Tidbits

Check out random thoughts on this page. For more useful info check out the Blog section. This is only for fun. Cheers!

Got a nice old IBM ThinkPad (or renamed Lenovo) T61 or similar? Want to install new hardware, OS on it, with new features? Solution:

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton's_BIOS

Enjoy :)

ጀሊሉ ያሻው አድራጊ in Amharic means this: "The one who does what the Lord wants."

Pronounced as: "jelīlu yashawi ādiragī"

Interesting. Languages are always interesting...

Cars. Autos. Four-wheeled vehicles. Vans. Trucks. Etc.

Here are some ideas to make your car life a bit more future-proof:

1. Try to focus on military standard vehicles first and foremost. Avoid anything made for civilians.

2. Forget any vehicle without tangible, real buttons. Demand as many buttons as possible.

3. Refuse any vehicle with a non-perfect-circle steering wheel, preferably as thin as possible.

4. Avoid any fake "features", if you find just one: run. Fake means disrespect to you.

5. Buy the cheapest color, usually white, without any extras. Will be easy and cheap to repair.

6. Look for real bumpers. Avoid cars with shiny, fragile bumbers.

7. Avoid non-flat windows, particularly front and back windshields. Should be flat.

8. Prefer mechanical windows. They won't break and leave you with broken, open windows.

9. Do not buy cars with non-grabbable outside doorknobs, they are life-threateningly dangerous.

10. Do not buy cars without full-size spare wheels.

11. Prefer cars with full-size front benches with three seating positions.

12. Prefer automatic or column-shift manual gear. They are better.

13. Avoid sunroofs like the plague: when broken you are doomed, and they will break.

14. Focus on the smallest-possible sized wheels, usually 15-inch ones.

15. Prefer old cars, particulary investment-grade ones.

16. Prefer used cars, avoid new cars.

17. Calculate the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

18. Look for cars with the highest reliability and economy rating.

19. Prefer cars which you can repair yourself with simple tools.

20. Forget about top speed and acceleration figures, you do not need those.

21. Buy the car with the best engine and drivetrain: everything else is secondary.

22. Look around and find the most-sold, most-sought-for car. It is probably what you need.

23. Ask a car mechanic or car expert friend what they recommend, look for what they drive.

24. Go for the biggest manufacturer in your segment: they are the biggest for a reason.

25. Consider anything Japanese first: consider others only later.

Enjoy! :)

Rainych Ran, your favorite Indonesian Japanese singer. Watch all her videos, she is blessed...

Yet another link to her songs:

Enjoy :)

"The lust for possessions can rob the soul." Soviet anti-consumerism poster, 1983.

Stop consuming "live media", particularly the main vice: "the news". There are many reasons why doing so is better for you, but the main reason is: "time is money", and live broadcasts waste your time. First, because most speakers speak slower than your ideal speed for listening, and you cannot speed up live programs. Second, because of the dilution of content by the many "eh"-s and simply because people speaking live tend to be less succinct, less focused and less coherent. In other words, most of them are talking nonsense anyway, and you have no way to condense the information down to the essential few thoughts they are conveying in an extremely wasteful manner. There are other reasons as well (e.g. that any "live news" is done to make you addicted and these people who provide this service are extremely immoral and stupid, and do the entire service for money/profit, etc), but even these two reasons should be enough for you to get out of the "need to check the news to know what is happening" vicious addiction. Remember, your life is finite, time is more precious than money, and you will die soon anyway. Do not waste your time on making greedy bastards happy. Get information in another way, e.g. from curated sources and speed up the content to the maximum while listening. Also avoid AI summaries, because they seem to help you, but in fact they make you dumb, a bit similarly to those astronauts in space who do not use their muscles and become cripples upon Earth re-entry. Read more and increase your attention span. Be wise, navigate this increasingly devilish world with care.

PS. As a corollary, you can safely disregard any medium that is put out there for money. The sad truth about capitalism and profit is that it is a "self-fulfilling prophecy" vortex: it is self-perpetuating, "l'art pour l'art" kind of nonsense. So, always "follow the money", it is a safe test whether anything is worth buying or paying attention to, paying with your time, attention, which is your most precious currency, your finite, non-replenishable resource that you should guard with all your might against the parasites and leeches out there prying on it. Your life is doomed if you do not step back and ask "WHAT IS IT?" before you engage in anything. Be wise, avoid these traps. Peace

Just a general good advice about electricity. There is an evil trap which you should avoid if you can: "rechargeable batteries". Avoid them like the plague, they are not good for you.

Look for two other sources of power instead.

1. Electricity directly from the grid.

2. Standard, non-rechargeable batteries.

Why? The main reason is planned obsolescence, another is convenience. What happens when you buy electrical appliances with "rechargeable batteries"? You will be sitting on a time-bomb: each of these devices have non-standard cells. As a result, once the finite (!) number of recharge cycles are up, your device will be useless. You won't be able to change the rechargeable cells yourself. First, because they are designed not to be able to replace. Second, because no industry will ever produce anything so unique and non-standard. It would be un-economic for any business to manufacture non-standard cells.

That is the "time-bomb" you are sitting on the entire time. Worst of all: the manufacturer does know this (they are not stupid: they are evil!) and still designs and makes these to screw you. It is better for them: worse for you. This is a zero-sum game. Besides that, it is also inconvenient to charge the battery every time and then. Much easier to swap standard batteries.

All in all, going with standard sized batteries is making your device future-proof. The fake marketing calling rechargeable battery powered devices "green" is evil. Just the opposite is true: those are rapidly expiring crap.

Alas, today it is an evil industrial trend to move away from standard battery powered devices, so you will have a harder and harder time finding them, but still, it is worth trying to find them. If none such devices exist anymore, just refuse to buy anything powered by a rechargeable battery and look for other options.

As a half-way solution, if a device is only available with rechargeable batteries and those are non-standard, at least insist that those cells are removable by you, so at least you can try to replace them easily once they die, and they will die within a short period of time, you can be assured of this fact.

Good luck fighting the Planned Obsolescence Devil in the some evil parts of the world. When you had enough of this nonsense, move to a better country with a better economic system that does not allow such evil and enjoy Peace of Mind... End Of Message.

Some cool free online spreadsheet

https://ethercalc.net

and calculator

https://calctape.app/

tools. Enjoy!

Just a simple idea to seek perfection in anything.

Look for the following qualities:

1) It has everything needed, ie. it is thought through fully without omitting details.

2) It does NOT have unnecessary clutter, gimmicks: no nonsense.

3) It consistently follows a clear and good, honest morality.

4) There are no hidden tricks, no questionable parts or features.

4) It demonstrates maximum effort in design and execution.

If you check all these marks, chances are you have found a gem.

Have no high expectations if you live in a capitalist system, you won't find many.

Hint: if anything needs updates or has a sequel, run away. Only accept uniqueness.

Cheers :)

Did you like the PSION pocket computers that were running on a pair of AA batteries for a month? I did. Actually, I have written my university notes and papers on such things instead of laptops and terminals. I enjoyed the freedom they gave me to think, create, work, communicate anywhere, anytime.

Alas, that era is gone, and today's solutions are substandard, overbloated, stupidified beyond recognition. Nobody has mastered the same perfection as what the PSION hardware and the EPOC operating system achieved.

Now, you are probably sitting in front of a "desklaptop" screen with a proper keyboard and mouse, potentially also a touchscreen of some sort. Give your nostalgia a boost with the following online emulation of a Psion 5MX.

https://wuffs.org/WindEmu/index.html

Make it fullscreen for more fun. Enjoy!

Link to the photo and the ebook:

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300771h.html#ppchap10

Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Chapitre X, Le Roi.

Worth reading, the entire book in fact, but the lesson from this chapter is particularly poignant for today's escalation of craze. Peace

Enjoy!

Just a little creative idea for travel.

Instead of sophisticated backpacks, here is a clever idea for you.

1. Buy this "backsack" from IKEA: https://www.ikea.com/hu/hu/p/goersnygg-taska-kek-60499261/, this is a link to the Hungarian IKEA store, but look for "GÖRSNYGG" in your local IKEA store and I hope it is for sale there, too.

2. Get a free bananabox at your local supermarket, by asking politely. Visit any grocery store near you and ask them if they happen to have a banana box for you for free, tell them you need it for moving, as the best solution for packing items. There is an 80% chance they have one for you for free, and if you try a few in a row, one of them should help you out with one.

3. Put your stuff you want to travel with into the banana box. It has a nice, rectangular and boxy shape, ideal to pack virtually anything in it, soft or hard, big or small. To avoid items moving around, fill the rest of the space with your clothes or wrap small, fragile stuff in them, roll/fold them and fill the void.

4. Put the bananabox into the "backsack" from IKEA. To avoid smaller items falling out from the bananabox through those holes, tape those holes if you like. If you pack everything tightly, you will not need that step though.

The two items (IKEA backsack plus bananabox) together weigh just a few dozen grams, both are super lightweight, together they are lighter than most light backpacks. Despite the lightweight construction, it is a sturdy duo and has dimensions 40x30x60 cms (72 liters), so it will be eligible for carry-on baggage on most airlines. Check with your airlines if it qualifies as a carry-on beforehand. The IKEA "backsack" gives the bananabox a waterproof cover, and you can wear it as a backpack or carry it in your hands, as you like. Your useful weight and size to total luggage weight and size ratio will be maxed out this way.

Tried and tested: I often travel like this and enjoy all the benefits. Hope if helps!

Gnome annoys you with hiding the minimize/maximize buttons?

Here is the solution: 

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close"

Yes you can live without electronic gadgets. Seriously. Even better than now.

If somehow you still want to go down that rabbithole, some advice:

1. Get a home first. I assume you have a home already. 

2. Make sure your home is big enough so that you can have a bed, a chair and a desk.

3. Get a desktop PC, laptop, or any cheap (!) computer and install Linux on it.

4. Get a cheap (!) dumbphone to call and text your family and friends with it.

4a. For "smartphone", buy only future-proof ones (Linux installed, removable battery).

5. To communicate with strangers use email, install Delta Chat for a better UI.

5a. Archive your emails with Mailstore offline on your own PC.

6. Use only those browsers with adblockers preinstalled and maintained.

7. Learn to use the command line, your future self will thank you for it.

8. Do not jump on IT related bandwagons, they lead nowhere or to bad ends.

9. Be suspicious of any new ideas, usually those are better for those who propose them.

10. Avoid social media and "messengers", remember to call/text or email everyone.

Get the most utility for less, do not follow trends, do not burn bridges. Enjoy!

You should not read "the news". It is pointless, and even harmful for your mind.

However, if you cannot resist the stupid, addictive temptation, here is a list for you.

1. https://legiblenews.com/ as the name implies...

2. https://slowernews.com/ similarly, focused on trends

3. https://veryquiet.com/ (it's dead, alas, it was the best)

4. https://sumi.news/ general aggregator

5. https://news.ycombinator.com/ ("Hackernews", not only for hackers)

6. https://68k.news, Google News in a readable old format

There are some paying news sites, too. Whatever they promise you (being neutral, balanced, whatever), stay away from anything that needs your money. News should be free, but it is not, and those "journalists" are only making things worse, so avoid them altogether and instead read books, travel a lot, get to know people, get a life. Thinks are not worth checking on a daily basis. History happens year by year, not day by day. Start living instead of being hooked.

Some interesting products in no particular order:

1. https://paleblueearth.com/products/pale-blue-lithium-rechargeable-aa-batteries, as the URL describes, AA batteries that can be recharged via an existing USB-C charger. Neat. This is just one example, there are other brands making the same thing as well.

2. https://walkmancentral.com/products/ps-f9 the vertical LP player from Sony (1983).

3. more coming later

When watching online content, be aware that it can disappear anytime. So, if you cherish your own (online or offline) life and do not want it to be at the mercy of others, do download content you deem worthwhile for keeping. Do not rely on the address only: you can save a bookmark, but that page, that video, that content can disappear in the future. The best practice is to save (download) everything you like for offline use later. Stay away from any medium that does not let you download its contents.

Sure, the Internet Archive is supposed to do the same (good to know), but even them are not 100% reliable, they do not have the resources to keep everything from the past archived. Develop a habit to download everything you find interesting or useful to your own storage media for yourself, and do share them with others later if needed. Welcome to the original Internet idea as it was intended back in the beginning. Forget about the "cloud" and "ww3" and other silly concepts. Be brave and dare to be old-fashioned and traditional: your future self will thank you for it. Cheers! :)