middle-of-screen subtitles

I stop watching and downvote the moment your video has middle-of-screen subtitles. Idem ditto for huge forced subtitles.

stty: /dev/ttyACM0: Inappropriate ioctl for device

This command on a Raspberry Pi 3:

stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 ispeed 9600 ospeed 9600 raw

Resulted in this error:

stty: /dev/ttyACM0: Inappropriate ioctl for device

This happened after the sd-card (with the OS) of the Pi entered failsafe mode so it is read only. I used dd to copy the 16GB sd-card to a new 128GB one:

dd if=/dev/sdd of=/srv/iso/pi_20250928.iso
dd if=/srv/iso/pi_20250928.iso of=/dev/sdd

The solution was to stop the module, remove the device, and start it again:

# modprobe -r cdc_acm
# rm -rf /dev/ttyACM0
# modprobe cdc_acm

... as it was probably copied with dd from the read-only sd-card.

epilogue: The 16GB SD was ten to fifteen years old. The Pi expanded the new card to 118GB not 128GB as advertised: relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/394/

Nieuwe hobby: Venus Vliegenvangers

 Tot zover de nieuwe hobby. Venuskes zijn niet de gemakkelijkste om gelukkig te maken.

Nieuwe hobby: Sarracenia

 Enkele van de Sarracenia zoals ze nu buiten staan. Die eten veel insecten, vooral wespen.

Nieuwe hobby: Nepenthes

Nieuwe hobby sinds 2021; vleesetende plantjes kweken.

Hier vijf bekertjes die Nepenthes mij geven.

2025 = (20 + 25)²

2025 = (20 + 25)²

2025 = 45²

2025 = 1³+2³+3³+4³+5³+6³+7³+8³+9³

2025 = (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9)²

2025 = 1+3+5+7+9+11+...+89

2025 = 9² x 5²

2025 = 40² + 20² + 5²

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!

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).