Welcome - Gerald Bauer's Code Monkey Diary / Updates - What's News?

Upcoming (In-Person Live) Talks - Join Us

Note: I am always happy to speak at your meetup / camp / conference - send requests / invites to gerald.bauer @ gmail.com. For a collection of past talks (incl. outlines), see Talks, Talks, Talks »

Questions? Comments?

Yes, you can. Open a new issue / ticket. Thanks.

Trivia Quiz of the Month

Let’s generate 8 000 000 000, that is, 8 billion unique punks for everyone on planet earth.

Q: How many (“sprite”) attributes do we need? Mission impossible? Let’s do the math. Anyone? Post / discuss your calculations / estimates. Yes, you can.

Week 8 - Monday, February 20th to Sunday, February 26th, 2023

Step-by-Step Guide / How-To Article - Back-Up Your GitHub Repos Via git clone –mirror & git remote update

What if your github repos are gone with a 24-hour (email) notice while you are offline? Prepare yourself and keep your own backups using the gitti-backup and hubba gems. See the How-To Back Up Your GitHub Repos - A Step-By-Step Guide for a write-up on my setup. What are your backup options? Do you use your own script(s) or other readymade tool(s) - please tell.

Week 7 - Monday, February 13th to Sunday, February 19th,2023

(Crypto) Punk’s Not Dead Under Attack - Please, Help

If anyone cares about the (crypto) punk’s not dead education and open source, data, pixel art punk project (& repos), please see Full Scale Attack, Please Help »

Updates

Please Help - Who Is The Crypto Bro (Or Who Are The Buy-Out Investor(s)) Behind the Anonymous (1000) More Punks Operation - Any Tips & (Inside) Info Welcome

Action Item 1: Once I got the damage assessed and a better backup for defense I will upload all cryptopunksnotdead repos as backups to gitlab (and you are invited to upload your own copies to other git services or upload archives to ipfs and so on).

Action Item 2: If it is possible as a non-US citizen - I (Gerald Bauer) am Austrian - (and if possible with my limited / practically budget or zero) I will counter file on all taken down repos. If anyone has advice or help, you are more than welcome to contact me. (You can email in private to gerald.bauer AT gmail.com).

Design Your Own Ordinal Punk (Anno 2023) Wizard - Right-Click & Save to Download

For the Programming (Generative) Pixel Art In Javascript - DIY 8-Bit Characters @ Free Code Camp Vienna talk on Wednesday, February 15th I started on putting together a pixel punk designer / wizard for the Ordinal Punks (inscribed on the bitcoin blockchain and attached to satoshis that you can buy & sell). The spritesheet - ordinalpunks-24x24.png - is almost complete (a few female emotions e.g. smile, frown, etc. are missing)

BUT yes, the wizard configuration needs an update to get many more attributes (activated / included). Try the (under construction) live (alpha) version - Design Your Own Ordinal Punk (Anno 2023) Wizard.

Week 6 - Monday, February 6th to Sunday, February 12th, 2023

Step-By-Step Guide to Generate 100 Ordinal Punks In Your Own Terminal Via Text-Prompts (“Attributes”)

I have written-up a step-by-step guide to generate a “pixel-perfect” copy of the Top Selling 100 Ordinal Punks (in your own terminal) via text-prompts¹ (“attributes”).

Note ¹: Sorry - no artificial intelligence (a.i.) models in use :-( - just plain old “hard-coding” by-hand.

Take Down Update While working on filing the counter notice - see the gitlab mirror backup for the step-by-step guide.

ordinals gem - “right-clicker” (off-chain) ordinals (pixel art) machinery & helpers for bitcoin inscriptions

In the ongoing crypto winter programming series I added yet another gem, that is, ordinals that incl. the ordbase command-line tool that lets you download, downsample & compose all-in-one ordinal (pixel art) collections from the bitcon blockchain via ordinals.com.

See the ordinals readme for a ordinal punks step-by-step real-world example. New to ordinal punks? See Awesome 100 Ordinal Punks (Anno 2023) Notes. Is bitcon up for a come back with ordinal digital artefacts? Are 8-bit golden (pixel) punks or birds (in png) the new digital gold nuggets?

Take Down Update While working on filing the counter notice - see the gitlab mirror backup for the awesome page.

abi2ruby gem - generate ready-to-use contract services for Ethereum & Co.

In the ongoing crypto winter programming series I added yet another gem, that is, abi2ruby that lets you generate ready-to-use (blockchain) contract services / function calls for ethereum & co. via application binary inferfaces (abis). See the abi2ruby readme for some first real-world examples.

Week 5 - Monday, January 30th to Sunday, February 5th, 2023

Awesome Solidity (Contract) Programming Language & Tools

I started a new Awesome Solidity @ Open Blockchains page that collects all things about the solidity (contract) programming language incl. alternate lanuagues (Huff, Cairo, ect.) and - bonus - sports a Weekly What’s News? chronicle / log.

abi2sol gem - command-line tool for abi to sol(idity) contract source code generation

In the ongoing crypto winter programming series I added yet another gem, that is, abi2sol that ships with a command-line tool that lets you generate solidity (contract) source code from application binary interface (abi) definitions (in json).

Week 4 - Monday, January 22th to Sunday, January 29th, 2023

solidity gem - (fuzzy) lexer & parser for (crypto) contracts for ethereum & co.

In the ongoing crypto winter programming series I added yet another gem, that is, solidity that ships with a (fuzzy) lexer & parser for the solidity (contract) programming language. What’s the point? The first usage sample is to generate outlines from contract sources - see some real-world examples in the readme.

ArtQ In Action - Let’s Download More (On-Chain) Pixel Art (Character) Layers

I downloaded and added nine more collection layers for easy (re)use to the Art Factory Sandbox using the ArtQ machinery. The new samples include:

Shiba (24x24) , GM Kevin (27x25), Frog Central (32x32) , Pepe Blocks 1/1s (19x25), Pepe Burb Punks (24x24) , Novo (24x24), and many more.

Week 3 - Monday, January 16th to Sunday, January 21st, 2023

A Call for Good Governance @ Vienna.rb Results In Fuck You by Org / Owner (Aaron Cruz)

For reference I’ve written-up a (public) summary, see A Call for Good Governance @ Vienna.rb Results In Fuck You by Org / Owner (Aaron Cruz). Your comments or corrections are more than welcome.

Vienna.rb Website Update & (Drop-In) Meetups Upcoming in 2023

As a follow-up to the ongoing Vienna.rb drama I updated the Vienna.rb / Wien.rb - Ruby Meetup / Stammtisch website. What’s news?

gemverse gem - gem universe incl. rubygems API V1 wrapper lite; gem (version) cache, gem timeline reports, & more

Interested in what you have been up to in the latest 10+ years in rubyland / gemverse? To (auto-)generate timelines for personal profiles or for “curated” collections I have started to put together a new gem, that is, gemverse, for easy (re)use. The gemverse incl. rubygems API V1 wrapper lite; gem (version) cache, gem timeline reports, & more. For some first real-world sample pages see the gem timeline (by week) of Gerald Bauer - 244 Gems, 1652 Updates or (by month) the Ruby Code Commons (COCOS) Collection - 117 Gems, 638 Updates. It’s still the early days. Questions, comments & suggestions more than welcome.

Week 2 - Monday, January 9th to Sunday, January 15th, 2023

ethers gem - “High-Level” All-In-One Umbrella Quick Starter Package For Easy Installation & Usage For Ethereum & Co.

To make it easier to get started with blockchain (contract) programming in ruby - and inspired by the rails gem - I put together the ethers gem - a “high-level” all-in-one umbrella quick starter gem for easy installation & usage for ethereum & co. (blockchain) contract services that for now bundles crypto-lite, etherlite, etherlite-contracts, ethname, etherscan-lite, abidoc, abigen, & some more gems. The ethers name is inspired by ethers.js (or ethers.rs) and let’s you use require 'ethers' in rubyland or $ gem install ethers to get started.

abigen gem - Application Binary Interface (ABI) Contract Generator for Ruby

In the ongoing crypto winter ethereum & co. programming series I put together the new abigen gem that lets you generate ready-to-use (blockchain) contract services / function calls for ethereum & co. via application binary inferfaces (abis). Bonus: Via the new natspec gem you can even “auto-include” nat(ural language) spec(ification) comments / documentation in the generated ruby code. See the pre-packaged auto-generated ruby classes in the ethlite-contracts gem, for some first real-world samples.

hexutils gem - Hex Encode / Decode Helpers; From Hex String to Bin(ary) String & Back

A new addition in the ongoing If I Were King Matz (aka Yukihiro Matsumoto) - Ideas For Ruby 4.0 - What’s Broken & Missing in Ruby 3.x and How To Fix It series I published a first version of the hexutils gem that adds the missing hex(adecimal) encode / decode helpers to String, NilClass, Kernel & Co. that get you from hex(adecimal) string to bin(ary) string and back. Happy wrangling with bits & bytes in ruby.

Week 1 - Monday, January 2nd to Sunday, January 8th, 2023

If I Were King Matz (aka Yukihiro Matsumoto) - Ideas For Ruby 4.0 - What’s Broken & Missing in Ruby 3.x and How To Fix It

To kick off the new year looking ahead I opened a new page titled If I Were King Matz (aka Yukihiro Matsumoto) - Ideas For Ruby 4.0 - What’s Broken & Missing in Ruby 3.x and How To Fix It that’s a (living) quick draft of ideas (backed-up with code & monkey-patches that you can use / try out today). Your questions and comments welcome. Happy new year. Prosit 2023!

All Ruby Books @ Planet Ruby Opened Up /2023 Directory & More

The All Ruby Books collection was started by Florent Guilleux in 2016 and before shutting it down I volunteered to rescue the collection and moved it over to Planet Ruby and converted the code to an all static website built with ruby (via jekyll and github pages) from collections in markdown (one per book organized by directories per year). Anyways, to kick off the new year I added a new /2023 directory and added two upcoming ruby books in beta. Anything missing? Your contributions welcome.

Ruby Conferences & Camps in 2023 @ Planet Ruby - What’s Upcoming?

Over at the Planet Ruby I opened-up a new page listing all Ruby Conferences & Camps in 2023 - What’s Upcoming?. It’s all built with ruby (via jekyll and github pages) and a (open) datafile in yaml. There’s even an old school web feed in xml (and modern flavor in json). What ruby (or rails) conference or camp are you planning to attend in 2023 (or are you cancel-cultured like DHH and have to re-start your own foundation and conference that invites you back as a keynote speaker ;-)?

Week 52 - Monday, December 26th 2022 to Sunday, January 1st 2023

abicoder gem - New Application Binary Inteface (ABI) Coder For Ethereum & Co.

To help out all ethereum & co gems in rubyland I have started a new abicoder gem that includes application binary interface (abi) encoder & decoder for easy (re)use with zero-dependencies on any 3rd party gems incl. any of my own ;-). The idea is to work together in 2023 on any missing functionality - I have already pinged / invited the eth.rb lead. Happy blockchaining with ruby. Happy New Year. Prosit 2023!

abiparser gem - New Application Binary Inteface (ABI) Parser For Ethereum & Co.

I have started on a new abiparser gem that includes application binary interface (abi) parser machinery / helper for Ethereum & Co. (blockchain) contracts and started to document function signature hashes (“sighashes”) / selectors and interface (type) ids and more - all using coding examples in ye good olde plain ruby. Are abis (application binary interfaces) the new apis (application programming interfaces)? Discuss.

PS: A first “real-world” usage-case is the new abidoc gem that - surprise, surprise - generates abi documentation pages from public abi (contract) specs (in json) parsed with the abiparser gem.

Week 51 - Monday, December 19th to Sunday, December 25th, 2022

ArtQ In Action - Let’s Download (On-Chain) Pixel Art (Character) Layers

I downloaded and added 10+ more collection layers for easy (re)use to the Art Factory Sandbox using the ArtQ machinery. The new samples include: 3D Skulls (24x24) , Chimps (58x58), Mad Masks (32x32), Smiley (24x24), Teddies (39x39) , and many more.

Artbase Sandbox (& Cache) Vol. 3

I am trying to exercise the (“right-clicker” download) artbase machinery and opened up a new sandbox, that is, vol. iii, that includes:

and more upcoming SOON!

Week 50 - Monday, December 12th to Sunday, December 18th, 2022

Free Crowd-Sourced “Off-Chain” Eth(erum) Name Service / Helper

I put together another little gem, that is, ethname - a light-weight crowd-sourced “off-chain” ethereum name to (contract) address service / helper (incl. punks v1,v2,v3,v4; phunks v1,v2, synth punks, punk blocks, etc.). Yes, you can! Add more names / contracts via git (hub) ;-).

Light-Weight Machinery / Helper for the Etherscan JSON HTTP API

I put together a little gem, that is, etherscan-lite - a light-weight machinery / helper for the Etherscan JSON HTTP API. To get you started I tried the official etherscan recipe examples. 1) Get All USDT Transfers from Binance 2) Get the Latest Moonbird Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Transfers 3) List ETH deposits to Arbitrum Bridge.

To (Use) Bytes or Not? - Discuss

Does a Bytes (ByteArray) class make any sense in rubyland - why? why not? Discuss.

While hashing “to-the-metal” byte arrays in ruby I am revisiting / reworking the bytes gem that offers a new Bytes (ByteArray) class as a “type-safe” alternative to the String class with ASCII_8BIT / BINARY encoding. Did you know? A ruby string might be a frozen string, a string buffer, a character, a bytearray, or you name it ;-). Anyways, if anyone has any comments or tips & tricks on how to work with bytearrays (bytes) in ruby, please tell / share.

Digest Lite - More Crypto(graphic) Hash Functions / Classes in Ruby (Without C-Extensions)

For easy (re)use I put together a new stand-alone gem, that is, digest-lite that includes more crypto(graphic) hash functions / classes e.g. Digest::KeccakLite (512bit, 256bit, etc), Digest::SHA3Lite (512bit, 256bit, etc) in “100% pure” ruby “lite” scripts, that is, without any c-extensions and with zero-dependency.

Week 49 - Monday, December 5th to Sunday, December 11th, 2022

Synth(etic) Punks - (Free Unlimited) 24×24 Pixel Punks For Everyone

Inspired by the “on-chain” Synthetic Punks V1 by Stephan Cilliers I put together an “off-chain” synthpunks gem / library that lets you generate (free unlimited) pixel punks using the same pseudo-random formula and spritesheet for any (ethereum) address (or any 40-digit / 20-byte hexstring really.) Bonus: Add your own backgrounds or derive your own set of default profile pics and more. Example:

Week 48 - Monday, November 28th to Sunday, December 4th, 2022

Default Profile Pic(tures) - The Punk Edition

A little experiment in the ongoing punk pixel art programming series. The idea - let’s turn pixel punk heads into default profile pic(ture)s via Image#silhouette (from the pixelart gem). Bonus: Use Image#circle (from the pixelart gem) to “round out” the square (profile picture) image. See Yes, You Can - Generate Your Own Default Profile Pics (PFPs) @ Punk’s Not Dead for do-it-yourself (d.i.y.) examples and scripts.

New Black & White (1-Bit) Punk Building Blocks

Punk’s Not Dead Reorg. I moved all black & white (1-bit) punk building blocks for easier (re)use and updates to a new “top-level” repo, that is, punks.black »

New Punk Link Blog @ Punk’s Not Dead

To keep track of punk projects from around the world I’ve started a new link blog @ Punk’s Not Dead. See (Pixel) Punk (Programming) Links From Around The World, Universe & Metaverse »

Latest updates / highlights include:

Week 47 - Monday, November 21st to Sunday, November 27th, 2022

New ArtQ Command-Line Tool - Download “On-Blockchain” (Pixel) Art Layers for Easy “Off-Blockchain” Re(Use)

Building on the new ethlite & rlp lite gems I put together ArtQ - a new command-line tool - that lets you download (pixel) art layers for “on-blockchain” collections for easy “off-blockchain” (re)use. For Mad Camels, for example, try $ artq 0xad8474ba5a7f6abc52708f171f57fefc5cdc8c1c layers and so on. For 20+ more examples (incl. DOS Phunks, 1337 Skulls, Teddies, etc.) see the Art Factory Sandbox »

Artbase Module Mania

To make it easier to build on and (re)use the artbase machinery I started to break-up the artbase “monolith” into modules, that is, artbase-cocos (code commons), artbase-importers, artbase-linters (& exporters). and artbase for the “high-level” command-line tool(s) that now includes artq and artserve.

Week 46 - Monday, November 14th to Sunday, November 20th, 2022

New Datasets for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar in Football.TXT

The World Cup 2022 kicked off on Sunday, Nov 20th (in Qatar). I started adding new datasets for the World Cup 2022 in the (structured) Football.TXT format (e.g. /2022–qatar/cup.txt, etc.) that you can read into SQLite (or any other SQL database) with the sportdb gem(s) / machinery (and than export to JSON, for example).

New Ethereum Gems - ethlite & rlp-lite

Since the “official” ethereum gem in rubyland, that is, the eth gem has no support for tuples (also known as structs) for eth calls I started building a light-weight alternative that for now handles only eth calls (via json rpc) BUT supports tuples (initially based on the web3-eth gem). The web3-eth gem depends on the rlp gem (for recursive-length prefix encoding) and since the rlp gem is out-of-support / unmaintained I started putting together a more light-weight alternative based on the rlp machinery inside of the eth gem (that itself is a lighter version based on web3-eth). See the new ethlite gem and rlp-lite gem pages for details.

Week 45 - Monday, November 7th to Sunday, November 13rd, 2022

right-click & save this ~”magic formula”~ spritesheet

~Collect’em all!~ Generate’em all! I started to download “on-blockchain” artwork layers from about a dozen pixel art collections e.g. Chi Chis (in 32×32px) , Edge Punks (in 24×24px) , Inverse Punks (in 24×24px , Mad Camels (in 32×32px) , Marcs (in 24×24px , NFL (in 23×23px) , Phunk Ape Origins (in 24×24px) , Punk Apes Yacht Club (in 24×24px), , Punkin Spicies (in 24×24px) , etc. and repackaged all attributes in all-in-one spritesheet images. Yes, you can! (Re)use the “off-blockchain” (pixel) artwork spritesheets to generate any combination using text-to-image prompts.

Week 44 - Monday, October 31st to Sunday, November 6th, 2022

right-click & save this

Collect’em all! I added more right-click & save this all-in-one (pixel art) image composite downloads.

For the making-of sources / scripts, see the artbase sandbox & artbase sandbox vol. 2.

Week 43 - Monday, October 24th to Sunday, October 30th, 2022

learn pixel art (re)org

It’s time (again) for a (github) reorg. I moved (almost) all pixel art libraries - in javascript, ruby, go (upcoming via artbase.server), etc. - and all pixel art how-tos and quick starter templates to the new Learn Pixel Art org @ github, that is, /learnpixelart.

quiz mania

Image generation via text prompts is the latest A.I. craze (e.g. DALL·E 2, Midjourney, et al). For fun I started to put together a punk (text prompt-to-image) quiz to “train your memory” or to show-off your punk (image) I.Q. Can you find the matching punk (image art work) for “Male 1 • Normal Beard • Earring • Mohawk Dark”? A/B/C/D? Try the Matt & John’s® Ye Olde’ Punks Quiz or try the 1000 More Punks Quiz.

Bonus: Try the 24px Cool Cats Quiz or the 28px Bored Apes Quiz or - yes, you can! - put together your own quiz.

Week 42 - Monday, October 17th to Sunday, October 23rd, 2022

dollz mania (pixel) art restoration / preservation

Anyone remember dollz mania in the 2000s? I don’t ;-). I guess it was mostly a teenage girl craze - but now in 2022 with 24x24 pixel art turning into million dollar “fine art” - the do-it-yourself (D.I.Y.) - yes, you can - make your own free (pixel) “full body” avatars (said to have started in 1997 by The Place) via dragging & dropping the “props” ontop of each other - are putting the (crypto bro) punk pixel “artwork” and movement in a different light. Where are the hundred of free d.i.y. punk makers (compared to the dollz makers)? Or where are the hundred (or even thousands) of free “props”, that is, head props, hair props, tops & capes, dresses, bottoms, shoes & socks, wings, specials, accessories, and on and on for making your own “fully body” pixel avatars?

Anyways, I started restoring and preserving dollz mania (pixel) art. See the new Dollz Mania org at github. The first /dollz.sandbox repo collects dollz “props” from various collections / sets (thanks to the Internet / Web Archive and the Wayback Machine). See Dollz №1, Dollz №2, Dollz №3, and so on for some pixel art “props” samples (what almost has been lost).

Week 41 - Monday, October 10th to Sunday, October 16th, 2022

programming pixelart

Using the Creating Pixel Art by Gray Wolf @ Khan Academy course I added to the new /programming pixelart section a bunch of pixel art samples incl. mario, black cat, nyan cat, owl (sitting on a branch), and more.

factory of modern orginals (FoMO)

I added a bunch of text-to-image generators to the Factory of Modern Originals (FoMO) incl. Cyberpunks, Readymades (Punk 1/1s), Goblins, Smileys, & more. Yes, you can! Fab(ricate) your own pixel art originals via text prompts. Example:

 $ fab smiley            # -or-
 $ fab will 3d_glasses   # -or-
 $ fab snoopdogg  vr     # -or-
 $ fab goblin
 # ...

Tip: Use the (undocumented) ls/list command to list all registered (built-in) text-to-image generators. Try:

 $ fab ls   # -or-
 $ fab list

Resulting in twenty-one (21) text-to-image generator as of Oct 13th.

punk me! - skin tones

For the upcoming “punk me!” image generation gem / library I am putting together free skin tone color palettes for easy (re)use in the comma-separated values (.csv) format. The first batch include:

ye olde punks (4 skin tones) - see skintone/ye_olde_punks.csv

dr ellis monk (10 skin tones) - see skintone/dr_ellis_monk.csv

punk’s not dead (30 skin tones) - see skintone/punks_not_dead.csv

readymades (punk 1/1s)

I updated readymades - an image generation gem / library that lets you generate (readymade) punk 1/1s. Some samples include:

Week 40 - Monday, October 3rd to Sunday, October 9th, 2022

talks

Wed., October 5th, 2022 - (FREE) Live Meetup 20 min. Talk - Inside the Billion Dollar $$$ (Crypto) Punk Pixel Heads @ Technologieplauscherl LXXVII (Linz, Austria) »

Thank you. Welcoming atmosphere, great D.I.Y. (draft-it-yourself) linzer beer & more at the Technologieplauscherl meetup. See the Inside the Billion Dollar $$$ (Crypto) Punk Pixel Heads talk notes to learn more about the pixel punks.

smileys

I started putting together smileys - a new image generation gem / library that lets you generate smileys in four size variants (with circle diameters of 15px, 16px, 17px & 20px) all placed in a 24x24px canvas. See the smileys/spritesheet_dia16-24x24px.png for the first attributes (incl. base smileys in green, greener, orange, red, white & yellow with or without black outlines).

For example, Smiley::Image.generate( 'Yellow', 'Open', 'Smile') results in and Smiley::Image.generate( 'Greener', 'Shades', 'Grin (Right)' ) results in .

opensea (market data)

I continued to collect (market) data via the opensea api (using the artbase opensea api wrapper) on pixel art collections. Find more reports that only include punk (pixel art) collections such as Top Punk (Pixel Art) Collections By Sales (in Ξ) and Trending Punk (Pixel Art) Collections (in 30d/7d/1d Sales Volume) and some more in the /punks.market repo. Want to see a punk (pixel art) collection added? Yes, you can. Post a comment to the punk (pixel) art channel.

punk sandbox / experiments / how-tos

How to decode “on-blockchain” (pixel art) attributes? For an example, see the 24px punk ape (yacht club) collection. I started to add a punkapes/decode script that saves cut-n-paste bytes / blobs (in the .png format) queried and returned via the traits_data “on-blockchain” contract function “by-hand” to “off-blockchain” images for easy (re)use.

Week 39 - Monday, September 26th to Sunday, October 2nd, 2022

artbase

I started to add a new (global) artbase collection index / registry, that is, collections.csv. The idea is to share known (“built-in”) ready-to-use artbase collection configurations / setups incl. Goblin Town, Pudgy Penguins, Galactic Aliens, Unfudables, Bears, & many more.

opensea (market data)

I started to collect (market) data via the opensea api (using the artbase opensea api wrapper) on pixel art collections. See the new /opensea.cache repository that holds the cached datasets, scripts and some first reports such as Top (Ethereum) Pixel Art Collections By Sales and Top (OpenSea OpenStore) Pixel Art Collections By Sales and some more.

ruby lang

I started an open public “great” debate / discussion on ruby enums. Join us.

Week 38 - Monday, September 19th to Sunday, September 25th, 2022

talks

Wed., September 21st, 2022 - (FREE) Live Meetup 20 min. Talk - Inside Punkbase - SQLite (SQL.js) In Action @ Stahlstadt.js (Linz, Austria) »

Thank you. Welcoming atmosphere, great oktoberfest (augustiner) beer and questions, & more at the Stahlstadt.js meetup. See the Inside Punkbase - SQLite (SQL.js) In Action talk notes to learn more about Punkbase.

blockchain research / corruption

Austria has an “official” Austrian Blockchain Center for Research and according to the website the researchers (or is it fraudsters?) are always looking for “Blockchain Researcher (junior or senior)” and even posting:

If you haven’t found the right job offer here, but you are convinced that your skills are a perfect match for ABC Research, then you are welcome to apply for a job at ABC.

Believe it or not - I applied already twice - the first time back in May I got back a (standard) response that sorry we plan to fill the open position with a women. Now this crypto winter (or is it this summer?) I checked back and saw all this new or (fake?) open blockchain positions and applied again and after no response all August I got an invitation in September for an in-person interview from 9:30 to 11:00h.

While the two all-female secretaries were friendly and welcoming the interview with the two all-male “researchers” - Klaus Pirklbauer, the blockchain fraudster-in-chief, and - Stefan Craß, the no-code blockchain researcher - soon went downhill - I guess talking about open data & open finance and how open source is all about working together (and, yes, researching for the public good) and such didn’t really connect and I got practically thrown out after about half an hour (the official time slot was an hour and half) and two weeks later the email confirmed that we don’t want to ever see you again!

For the record - here’s my little public blockchain research corner online - Blockchain! Blockchain! Blockchain! - among many others - and here’s the million dollar research center - Austrian Blockchain Center (ABC) - with no public code or anything - the best to find is some public discussion / debate panel recordings. No warning that blockchain is (mostly) a narrative to scam and fill your own pocket or anything. Guess what - the Austrian blockchain researcher are top quality (scammers) - and, yes, they pocket the “research” money from the state and from private companies. Bingo!

Note: For fairness (I am always happy to be proven wrong) I sent an email to Klaus Pirklbauer, the blockchain fraudster-in-chief, and - Stefan Craß, the no-code blockchain researcher - and the ABC office asking “Where’s the (Blockchain) Code?” and to help with setting the record straight. Response? I keep you posted - stay tuned. (Update: Tue Sept/20th) The official response and confirmation is in and - surprise, surprise - there’s no public (blockchain) code online anywhere at best only top-secret private (in-house) code and no research on public blockchains only on private permissioned “blockchains” with proof-of-authority better known as “old-school” databases requiring login credentials for updates. A simulacrum selling itself as Austria’s one-stop top state-of-the-art blockchain research center that is in reality without any expertise on public blockchains whatsoever or any public warnings on the ongoing private permissioned proof-of-authority blockchain scams (still working in 2022!). You have been warned.

artbase

I added a new serve command to the artbase command-line tool that lets you query art collections in all-in-one single-file SQLite databases (e.g. artbase.db) using a “server-less” web page. Example:

$ artserve pudgies          # defaults / auto-completes to pudgies/artbase.db    -or-
$ artserve unemployable     # defautts / auto-completes to unemployable/artbase.db
$ artserve goblintown       # " "
$ artserve moonbirds        # " "
$ artserve                  # defaults to ./artbase.db
# ...

Note: For now the (artbase) serve command is packaged up in its own “stand-alone” command line tool called artserve. For more see the artserve page »

moonbirds

To wrap-up work on the newly published all official 42x42px attributes for the moonbirds by Proof Collective (on github) I put together an all-in-one spritesheet, that is, spritesheet_v1-42x42.png:

See the spritesheet in action! I added a new Moonbird V1 image generator to the moonbirds (image generator) library / gem.

Moonbirds V1 Trivia (Did You Know?) Aside - Easter eggs - The official attributes include about a dozen super-rare never-before-seen (& used) legendary attributes (eyes, eyewear, headwear) for cosmic, enlightened, & jade moonbirds (incl. a unicorn horn!).

Week 37 - Monday, September 12th to Sunday, September 18th, 2022

moonbirds

About a month ago I reported the breaking news story Proof’s Moonbirds Token Images Officialy Declared Public Domain (No Rights Reserved) under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) Dedication by Kevin Rose (Chief of Proof) - Thank You! and this Monday the Proof Collective published all official 42x42px attributes for the moonbirds (incl. all legendaries) on github. To celebrate I added a copy of the official 200+ attributes in the new /moonbirds-official directory in the moonbirds.sandbox. As a bonus I added a new generate_legendary script to generate a first small sample batch of legendary moonbirds (e.g. no. 6949 , no. 7473 , no. 2941 ) from scratch (using the official attributes) plus I added a new generate_10000 script to (re)generate all 10 000 moonbirds from scratch (using the official attributes and official “unofficial” metadata records that incl. beak color, eyes color, and more NOT present in the official “on-blockchain” token metadata via the official moonbird HTTP API).

artbase

I added a new build command to the artbase comand-line tool / library that lets you build all-in-one single-file SQLite databases (e.g. artbase.db). Example:

$ artbase pudgies build          # or
$ artbase unemployable build
$ artbase goblintown build
$ artbase moonbirds build
# ...

Note: For now the build command REQUIRES a build.rb configuration script that defines the (metadata) columns / schema. See the build.rb scripts in the artbase.sandbox or moonbirds.sandbox for real-world examples incl. pudgies, unemployable, goblintown, etc.

artbase.js

New artbase.js samples include:

Moonbirdbase (10000 max.) - query moonbird (pixel owl) metadata & images (42×42px) via sql & more - download all-in-one single-file sqlite database (~9MB)

Pudgybase (5000 max.) - query pudgy (penguin) metadata & images (28×28px) via sql & more - download all-in-one single-file sqlite database (~5MB)

Unemployablebase (5000 max.) - query unemployable metadata & images (24×24px) via sql & more - download all-in-one single-file sqlite database (~2MB)

and more

Note: Yes, the readymade artbase.db for easy download samples are built with the new artbase build machinery (see above).