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For users of screen readers, depending on the screen resolution, the two checkboxes are for opening and closing the side menus that appear to the left and right side of the screen. This is designed both for large screens and for mobile devices with a touch screen. Checking either the main menu or sidebar checkboxes causes the menu to open from the left or right side of the screen, respectively. Clearing the checkox in either the main menu or sidebar closes the menu. The checkboxes are visible to screen readers such as JAWS and NVDA for Windows, Voiceover for Mac, and Orca screen reader for Linux. When a screen reader says "clickable" for both main menu and sidebar, that is for the respective checkboxes. End of explaination.

Category: Dreams and Imagination

Take Me To a Different Part of the World Using a Holodeck

(Grayson sees a tweet from Cycling Professor and watches a video about people enjoying their time and riding their bicycles.) (Alternative text: People are having conversations with others and they have bicycles nearby. Plus, people ride their bicycles with children behind adults. The video was taken place in the city of Houton, in the country of The Netherlands.)

Grayson: (He walks over to the holodeck in U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D starship.)

Computer, take me to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, 1:00, warm spring day.

Computer: (The computer loads up the city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands)

Program complete, you may enter when ready.

Grayson: (Enters the holodeck, door closes and fades away from behind him)

Computer, can you please make me a tricycle?

Computer: (The computer generated a tricycle.)

Grayson: (He rides a tricycle on the city streets of Amsterdam and is having a whole lot of fun.)

Here is a video of the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Closed caption and audio description is not available; however, I can provide alternative text in order to satisfy Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which satisfies 1.2.1. Basically, Commander Riker asked ensign regarding the location of Commander Data. Ensign asked the computer the location of Commander Data and directs Riker to the holodeck via a series of dots pointing towards the direction of the holodeck. The computer senses Riker's movement and directs him near the door. As he enters the holodeck, the door closed behind him and fades away. As William Riker enters the forest, he travels over the rocks above the river, making sure he does not fall into the water and meets Data. Data walks back along with Commander Riker and that is the end of the YouTube video.

Basically, a holodeck creates an artificial environment. Be it EPCOT Center from the 1980s, Amsterdam during the mid-2020s, a forest from a thousands of years ago, a 24th-century restaurant in the city of Paris (We'll Always Have Paris), or we could even create a simulation of the 24th-century bridge! Of course, if we want to buy a CD in the holodeck of EPCOT Center, try to take that CD right through the door and the CD will disappear right off your hands. If you watch Star Trek: Voyager, you do know that The Doctor is a hologram, right? Let's see if The Doctor can stick his hand through the open door. Basically, after Kes asked "are you sure about that," The Doctor walks towards the door and after the door opens, he puts his hand through the door and parts of his arm diappeared until he pulls his arm back and the hand reappears. The reason The Doctor cannot go through the door is because of the holo-emitters installed in Sick Bay. Another example is a book in the episode of "Ship in a Bottle." Captain Picard throws a book at the door in the holodeck, but the book disappeared because the book is a hologram. Put it simply, everything in a holodeck is a simulation. However, I'm not going to spoil the entire show as I did for the two episodes in my blog post. I wanted to provide alternate text for those who are blind or have low vision.

Oh! How about traveling to Grayton Beach without leaving the house? I would love to do that while in the holodeck!

This image shows Grayson riding a tricycle in Grayton Beach in 2018.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my blog post. Is it possible if we could build a holodeck in the near future? Time will tell, but I am thinking that once we rid ourselves of the monetary system, anything is possible if we have the technology to build a holographic simulator for the purpose of creating artificial environments.

Please note: Due to Europe's GDPR and cookie laws, I am not able to embed YouTube or Odysee videos. I have decided to take the easy way out by linking to YouTube videos instead. Of course, embedding YouTube or Odysee videos can degrade the performance of my website for mobile users and those with slow connection speeds, so I want to keep my website speedy for everyone. And the best part? No advertisements in my website! 🙂


Article published: 2022-10-22 15:24

Categories: Dreams and Imagination

Dynamically-Resizing Televisions and Monitors

Let me ask you a question. Do you find yourself wanting a larger TV because a movie looks too small? Do you not like black bars above and below the movie that is formatted for ultra-wide screens? Before reading any further, I want to link to an article that talks about aspect ratios. Now, please note that this article will require anyone to have eyesight, so this will not be suitable for those who are using a screen reader. Of course, it might be helpful if anyone who is blind could visualize in their head. Maybe a Braille measuring tape could help?

If a full article interests you, here's my setup of how I use my computer. Having my monitor up close to me is great so I do not have to use a magnifier all the time.

Monitor is very close to me (Grayson Peddie)
This is my setup of how I have my LG 32" 4K monitor close to me. I was watching Security Now! on TWiT.TV while participating on Discord as a member of Club TWiT.

And here's a video with two file formats to choose from. Note that there's no sound. A full article contains contains an alternative text version of the video.


Article published: 2022-01-30 13:33

Categories: Dreams and Imagination, Electronics

My Dream Home of the Future: Computer in Server Closet; KVM in Home Office; Home Theater

Home theater rendered in Blender with 3 chairs and cup holders between chairs
This is a rendering of my home theater made in Blender. It has a 200" projection screen, 7.2.4-channel speaker system, and comfy seats with cupholders in between.

I have been watching a couple of YouTube videos of people who want a computer in one room (such as a wiring closet) and a keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) in a home office. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I want to post links to YouTube videos.

Embedding YouTube or Odysee videos will insert a tracking cookie in users' personal computers. As a citizen of the US, I need to follow GDPR if European visitors visit my website. I don't like and want to talk to lawyers to be honest. 🤣😀

As for the video from Linus Tech Tips, I would much rather have a couple of computers rather than single computer that can house a couple of virtual machines running desktop OSes such as Linux and Windows just to make it easier for me. So yeah, a virtual machine is a computer within a computer that can serve different purposes such as running Ubuntu within Windows using VirtualBox or by running Windows OS in a Linux host using KVM or Xen.


Article published: 2021-08-14 17:42

Categories: Dreams and Imagination, Homes and Buildings, Home Theater, The World of Computers, Computers, Networking