Updated 03-Aug-2025 Venture Capital has a way of despoiling a product or service by focusing only on growth and (ultimately) profits. This means that the typical approach is to invest a lot of money (edging out less-endowed competitors), and then jacking up the revenue streams, usually by lowering quality and increasing enshittification. Cory Doctorow used ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 W11/2025: Monday 10 March - Sunday 16 March 2025 Caption: Ben is now (age 9) nearly as tall as his nanny, who took care of him from 1-2.5 years Work Still working out the switchover to new products, and trying to get a large distributor to reorder. Tech Updated page on budget Android ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 There are many choices for PDF readers and editors for the Linux platform. I've used a variety over the years. Lately I had preferred these two: Xournal++ (xournalpp), which is a reader and editor, and is touted as a handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support ... supports pen input from devices such ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 W10/2025: Monday 03 March - Sunday 09 March 2025 Work Figure out how to learn Japanese (and Thai), put together basic outline of what is needed, what is different Produce IPA comparisons between English and Thai, English and Japanese, Japanese and Thai Tech Need to get serious about getting RSS feeds organized and ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 W09/2025: Monday 24 February - Sunday 02 March 2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Tech Still figuring out how to de-DRM Kobo and/or Nook, so that I do have somewhere to buy ebooks, that I can read on my ebook reader (currently a Kindle Paperwhite 2018), and ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Three kinds of Cacao / Cocoa Dutch processed (increases PH) cocoa Natural (bitter / alkaline) cocoa Raw (less processed, aka cacao) Two kinds of Cacao / Cocoa 10-12% butter fat 22-24% butter fat The main thing with Dutch vs. Natural is Dutch does not react with Baking Soda (so when baking, usually uses ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 W08/2025: Monday 17 February - Sunday 23 February 2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work Not much accomplished, sadly, not unexpectedly. Tech Still finishing up rebuilding my Debian 12 Stable desktop. In love with all the open source (and a few proprietary) apps I use. Great article ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Looks like Library Genesis has been hit hard by some courts. And so we turn to Anna's Archive. Libgen and related news Publishers Ramp Up Pressure vs. Anna’s Archive, Sci-Hub, Z-Library & Libgen (Torrentfreak) Pirate Libraries Are Forbidden Fruit for AI Companies. But at What Cost? (Torrentfreak) Copyright reform is necessary for national ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Upon installing XFCE, the xfce4-screenshooter is also installed. Create keyboard shortcut for screenshots Note that the Below will initiate a selection screenshot so that one may select the appropriate screen area using the crosshairs. It will also automatically save the screenshot in the Downloads directory and name it appropriately. In order to have ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 W07/2025: Monday 10 February - Sunday 16 February 2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work Some progress, though much left to do. Tech EMF blocking clothing? Great idea. Horrible prices. The venerable Kiwi Browser is no longer getting updates, and it is no longer in the Android ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 From health officials, it is clear that the main causes of obesity (beside genetics) are: Sedentariness (how much one is in active) Portion control (how much one eats) Food choices (what one eats) Avoid processed foods Avoid sugar/added sugar Avoid fried foods The above sounds quite simple, and one might say this comes ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Week 06/2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work Started changing metadata and organizational information across distributors. First things first, one at a time (Drucker, Effective Executive). Bookshop.org now has ebook distribution, and a 10% affiliate program. Health Feeling better, ramping up activity Able to run 3.5 kms ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Week 05/2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Actually this note also accounts for the previous week, which is without a note. Four things impacted me at once which took away most motivation and a lot of energy and inertia, and it took a week to get back ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 No notes this week, see Weekly Notes 02 Feb 2025
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I am far from a China-apologist, so this criticism is nothing knee-jerk. What the US so-called intelligence community is doing to Deepseek, is a huge failure of imagination. It is obvious that state-sponsored attacks are trying to smear this brilliant AI competitor through DOS attacks, breaches, and outright legal chicanery (see Australia's new ... Read more
Updated 20-Oct-2025 These are more-or-less protocols (well, maybe Signal is not). So instead this article could be named: Signal, Element, Dino / Movim / Conversations I've used Signal for the past number of years as a chat / videocall app, having switched from Telegram after it went full Nazi. But there are other options, some ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Week 02/2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work Stalled on a number of things. Did a one trick thing that worked again and quadrupled sales. It won't last but handy nonetheless. Health Better mental health through tidying and doing spring cleaning (ongoing, and progressing). Doing things I ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 As an American, I grew up with instant ramen noodles, that is the very cheap wavy dried noodles one buys to eat, on a student's diet. Warm and filling, though honestly the nutritional content is quite suspect. I had no idea that this dried out version has extremely little to do with the ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Week 02/2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work To be honest, too many outstanding issues for both research and implementation. I have corralled all the scattered notes (e- and p- based) and am compiling and compressing them into something actionable. The week as the unit of effort ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Ingredients 3 large eggs 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp soy sauce 1 TBSP water 2 tsp canola oil Procedure Mix water, sugar, soy Add eggs Mix with chopsticks gently (to not add air) Put some of the oil in square egg pan Pour in 1/3 of mixture Roll eggs as they cook Add ... Read more