Programming Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 10, 2023

• Pledging My Time VI: scraping and analysis of race results in R

  I’ve posted in the past about analysing race results in R (most recently here). I ran the 2023 MK Marathon and wanted to have a look at the finishing times.

• swephR v0.3.1

  This morning swephR version 0.3.1 made it unto CRAN and is now propagating to the mirrors.
  The goal of swephR is to provide an R interface to the Swiss Ephemeris (SE), a high precision ephemeris based upon the DE431 ephemeris from NASA’s JPL.

• Color vision deficiency emulation fixed in colorspace 2.1-0

  The color vision deficiency emulation provided by R package colorspace was inaccurate for some highly-saturated colors due to a bug that was fixed in version 2.1-0. The (typically small) differences are illustrated for a range of palettes.

• New graphics integration in Qt WebEngine 6.6 and even 6.5

  With the 6.5.1 release, there will be one new change our users might notice. Qt WebEngine has previously forced the Qt Quick SceneGraph to use the OpenGL backend on Windows and macOS, even though the Qt defaults were using D3D11 and Metal respectively. With Qt 6.5.1 Qt WebEngine will now run with the Metal and D3D11 default QSG backends.
  
  This has been a long time coming. Chrome has always preferred using ANGLE on Windows. Where Qt did offer ANGLE in Qt5 but defaulted to WGL (Windows OpenGL), since Qt6 the ANGLE backend has been removed from Qt Gui, and WebEngine required Chromium to run in WGL mode. This has caused many issues, due to buggy Windows OpenGL drivers, and due to not using the same backend as Chrome itself.

• Mojo: New programming language for AI

  If you're already working with Python and looking to boost your AI projects, Mojo is definitely worth exploring read this article and try Mojo immediately.

• Mastering Environment Variables in Java: A Comprehensive Guide

  Environment variables are a fundamental aspect of software development, offering a flexible and powerful way to configure applications. By understanding how to work with environment variables in Java, you can create efficient, scalable, and robust programs.

• Experimental Nvidia GPU support on Dell Latitude E6400 variants, plus E6400 XFR support now confirmed

  Dell Latitude E6400 with Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics was added, and included in the recent Libreboot 20230423 release. Today, experimental support is now available for variants with GPU: Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M. The Dell Latitude 6400 XFR (rugged variant) was also tested today (Intel graphics) and confirmed working in Libreboot 20230423.

  The Nvidia variants are not supported in Libreboot 20230423. Support is available in an experimental branch of Libreboot. 6400 XFR testing+photo provided, courtesy Mark Cornick (mcornick on Libreboot IRC).