Stephan Sokolow @ssokolow@qoto.org

...and before anyone has an opinion on it, the iPhone in question is a hand-me-down that I use as an eReader because it was already armored to the gills when I got it. The hack is because I refuse to create an iCloud account to download a proper reader app from the App Store.

Tip: If you're stubborn like me and have a bunch of two-page spreads that Calibre splits and orders incorrectly, you too can work around the iOS Files app's refusal to load subresources and turn it into a quick-and-dirty CBZ reader by embedding your pages into an HTML file using data URIs... it actually performs quite well in my testing. (<2s load time for a 40MiB CBZ)
https://gist.github.com/ssokolow/482f9277251c7fdbd907c2711109f050
#html #ios #safari #iphone #python #ebook #ebooks #comics #manga

Does anyone have any tips for reducing Debian's initramfs boot time beyond `MODULES=dep` and `COMPRESS=lz4`? I don't care enough to take on having to manually run a new kernel build every time an update comes down, but I'm having trouble finding an equivalent to Archwiki's "mkinitcpio/Minimal initramfs" page which explains what further customization hooks there are.

(I'm setting this thing up as an sccache node, so there's no GUI and it's running unattended-upgrades, but that doesn't mean I can't try to get the boot times as low as maintainably possible. I've got another one I might have to resort to running Archlinux on to get boot times appropriate for my "fake the Weecee I can't afford to build by using a fullscreen 86box" idea.)

#linux #debian #initramfs #boot #optimization

Why am I not surprised that the one product review Amazon responded with "Edit and resubmit" to was the one where I said I had to return it because Amazon's single-SKU warehousing led the official SanDisk store to send me counterfeit SD cards inserted into the supply chain by some Amazon Marketplace seller. #amazon

In case anyone's interested, I recently added the reference links I used to the README for my practical example of how to write a maximally sandboxed systemd service when you still need to invoke a subprocess from the host system's repositories.
https://github.com/ssokolow/fan_remote

Downloaded an OSBoxes VM of Ubuntu 22.04 to test something... discovered that the "Want to hear about backup software?" popup appears to be taking lessons from Microsoft's "Free upgrade to Windows 10" popups... thankfully, before I could get back to it and check if the "I don't consent to hear more" X was just an only-on-hover thing, the screensaver kicked in and got rid of it for me. Yet another reason GNOME isn't the DE for me, I guess.

Flatpak just pushed #thunderbird 115 and I was called in to do tech support. (Reassure that the sudden access to landing pages that "Compact View" used to hide didn't mean account access had broken and undo the changes that didn't get automatically settings-preserved based on using an existing user profile.)

I did what I could but does anyone know why the account names are no longer alphabetized and how to put the menu bar back above the toolbar when "Hide System titlebar" is unchecked?

Fun find with a USB-DVI KVM I just got. The manual says the "double-tap scroll lock to switch" feature only works on Windows... it turns out that, instead of listening for the scroll lock KEY, it's listening for the scroll lock LED... and macs have no Scroll Lock while modern X11 leaves it unbound by default. Probably a hack for regional keyboard layout variations and keymap customization. On the plus side, the KVM can be scripted using `xset`. :) #kvm #linux #keyboard #cool

This anecdote has some of the most "I actually LOLed" lines I've heard in a long time. →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHmgpIqqXtI
#story #funny #anecdote #video

I forgot to mention it for a week, but my StuffIt test files now include proper "made using the mac version of StuffIt" ones, and I've added a repo of legally clear integration test files for DiskDoubler extractors. → https://github.com/ssokolow/diskdoubler-test-files/ #retro #mac #testing

For fun, I decided to theme up my retro LAN's file server to match the OS each folder is for.

I decided to do the Mac 68k stuff first, and I got a little carried away with seeing what I could do without relying on CSS, so what you see is an interesting mix of "tables for presentation" plus role=none and aria-hidden=true to absolve my sins. Now to retro-test it.

(Please excuse Firefox's flaky pixel positioning when rendering the fan-made Chicago and Monaco TTFs.)

#retro #html #mac #macos #web

I just got around to watching the Defunctland video from three days ago. What starts as a simple question about who wrote the Disney Channel mnemonic jingle turns into a moving piece about an uncredited artist and a work of art in its own right. HIGHLY recommended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_rjBWmc1iQ #documentary

A huge thanks to Corel for being willing to support buyers with legacy use-cases. I am now a registered owner of that copy of WinZip Self-Extractor 2.2 (non-Personal Edition) that I wanted as a kid and, once my Windows 9x retro projects are ready, I can complement the more FOSS-friendly InnoSetup installer with a retro-authentic "InstallShield Express 2 inside WinZip Self-Extractor 2.2" distributable. (I lucked into a sealed retail copy of ISExpress2.) #retro #windows95

A deeply insightful and under-viewed video that my brother introduced me to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=darxphvk058

#politics #economics #society

I just got really nerd-sniped and rewrote my command-line launcher generator for Flatpak in Python+PyGObject, solving pretty much every flaw it had along the way.
https://gist.github.com/ssokolow/db565fd8a82d6002baada946adb81f68

If you've been reluctant to use Flatpak-packaged apps because of the bad command-line user experience, give it a try. Aside from not being able to expose manpages that were just plain omitted from the packages, I'd call it perfect in all ways that matter.
#linux #flatpak #cli #commandline #shell #terminal

Cathode Ray Dude just ended his most recent video with an excellent little "anticapitalist diatribe" (as the section title calls it) expressing his frustration at how nobody makes offbeat products with the intent to actually be products anymore. → https://youtu.be/PDjleq0PJX0?t=2644

In case anyone's planning to thumbnail some PNGs and JPEGs in Python, whether you use PyQt, PyOpenCV, or write your own little wrapper around Rust's `image` crate using PyO3 or rust-cpython, I recommend not using Pillow.

On my test corpus with a warmed cache, the others consistently took about 2/3rds the time Pillow did... though PyOpenCV was a hair slower than the others at ~25 seconds rather than ~23. (Pillow was ~33.)

I knew the fiasco that was the Russo-Japanese war was instrumental in leading to the overthrow of the Tsar, but I never realized that the "sailed half-way around the world" part of "sailed half-way around the world to get smashed at the Battle of Tsushima" was the most hilarious comedy of errors I've ever heard of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mdi_Fh9_Ag

Folding Ideas just put out an excellent 2-hour deep dive into how everything blockchain-related works and how the blockchain ecosystem is effectively "Amway, but everywhere you look, people are wearing ugly-ass ape cartoons", started by wealthy rich programmers who are frustrated that the ultra-rich have shut them out and are trying to synthesize the opportunity to be the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g