Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is one of the ongoing weekly notes, as per Thej. Work Lot of research into the audiobook market, something I let slip over the past x months. Turns out this is still a fast-growing segment of the publishing industry (~27%) Health Overall the family is fairly healthy, in the 90% range or ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is the continuation of weekly notes. Not sure how long this project will last, but want to give it a try, as per Thej. Work Little progress on the work front. Will have to projectize some tasks and then get it done. Some larger orders accommodated, and some on the Shopee platform, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is the start of weekly notes. Not sure how long this project will last, but want to give it a try, as per Thej. Work Little progress on the work front. Will have to projectize some tasks and then get it done. Health Generally getting over the cold that I had last ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 A thumbdrive or usb drive is generally essential, though there are some sdcard reader hardware that support using sdcards via USB A connectors. 16 years ago I bought this 8gb (fairly large at the time) in a mall in Vancouver, Canada. It has performed excellent service, though I don't use it daily. I ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The story Around 80kph, on my 17 year-old Honda Wave 125i (a fantastic, durable, and functional motorbike that can go up to 120 kph) we ran over a nail and the rear tire explosively decompressed. The rear wheel started to slide around, hitting the rear brake did nothing, as we didn't have any ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Sometimes there is a confluence of innovations, both technological, and economic, which conspire to prompt a purchase. Now it is that time for me, concerning the 2024 BYD Dolphin Standard Range. Incidentally, I rode in a BYD Dolphin driven by a GRAB car, driving home from the hospital after getting stitches in my ... Read more
Updated 08-Aug-2025 Note see also Sandisk Clipjam and Portable Music Players and Linux Because the Sandisk Clipjam appears to be no longer manufactured, the most approximate portable MP3 player (with clip, suitable for running/bicycling) is the Ruizu x52 mp3 player. It is about $25 USD on Lazada, sold by Ruizu itself, with good reliability ratings. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Ingredients 30 g peanut butter 30 g sliced almonds 30 g sunflower seeds 30 g pumpkin seeds 30 g dried cranberries 200 g apple sauce 250 g rolled oats cinnamon nutmeg olive oil Procedure Heat oven to 150 c parchment paper in a pan add all dry ingredients, mix add wet ingredients, mix ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Elon Musk has engaged in outright fraud The TSLA Twitter bots The Solar City acquisition The Solar City roof tile scam The self-driving car scam Elon Musk is bad for the environment Spaceflight emissions No plans for ... Tesla's ESG rating Toxic metal mining Elon Musk is bad for humanity
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Update 30-09-24 Wow, turns out everyday induction cooktops are horrible to work with carbon steel. My guess is that gas is needed, or a much improved induction. Both of which I'm not really interested in. Therefore, for the standard frying pan, a non-stick option is a better result at this timee. Stainless (or ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Google is such a tool. Even with apps only mode they show full-screen background ads on top of everything. Without that mode, nearly every element on the screen pushes apps and content that is unwanted and unneeded. It is now impossible to remove this without changing Google TV / Android TV launchers. Thankfully, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Codium aka VSCodium Alternative to the instrumented VSCode. Less tracking, same Open Source flavor. Another option is Pulsar, the resurrected Atom editor. Ignore Pulsar, vscodium is fine. Note that with Foam, Codium can provide some level of Obsidian-like functionality, though not nearly as extensive functionality and constrained to a desktop (no mobile apps). ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I use Obsidian which is a closed source application but focused on open data standards, and with a thriving community of extensions and use cases. The main competitors of Obsidian are Notion (closed source cloud service) and Logseq (open source). So, why Obsidian? Why Obsidian? Freemium model, including various ways to help fund ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 SDcards, especially MicroSD cards, can also be connected via USB, so those speeds are also important. Notes and For any USB interface, Type 3.2 when possible. and
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I spent a half-day or so looking for improvements to my current Swiss Army Knife collection (two), the Compact and the Jetsetter (3). Both are extremely compact and versatile (a bit redundant when discussing Swiss Army Knives / Victorinox). The outcome of this research is twofold: I have the most optimal (for me) ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Manga being a Japanese word, there are several other words (in other languages) for this kind of thing: Japanese: Manga Korean: Manhwa Chinese: Manhua English (US, CA, UK, etc.): Comics, Graphic Novels French: Bande dessinée Note the main differences between Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua. In Japan, the light novel -- akin to YA ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Git is great, and even better as a core part of a full development / deployment toolchain. These days there are choices as to which more robust Git platform to use. First, those not to use: Github (owned by Microsoft), proprietary Gitlab (owned publicly traded company), open core Both of these are worrisome ... Read more
Updated 18-Aug-2025 This is meant to help with selecting and installing a chrome-based browser, with minimal tracking and other cruft. Ungoogled Chromium for Debian Actually there are a variety of OS builds for ungoogled Chromium, many of which lag behind. There does not seem to be an up-to-date apt repository anywhere. Therefore manual installations are ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I have not played with Mobian (yet), but it, and two other projects (Termux and UserLAnd), are quite promising. The biggest issue seems to be hardware at this point, as there are only Pine Phone and Tab, and Purism Librum, as well as one or two other devices are supported. That said, the ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Intellectual property protections for typefaces and fonts are questionable at best, though there are a few areas in which protections do hold, including Copyright, Design Rights (and Patents), and Trademark.1 Copyright Originally in the US and other jurisdictions, the idea of a typefaces is one which is pure utility (that is, smacking ink ... Read more