.79 2.791-8.371 0-11.161L300.43 530.7c-2.79-2.791-8.37-2.791-11.161 0l-26.974 26.974c-2.79 2.79-2.79 8.371 0 11.161l21.393 20.463h22.323l21.393-20.463zm0-114.405c1.86-1.86 1.86-6.511 0-8.371l-28.834-28.834c-1.859-1.86-6.51-1.86-8.37 0l-83.712 83.711c-2.79 2.791-2.79 9.302 0 12.092l19.533 19.533h22.323l79.06-78.131zm0-113.476c1.86-1.86 2.791-7.441 0-9.301L299.5 303.749c-1.86-1.86-7.44-1.86-10.231 0L148.82 444.198c-1.859 1.86-2.79 7.441-.93 9.301l22.323 21.394h21.393l135.798-133.939z"/>
    <text fill="#FFF" x="600" y="500" font-size="250" font-weight="bold">Follow</text>
  </svg>
</a>

Obviously replace my feed link with yours … unless you want to send me random subscribers!

§1194 · January 17, 2019 · Comic Books, Entertainment, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Feedly Your Blog ·


Logo for the OPML file format

I’ve been hacking more on kthoom and I want to upgrade it so that it can load reading lists (think playlists-for-comic-books). Anybody have any thoughts on a decent file format? OPML? A custom JSON file format?

This is a pure client-side web app, so a couple caveats here:

  • I would like to be able to load Reading Lists from anywhere
  • It should be able to refer to files using any sorts of shareable links (HTTP, IPFS)
§1164 · February 7, 2018 · Comic Books, JavaScript, Questions, Software, Technology, Web, XML · Comments Off on Reading List File Format? ·


Logo for IPFS

Happy New Year! Inspired by jfmherokiller, I updated the kthoom comic book reader to allow for fetching comics books over the InterPlanetary File System.

I still have lots to learn about IPFS. I have some code locally that lets you put books up on the IPFS, but I haven’t committed that yet as I’m still working out the concepts and debugging things…

§1127 · January 3, 2018 · Comic Books, JavaScript, Open Source, Software, Technology, Web · Comments Off on InterPlanetary Comics ·


Logo for the kthoom comic book reader

I use my open source comic book reader, kthoom, quite a bit (more than I probably should!). Every once in awhile, I’ll come across a comic book file that kthoom won’t open and I’ll delightedly set some time aside in the evening/weekend to work on fixing the JavaScript. Hacking keeps me sane. Read the rest of this entry …

§1115 · November 1, 2017 · Comic Books, Open Source, Software, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Comic Book Archive files with RarVM in JavaScript ·