Updated 03-Aug-2025 Beneath every window-based Desktop Environment (DE) there is a windows manager. And beneath the windows manager, is a display server protocol such as X.org, Mir, and Wayland. When choosing a Desktop Environment, one can simply choose a windows manager and then add various other utilities such as menus, panels, search interfaces, configuration interfaces, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Previously named Gimp Print, Gutenprint is a high quality package of printer drivers for CUPS on Linux, Macintosh OS X, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems. This project also maintains an enhanced Print plug-in for GIMP 2.x from the same code base. Gutenprint includes a large number of printer drivers for Canon, Epson, Lexmark, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In Linux, a standard shortcut is to use Alt + F7 and then drag the window back onscreen. Obviously some small bit of the window needs to be visible, but that is almost always the case. This works with Openbox and LXDE.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In February, the state of California announced it was going to begin measures treating the Covid-19 pandemic as endemic though it did not use that word. The realization that there is no end date is poignant. > There is no end date for Covid-19 Resignation in the face of an Endemic Pandemic In ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Playing internet radio from the command line is quite a thing, especially the excellent Soma FM. Unfortunately there are some problems of late with various clients including: Uscheck, my favorite until this issue in October, 2021 Rocky Madden, who also suffers from the problems of October, 2021 Also see this gist with some ... Read more
Updated 12-Jul-2026 See also Audiobooks - Mono in a Stereo World OBS Studio Podcast Platforms Podcasts Introduction OBS (Open Broadcaster Studio) Studio is a popular, open source multiplatform broadcasting and recording control panel. Note: use of deb-multimedia apt source Currently I prefer to use the excellent 3rd-party apt repository dmo.sources, aka deb-multimedia as follows: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dmo.sources ... Read more
Updated 18-Jun-2026 Google is a behemoth and has a variety of properties that one may need to use, for example: YouTube - to watch YouTube content, and to create and upload YouTube content YouTube Music - to listen to YouTube Music There are subscriptions available for YouTube Premium as well as YouTube Music Premium. As ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Snake games are quite popular. The first widely played snake game is of course snakes and ladders which originated in 2nd century CE India. The game was imported into the UK in the 1890s and made its way to the US as chutes and ladders, snakes apparently too scary for small children. Snake ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 These last a few weeks (or longer), and are a quick alternative to a longer pickling procedure. Ingredients 500g small cucumbers (ideally 9 cucumbers, somewhat skinny bunch of fresh dill 250g water 120g white vinegar 1 tsp salt 2 cloves of garlic (more for spicy) Utensils 2 pint size mason jars Procedures Combine ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Diagrams.net -- previously draw.io -- is a neat web/web 2.0 diagram editor. It supports Google Drive and also VSCode integration. Currently I usually just use Inkscape and draw whatever I need by hand. It is usually faster, and can embed as an SVG or simply output a PNG file. However, if one does ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Play The Oregon Trail (1990) Online at Archive.org I Designed The Oregon Trail, You Have Died of Dysentery - The lead designer of The Oregon Trail explains his team's process for creating the most successful educational computer game of all time.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 It turns out that there are many legitimate concerns when it comes to virtual reality and children, the ones that are different than the concerns with video games (addiction, etc.), are around how the eyes focus (or not) in virtual reality as opposed to reality. Currently, one could say that all virtual reality ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The Asus C214MA-BU0546 is a Q3 2021 durable (milspec) 11.6" 2-in-1 Chromebook. It has: Intel Celeron N4020 Processor, Intel UHD 600 Graphics (Integrated), eMMC 32GB SSD, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 11.6" 1366x768 screen For my mind and money this replaces the venerable Asus C101PA. This device is effectively an update 3 years ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Homo Ludens is a book by published in 1938 by Johan Huizinga. It is meant to explain The Play Element of Culture(not just children's play). Homo Ludens is an important part of game studies. As such it is a great place to start out when designing course for children, even very young children. ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Home-raised chickens -- gai-baan in Thai -- can be extremely tough. The main reasons is that the chicken has a normal life, and is not kept sedentary, overfed, given growth hormones, nor treated with enzymes after being slaughtered. There are three approaches to tenderizing this standard-variety chicken: Brine the chicken for 12-24 hours ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 LibreOffice is marginally (though noticeably) better than OpenOffice. That said, it definitely has more signs of life and so it is the incomplete product which one is better off choosing, when given choice. Installing LibreOffice Installing LibreOffice is a bit strange. First off, the default gateway in Asia hasn't worked in months if ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Salad Nicoise, (pronounced sa-lad nih-swaaz), aka Salad Niçoise, aka La Salada Nissarda, aka the salad from Nice (nees). > Salade niçoise (French pronunciation: [niˈswaz]), la salada nissarda in the Niçard dialect of the Occitan language, is a salad that originated in the French city of Nice. It is traditionally made of tomatoes, hard-boiled ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Tomatoes are a great thing. Though thought of as a vegetable, they are biologically a fruit. They also improve nutritionally upon being cooked. We eat them raw; and cooked as a sauce over pasta, vegetables, or meats; as a tomato juice; and as tomato soup. Sun-dried tomatoes and herbs in olive oil are ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Minimalism isn't necessarily only about less, but rather the minimum needed for effectiveness. With recipes this means the least amount of preparation, cooking, the fewest necessary ingredients, etc. Multi-Use vs. Functionally Improved For a minimal kitchen, some people confuse this with not having any single use utensils and instruments. This is a considerable ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Canola oil is made from the canola plant, a genetically modified rapeseed plant. This was done back in the 1970s through cross-breeding to remove glucosinates and erucic acid, as those can be inedible and/or toxic. Canola is an invented word combining Canada and oil/ola). Canola is seen as a healthy oil for cooking ... Read more