Service providers in 2024

Suppose you want to do something crazy, like watching a sports game on a PC...

There are basically two options.

Option 1:
Step 1: Find a service provider such as TV Vlaanderen via Google.
Step 2: Register an account.
Step 3: Provide private information such as full name, date of birth, telephone number, home address.
Step 4: Prove that you are indeed the owner of the e-mail or telephone number.
Step 5: Give permission to withdraw money from your account during the free trial period.
Step 6: Watch carefully all the time to prevent being subscribed to 'newsletters'.
Step 7: Accept the General Terms and Conditions!
Step 8: Accept third-party cookies!
Step 9: Disable your adblocker!
Step 10: Press 'Play' and see this message:

Step 11: Log in on another computer with a different operating system and browser.
Step 12: Press 'Play' and see this message:

Step 13: Find out how to email customer service. You can't!
Step 14: Fill out a contact form asking for help.
Step 15: Endure the daily SPAM emails.
Step 16: Endure the daily SPAM emails.
Step 17: Endure the daily SPAM emails.
Step 18: Wait fruitlessly for an answer.

Option 2:
Step 1. Find a dubious website via Google and press 'Play'.

With option 2 there is no registration, no Terms and Conditions, the AdBlocker remains on, free, no SPAM in your mailbox, no personal data requested, no idiotic playback errors...

book: Gabor Mate, Scattered Minds

 

A book written by a doctor that has ADD himself, and it shows.

I was annoyed in the first half by his incessant use of anecdotes to prove that ADD is not genetic. It felt like he had to convince himself, and it read as an excuse for his actions as a father.

He uses clear and obvious examples of how not to raise a child (often with himself as the child or the father) to play on the readers emotion. Most of these examples are not even related to ADD.

But in the end, definitely the second half, it is a good book. Most people will recognize several situations and often it does make one think about life choices and interpretation of actions and emotions.

So for those getting past the disorganization (yes there are parts and chapters in this book, but most of it feels randomly disorganized), the second half of the book is a worthy thought provoking read.

Dissapointing Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition

What a disaster this is, the DIY framework laptop.

The box...

...contains more boxes.

The parts are few...

...so the laptop is assembled in less than a minute?!

Unpacking the thing took longer than assembling it!

Reading this webpage took longer than assembling it!

Installing the DDR5 memory took 1 second: click and done.
Installing the nvme took 3 seconds: unscrew one screw, click and screw.
Installing the bezel was far more challenging, took almost 30 seconds! (*)
Attaching the keyboard: about three seconds?
Installing the four modules: 1 second per module (or less?)

I'm not that good at irony, but I was hoping for at least 20 minutes of fun assembling this thing... and only got one minute. :-/

(*) This gave fond memories of assembling tower PC's in the nineties; ISA/PCI slots click, CD-ROM atapi click, hard disk and IDE jumpers easy. But closing the tower case... well that was the hard part!

Installing an OS

The guide says to be patient when booting (powering on) the laptop for the first time, it may take several minutes.

I timed it, it took 57 seconds to get to this screen:

And now there is this; it has been a long time since I saw a default XFCE, Firefox and terminal.

Let the fun begin!

ChatGPT and an authority

In Western Europe (and beyond), for centuries, at least from the Middle Ages until about 1940, there was one authority for people to believe: The catholic church.

When a peasant was in doubt, they would ask a priest and have a definitive answer. Doubt was gone. The end.

 

Somewhere in the beginning of the 20th century the power of the church started to diminish and many new 'authorities' like science or labour unions or money started taking over.

Today there is no single authority, there is no single instance anywhere that people believe. There is mainly distrust in anything that claims to be an authority. In other words, most questions remain unanswered. Today, the peasant has no priest to take away his doubt.

Enter AI. Millions of people are talking to ChatGPT and are using it to answer questions. And I wonder: What if people start believing the AI? What if this becomes the new authority?

If you think this is far fetched, then you have not played enough with ChatGPT. Then you have not tweaked your questions. It knows a whole lot of things, it's a far better writer than me, it's a better programmer, it's a better problem solver and it can learn a hundred million times faster than me.

The motto in the next couple of years will be "When in doubt, ask the AI!".

(This post is written by me by the way, not by ChatGPT.)

four books

 

Charlie Mackesy - The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse (2019)

In so far as you can read this book, I read this book. This book allows you to read one page, and then ponder on it for a week. It's a story, but it is also not a story but more a psychological insight into humans. I will probably open this book again several times this year to discover even more about the meaning of a single page.

Brian W. Kernighan - Understanding the digital world (2021)

Kernighan is famous for co-authoring "The C programming Language" with Dennis Ritchie in 1978 and I have always looked up to him.

In this book he gives an excellent overview of computers and networks, including an easy to read introduction to programming, cryptography and (digital) privacy. I would not advice this book for IT-nerds, since it is way too simple. It is though as good an overview as is possible in 260 pages.

David Kushner - Masters of Doom (2003)

Well this was an excellent read! Enjoyable, intriguing, educational and probably only for fans of Doom or of John Carmack.

The book tells the story of the two John's that created the DooM game in the early nineties. David Kushner interviewed a lot of people to get a complete picture of their youth, their first meeting, the development of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and of course DooM, and also many games after that like Quake and Heretic.

This book is a nice combo with Sid Meier's Memoir.

Sid Meier's Memoir (2020)

I wanted to link to my tiny review of this book, which I read in 2021, but it turns out I have not written anything about it yet.

The story of the creation of the civilization series of games is a really good read, though probably only if you lived in this era and played some of the early Civilization games. Or earlier 'versions' like Empire or Empire Deluxe, which are mentioned in this book for serving as inspiration for the first Civilization game.

I like the 4X turn-based system of gaming, too bad there are almost no other good games using this (Chess comes close though).

three books

 It took a while, but here are three books I've read.

Kevin Mitnick - The Art of Invisibility (2017)

I have been interested in Kevin Mitnick since his 1980ies hacking. He is mentioned in several books that I read in the past.

This book is about all the personal data one leaves behind when using the internet (or devices connected to the internet). It is a rather simple guide on how to increase your privacy or how to aim to become almost invisible on the internet.

I would not advice this book for nerds, or for IT security experts, the book is probably not aimed for those people anyway. People who know close to nothing about computers/networks could benefit from this guide. 

Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (1974)

Now this is an interesting read. It is not about motorcycles, in fact it is perfectly fine if you replace the word motorcycle by 'smartphone' or 'computer' or 'internet privacy and tracking' in the first half of the book. There are some very insightful comments about how people react in different ways to technology.

The main part of this book though, is not the motorcycle trip with his son through the United States, but his alter ego named Phaedrus. The writer was diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia and received electric-shock treatment. In the book he remembers fragments of this Phaedrus personality (with an IQ of 170).

The second half is a tough read. I often needed to reread several sentences to grasp what he was saying. (Which was never the case in the Mitnick book above.)

Prusa 3D printing handbook

I finally bought a 3D printer and would advice this to anyone who has lot's of time. Yes, this is not yet ready for end users that only want a 'File - Print' option on the computer. But a whole new world opens, at least for me it's a new world with many possibilities and adventures.

It's a small booklet, but I mention it anyway because it is really good, as are all the follow-up guides on prusa3d.com.

Software I am thankful for

An alphabetical list of software that I really like.

Apache: Not as popular as it used to be, but I know it and so still use it

apt/aptitude/apt-get: The origin of all 'apps' and the most user friendly and secure way to manage software

Audacity: Or is that too controversial now with their telemetry?

bash: The best interface to my computers

convert: From Imagemagick, for batch converting images 

Civilization IV: Yes 4, the only software that is not (yet?) open source

cron: It wakes me up every day (using mpv and bash)

Debian: I run it on almost everything

ffmpeg: to convert video formats

find: because I tend to forget where I put stuff :)

Firefox: because an alternative browser is crucial

FreeCAD: Amazing CAD software, and I like math

gcc: Because coding in C is fun!

gimp: Easy image manipulation

git: How did I ever live without it?

gramps: To keep track of my ancestors

grep: Often very useful.

Homebrew: To make a MacBook usable

Inkscape: Because vector graphics are essential

Linux: in background of course, like so many other tools that I am rarely aware of

make: For software that is not part of Debian

mariadb(mysql): So easy to build a database

mpv: For audio and video (and for their API) 

Openshot: To create Lego NXT or Prusa video's

PrusaSlicer: A 3D printer opens a whole new world of possibilities 

Python: I hate this language, but it is used so much and coding is still fun

return Youtube dislike: How else is Youtube usable?!

rsync: For backups

Singlefile: because web pages tend to disappear forever 

ssh: Multitool for anything remote

Thunderbird: Reading my mail since 1996 (as Netscape Mail)

tmux: used daily, configured to a quiet and relaxing layout

Video downloadhelper: because video's tend to disappear forever

vim: By far the best editor for text, code, config files and more.

wine: To play that one game on Debian (though I wish its 32-bit had as much memory as 32-bit Windows XP)

Wireshark: The best tool to learn about networking

XFCE: My GUI since almost 20 years

xfce-screenshooter: Because screenshots are useful

 

Inspiration HN.