sudofox's journal

Austin Burk's journal, where I share little snippets of my writing, code, and dreams.

Hijinx with the WebUSB and WebHID APIs

Trying to get pressure data in the browser on Linux

I've been working on trying to implement a driver for Wacom tablets using the WebUSB API, but it seems like HID devices are blacklisted. So I tried using the WebHID API but it seems like devices that can provide mouse/keyboard input are also blacklisted. So I'm trying to figure something else out to get tablet pressure data into the browser.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1134866#c10

It seems like it works fine on Windows but I primarily use Linux so it's difficult to test pressure sensitivity. :(

Job

I've been thinking lately that it would be nice to find a better-paying job. There's a lot of pretty big upcoming expenses and I'm running low on funds so I'm getting stressed out about it.

A lot of the job listings I find seem to be very Java oriented. Java...I can do it, but it's not my thing. Perl is my thing. PHP is my thing. JavaScript and Python? Of course! But besides a few Minecraft mods and Spigot plugins that I've written, I'm not super great at it.

My dream job is to get to do work for Hatena. I would like to maintain and improve Hatena's legacy systems. I know them outside and in (in that order). I've been working on updating my personal Hatena API documentation *1 recently, actually... It seems like it's fallen a little out of date.

f:id:austinburk:20210714100204p:plain


 f:id:austinburk:20210714100532p:plain

 

That's all for now!

*1:For what it's worth, there's a lot of things I only have a very tiny bit of information on, even just that something exists and nothing more

One month of Sudo Haiku: in retrospect

One month later...

(Copied and pasted from this entry)

It's been almost one month since Sudo Haiku opened! Hurray!!! 🎉

👥 Since June 13th, new users (289 total):

📝 Since June 13th, posted entries (7,713 total):

Other statistics
🖼️ 2,344 uploaded images
🏷️ 412 keywords
💡 Please make sure to invite the people that you remember from Hatena Haiku. Not everyone was closely-connected on SNS like Twitter or online at the time.

🎵🎶 Let's all Haiku together 🎵🎶

Code

I worked on this stuff between the previous update and when I went to bed early into the morning. Whew...

Paint Tool
- Flood fill tool has been vastly improved
- No longer fills multiple times if stroked instead of clicked
- No longer wipes out content inside of the fill area's border
- More efficient, should not slow down re-render as much
- Added another layer
- Started work on redoing the entire layer system as I found a better way to do it
- Performance updates
- Decoupled canvas updates from user inputs to improve performance
Hot Keywords
- Hot Keywords now only uses 2 days worth of data instead of 7.
- I hope to improve this, I need to both have enough keywords to fill the list, but also give added weight to keywords popular within a much shorter time span so that "good morning" and "goodnight" show at the top at appropriate times

https://cdn-ak.f.st-hatena.com/images/fotolife/a/austinburk/20210713/20210713071704.gif

Laptop

My laptop isn't doing very well. The keyboard is mostly not working, I had to disconnect the trackpad because the fingerprint reader started smoking and melting, the whole thing slows to a stop when disk usage is around 85%, there's a chip in the polarizer near where my terminal window usually is, the built-in webcam only works 20% of the time, the screen will lose refresh synchronization sometimes when USB devices are plugged in/unplugged or when the power fluctuates during a storm, the fan runs really hot even though I've cleaned it all out, and there's a weird white streak on the screen about 1/3 from the top.

https://cdn-ak.f.st-hatena.com/images/fotolife/a/austinburk/20210711/20210711235114.jpg

Released a big update to the paint tool!

Code

I really should give it a proper name, but I'm not sure what to use. Sudo Oekaki?

h.sudo.ne.jp

Hatena Blog issues

I'm kind of annoyed by the lack of feature parity in Hatena Blog. in the mobile Android app I can't backdate my posts, in the mobile site and mobile app I can't select what kind of link preview/embed I want to use, and half the formatting options are gone on the mobile. Isn't this supposed to be one of Hatena's flagship offerings? I bet I could improve the mobile site/app experience, given the chance.

Maybe I can just write a Hatena Blog client to use instead of the native one...but I feel like that would kind of be like spitting in someone's face. Then again, I've repeatedly offered to fix up the English localization for Blog and gotten turned down. I'd do it for free if only for my own benefit.

Super ready for the weekend

Code

This week is felt pretty long and I'm very ready for the weekend. I got the drawing tablet that my amazingtastic friend Purin sent me and used it to fix a lot of bugs in the Haiku art tool. The fixes aren't live yet but I'm hoping to push a new update within the next week.

f:id:austinburk:20210710142630j:image

I've been using a Windows VM to test since browsers on Linux don't seem to be handling pen input well.

Smell

There's an odd smell in my house and I've been trying to track it down. I adjusted the fan down in basement this afternoon, so it's mostly dried out now, and I'm hoping that will help.

Podcast

My sister messaged me today and said that one of her friends had heard me on the latest episode of Reply All. Wow!

Roof

I have a company coming over on the 21st to take a look at my roof. Hopefully it won't rain too much between now and then.

 

 

 

This week on Reply All... (Twicarus)

Podcast

I had a great time working with Alex over at the Reply All podcast investigating a mysterious Twitter account without a username. We were able to uncover the identity of the man behind the account and more. Give it a listen!

Code

As per usual, I've been working hard on improving Sudo Haiku's art tool. I'm planning several new features to make it easier to use. I have some concerns about achieving feature parity on mobile since there's really not a lot of places to put buttons and controls, but I'll try.

Mowing and mosquitos

I went over to my parent's house to help with the mowing. It took about an hour and a half. There's an absurd number of mosquitos out and about, so I'm glad I had bug spray.

Got my car back from the shop

I finally got my car back from the shop today. It came with a hefty bill of over $1,150.

f:id:austinburk:20210708125149j:image

But I'm happy to pay any price for my safety. There's a saying in Spanish, Lo barato sale caro, or "cheap is expensive", that I'm well aware of.

I've been working hard on improving the painting tool for Haiku recently, and I'm looking forward to releasing some big quality of life improvements for it soon, including layers and a desktop optimized experience.