< Notes...

Finally I decided to order a pack of 4 AirTags. Experiencing their flawless setup, and how they automagically show up on the Find My app, is truly something. Love it when technology works so smoothly.

If you want to quickly test your disk speed on Linux (might work on macOS, but not 100% sure) simply do:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=1G count=7 status=progress ; rm -f test

Decently happy with my results: 7516192768 bytes (7.5 GB, 7.0 GiB) copied, 5.10763 s, 1.5 GB/s. I figure, though, that’s expected on an NVMe M.2 SSD.

“As he rode the train back to Yokosuka, he watched his fellow passengers absorbed in their phones. ‘We completed the job’, he thought with satisfaction, ‘and they have no idea’.”

Interesting reading titled “The Cloud Under the Sea”. It was difficult to navigate on my Linux laptop (Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all struggled with it), but worth it.

An email from AT&T, with “Important Information” on the subject:

“We’re contacting you regarding the security of your data. After a thorough assessment, AT&T has determined that some of your personal information was compromised…”

No kidding, Sherlock! Some as in my name, phone number, address, and social security number (this one is key). Some?! Oh, but I must rest assured that “AT&T takes these issues very seriously”. As if! 😤

It happened again. Yes, again. Companies which we must trust to receive their services let us down, mishandling, and keeping our private information insecurely. They get breached, and criminals sell the information to anyone willing to pay.

A credit freeze has been placed for Kim and I on the three credit bureaus. Ugh!

A ★★½ for iCloud for Windows is one and a half stars too many. It truly is rubbish. Is that on purpose, Apple? 😒

I have been struggling for days to build an ISO image that will auto-install Ubuntu workstation. Canonical’s way is to install server, then add ubuntu-desktop (and other packages needed/wanted), then remove ubuntu-server, and ubuntu-minimal-server. That’s mind boggling to me. That’s nuts.

I have used Journal. I want to use it more. As soon as more simple formatting (bulleted and numbered lists, links, and blockquotes) are added it will become my go to diary, 100% of the time.

I recently discovered that bold, italics, and underlined formatting is available on selection menu. 🎉

Renting weaknotes.com because I am a sucker, and like to waste a few dollars every once in a while. Currently redirecting to Notes, but might do something else with it later on.

I haven’t been able to create an “autoinstall” ISO for Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop. I haven’t found a way to make the live ISO image not to start the guided wizard GUI. As a workaround, I am using Ubuntu 22.04 Server, and adding ubuntu-desktop and gdm3 afterwards to the server install.

On Keys.pub, I knew it. I emailed Gabriel early 2022 when I saw the project slowing down. I just can’t describe how easy, and clean, and streamlined the app is (yes, it works like it did on its best days).

BEGIN SALTPACK SIGNED MESSAGE. kXR7VktZdyH7rvq v5weRa0zkDCU2lW iMkdfIdqh3M2CpZ m9XIcrqT60yyh90 6ZjZBnea32okiLQ DDoeC9rTPTnIP8a JR9OieJF8tUzb5D AnXAhpm64p4eWNQ wgToLoxtGksKfsj L6trUfotLUwhrQ2 sGs9ZxkAqwRSlqx S2tUNq27ZxjiKVT k65tuXtGnef1rax dRZOp0EL4BFN2rX rOBUKDnUMhpRJXx LnurairmqvNgyz1 FQqblgToiEtKTde 9kNRqN2wpU7HDpp N9NuVSYxyrtJRja VFwpzEPEjFYl058 w7ecu0kz3uDS2by iRNWdP3uPGeekfo xJ1eSKkMe44jXF7 8L. END SALTPACK SIGNED MESSAGE.

On Keys.pub:

“Unfortunately, this project is not currently being worked on. I may revisit this in the future, if you would like to sponsor development or hire me please reach out at gabriel@keys.pub.”

So sad. I really wanted to place all my eggs on this basket, I had started to. Back to the reliable gpg for now.

On this note, I got an Alienware (almost 6lbs!), with a Nvidia RTX 4070 in it. Not the best, but came at a really sweet price. So it is.

We must set, and use, Azimov’s “Three Laws of Robotic” on the now called AI:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Wanting/wishing to buy a Windows machine (preferably a laptop) for gaming. Undecided as hell.

Yesterday’s brief iCloud outage was a scary one. All my domains email are on iCloud’s Custom Email Domain, and emails sent to them were bouncing with “user unknown”. Not a good feeling.

I wonder if bots are somehow “clicking” the hearts on notes. I am having a hard time accepting humans are actually doing it. Call me an unbeliever.

Firefox web browser font rendering on Linux is super nice. Chromium slight blur is no match. I am seriously considering using Firefox exclusively under Linux (Wayland). For me, at least, it seems “old” is “new” again. LOL.

The new Teams client is having spell checking issues under Windows. Of all things, check spelling is broken. As someone at work wrote “It’s amazing how a technology that has been around for like 30 years and is in pretty much every tech product seems to have gone from bad to non-existent in the latest version of Teams.”

Was too busy—or too lazy—to drop a note on new year’s evening. I have been using iOS Journal, which now holds some notes I would have dropped here otherwise. Journal has bugs, and it isn’t great, but I am betting on it getting better.

It is already 2 January 2024, but not too late to wish you all a happy new year!

Going back to this, work has now provided me with a Linux (Ubuntu) laptop, and a docking station. I am to relinquish my dear Mac, and stop using (for work) macOS. I would have never thought of this happening!

iOS 17.2 released yesterday, and within it, the highly anticipated Journal app. As I commented to a friend, I am finding it to be “bland”, and “a bit of a disappointment”. Comes to prove, always set your expectations as low as possible, then chances are you will always be dazzled. :-)

Moving from my beloved iMac 2015 (running macOS Monterey), to this little abomination of a Linux desktop (because, you know, 2023 is “the year of the Linux desktop” /s).

I never thought, in a million years, that I was going to write this: when it comes to UI between Windows 11 and Windows 95, I prefer the later. You will not believe the memories “My Briefcase”, and “The Microsoft Network” brought to me!

The Guidebook has many more screenshots worth re-seeing.

My open case with Canonical has been worked, back and forth, for over a month. It started at severity level 3, and now is at 1. Every time I thought I was seeing the metaphorical “light at the end of the tunnel”, it became dark once more. This is beyond painful.

Unpopular opinion: if you need an RSS reader to keep up with everything, you are consuming too much. While I can see the utility of RSS, it doesn’t beat the full web experience.

I had forgotten how much Apple Music improves my working day. And my hobby time in front of the computer. And my driving time. I had forgotten how much I love the service. Now, with Apple One, it is mine once again!

Raspberry Pi just announced version 5 of their board, and I yawned. For about the same amount one can get a micro computer with better specifications, and support for pretty much all operating systems.

I have become such a snob, and I feel bad about it. I can’t stand WordPress sites and, more often than not, I will simply browse away if I see the site is built with it. I want to change but it’s rather clinical. Please, help!

I have been getting “You can’t perform that action at this time.” messages left and right, when trying to star repositories on GitHub. The thing is, they get starred, but the message still shows. Thanks Microsoft! </s>

My currently open L3 support case with Canonical just passed the 20 days mark. I have asked to raise its priority to L2. Let’s see now. 🙄

The iPhone 15 Pro Max camera is getting amazing reviews at DXOMARK. Too bad that I will not be getting a new phone this year.

My first web browser was Mosaic, then Netscape, then Mozilla which became Firefox. Firefox became my default go-to web browser for many years. If Microsoft Windows was my OS platform of choice it would probably still be. Ever since I completely, and absolutely, moved to macOS/iOS/iPadOS, the choice has been Safari. I had had no reason to look elsewhere.

This blog post is everlasting. Since 2018, when it was written, things have gotten worse. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon.

We put virtual machines inside Linux, and then we put Docker inside virtual machines, simply because nobody was able to clean up the mess that most programs, languages and their environment produce. We cover shit with blankets just not to deal with it. “Single binary” is still a HUGE selling point for Go, for example. No mess == success.

“Android works to keep you safe and protect your privacy when you use apps.” That, from Google’s Android Help made me chuckle. When I think of Android many things come to mind, but “keep you safe”, and “protect your privacy”. Ha!

Apple new devices (iPhones 15, and Watches 9) worldwide arrival news announcement makes me happy. Beautiful people from around the world, smiles, and feelings of overall happiness make me happy.

As a sign that I wasn’t kidding when I said I would move from 1Password to iOS Passwords, I have now done so. This weekend I will dedicate some time, and clean my list, making sure all important stuff works and, once that’s achived, I will get rid of 1Password, and cancel my subscription.

“Your NFT are actually—finally—totally worthless”, RollingStone. Don’t you say! Just one more to add to the Human Stupidity museum, right?

“What’s going on with the WiFi? I can’t connect the iPad to it.” — “Nothing that I know off. Do you think the boy would be so happy playing a video game with friends, if there was a problem?” — “It isn’t working!” A minute later, “never mind”.

If at first you don’t succeed, you mustn’t quit! LOL.

I might be getting old and, as such, be “old school” now, but a company like Unity shouldn’t be apologising on X. They have a company’s website, they should put their apology there.

Ah, crap, as soon as I hit send I found their blog with an “Editor’s note (Sept. 17, 2023)”, that is a verbatim of what they posted on X.

We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.

I don’t know why news outlets did not link there instead of referring to the X “xeet” (how do they call those things these days?).

Another update, this time from Marc Whitten, lead of Unity Create:

I want to start with this: I am sorry.

And he goes on, yet, it seems to me it’s too little, too late. I think this was a costly mistake for Unity. Talk about a backfire!