my thoughts on stuff

How things change

2024/09/25 1:51pm

Ive said before that I have learned more about computers in the last 4 months using linux than the last 4 years using windows. But that never really sunk in until 10 minutes ago. I turned on my old windows laptop for the first time in a few months to copy some files I needed, I noticed the laptop was getting kinda hot, along with the fans spinning up. I open task manager to find windows is using 30% CPU and 78% RAM (~6.4 GB)... ON IDLE. So I decide to do some maintenance, and oh my god, everything is a complete mess. I open up spacesniffer to find a 147 GB steamapps folder, a 13.5 GB Downloads folder, and the infamous pagefile.sys at 20.2 GB, all in all I ended up removing a total of ~220 GB of junk data, meaning 46.3% of my usable SSD was taken up by useless files. Not to mention the sheer amount of things I have saved on the desktop, right now there are "only" 86 but at one point it took up 70% of the screen, iirc.

And then I look at my files on linux, everything nicely organised into specific directories, with specific sub-directories, I know where everything is. And I think "damn, its weird how much ive changed in the last 6 months."

Also, writing this reminded me of the 1.2 TB pagefile.sys story

Cool tablet

2024/09/15 8:20pm

About 2 weeks ago, I was looking throught my big box of random junk tech for a hard drive. While looking, I ended up finding a tablet that I had 0 memory of. Its back shell was completely removed. But despite this, it didnt look to be broken. Infact it appeared to be the opposite. Everything was clearly connected and looked very easy to replace. the motherboard had some info on what certain cable did as well as where screw holes where located, although i did notice a ribbon cable that looked like it was supposed to connect to something that had been ripped out, we'll get back to this.

After digging around in the box I found its shell, putting it back on made me notice that is was connected with 6, clearly visible screws. This thing was made to be repaired. Another thing I noticed it that this guy had some PORTS, you know how modern iphones only have lighting bolt. Well, this guy has: USB2.0, micro USB, micro HDMI, 2.5mm aux, 2.5x0.7mm DC, and an SD card reader. And, you know how I said that it had a ribbon cable that was supposed to connect to something? Well, turns out this thing actually has a detachable keybaord, that I just so happen to have. Unfortunately, mine is extremely mangled, but it doesnt seem to be broken, while the top is bent and the bottoms been ripped off. None of the components seem to be destroyed. Anyways, all of this is useless if its dead, so I grab 1 of my 23 micro USB cables and plug it in and... It turns on! This low end tablet from mid 2015, that probably hasnt been touched in 8 years turns on fine. althought, after turning it on I realised a few things:

1. The screen is completely shattered, you cant make ANYTHING out.

2. It seemingly cant be turned off when booting, this is a problem as it is boot looping

3. Despite being advertised as having and 8 hour battery life and not being touched for ~8 years. This thing made its boot up jingle every few hours for the next 2 days.

Luckily for me, I can either just buy a micro HDMI adapter or replace the screen, as you can just straight up remove it. As for the boot looping part, because it has a USB port theres a substantial chance that it supports booting off of USB, meaning I could just put some arm version of linux on it. And I could either use the detachable keyboard, or if that doesnt work, I could just solder some random spare keyboard I have laying around. Because that too, is just USB. Unfortunately, because its a low tier tablet from mid 2015 it isnt exactly the most powerful, from what ive found online its specs are:

type: RCA 11 Maven pro

OS: android 5.0 (most likely)

RAM: 1GB, DDR[?]

CPU: MediaTek MT8127 1.4GHz, 4 cores

GPU: n/a

storage: 32GB, eMMC 5.0

screen: 1366x768p, 16:9, 11.6"

If I ever end up getting it a screen and installing linux on it, it will be written below this.

amazon link

Time travel

2024/09/15 2:35pm

Note: This is primarily just ramblings about how I think time travel would and wouldnt work, none of this is really backed by anything scientific.

So, ive been thinking a lot about the concept of time travel as of recent. Now, I dont believe that time travel will ever be invented. But, if it where to be invtented at some point. I have 100% certainty that it will never be able to travel forward in time.

Why do I believe this? Well, if you could travel forward in time and have reality still exist comfortably. It would mean that nowhere in the time you traveled forward, is there be an event that would have 2 or more possibilities. This complete lack of possibility implying that free will does not exist. Because if it did, you wouldnt have a singular, linear outcome. Personally, I do believe that all living entities have free will in some way. Which is why I do not believe that traveling forward in time is possible.

Now, me believing that a technology is impossible does not make it impossible. For example: On October 9th 1903, the New York Times published an article saying that flying machines would not be invented for another 1-10 million years. 69 days after they published that article, the first flying machine was created (Dec 17 1903). So, with the more than 0% chance of me being completely wrong. I thought about it more and developed 3 possibilities for what time traveling forward may bring:

This is a (pretty sloppy) flow chart of what I think time travel could bring. Keep in mind that this is entierely speculation about the implications of something that does not exist.

Paranoia

2024/08/28 3:11am

As mentioned before, I dont get scared easily. Unfortunately, I have a tendancy to get paranoid easily, if that makes any sense. That in combination with my tendency to become nocturnal makes for a not so good time.

Sidenote: Without something like school to keep my sleep schedule in check, my sense of time ceases to exist. Like, yesterday I feel asleep at ~11:00am. The restlessness is a side effect of the medication I take, which is kinda annoying as I do need it to function.

Anyways, living in a rural area makes the paranoia exponentially worse. Cause the only sounds you hear at night are from wild animals. One example is when (what I hope is) an owl calling, whatever its doing, it sounds exactly like a human yelling in the distance. Also, every so often il hear a sound, and I will have zero clue as to what the fuck caused it. Like random bangs, or a sound that was what I would describe as a low, ambient, metallic hum somewhere in between industrial fan and air conditioner coming from somewhere deep in the forest. But for every 1 weird sound there are 2 normal ones that are just standard rural sounds like wolves howling or leaves rustling or an animal being killed.

I kinda got sidetracked so there isnt a good spot to put this but. Its always whenever I get really paranoid that youtube recommends some video tittled "this is the SCARIEST minecraft arg of ALL TIME" and the thumbnail is something like phen 228 or the solar plexus clown glider. Its like when the loop of your jeans only gets caught on the door when your mad.

My ideal phone

2024/08/27 8:39m

I dont not like modern phones, its clear that im not alone in this, with the popularization of "dumb phones". And while I do like dumb phones, I dont want one. My ideal phone is just a small computer with aux, usb, an SD card reader, and an inbuilt keyboard. I dont give a fuck about how thin it is. I want a rapberry pi that I can make phone calls with, and with good modularity, and upgradability.

A pocket framework laptop, thats a good description. Unfortunately, I doubt something like that will ever be made, there probably wouldnt be all that much demand, and even if there was I doubt it would be very profitable. But I can dream.

^^^ this but with modern specs

Audiophobia

2024/08/24 11:49pm

So, I enjoy going on walks in the late night/early morning hours. I also live in a rural, gravel road area. something about the darkness in combination with the forest ambiance of crickets and plants rustling in the wind is very enjoyable for me. All this going to say that I am not a person thats gets scared easily, especially if I have something like a shovel or axe on hand.

sidenote: This is why im not afraid of cryptids in the slightest, their either:

A. A comparible level of danger to a standard black bear, at that point I just accept my fate.

B. Something that could very easily be beaten to death with a hammer cough cough, frog man.

c. Some horryfying ocean beast that could swallow our largest ships whole. I dont take walks near the beach, not my problem.

All of that rant going to say, I dont get scared easily. But for some reason, disturbing/off puting audio specifically puts some deep, primal fear of god within my soul. Im kinda curious what, presumably in my evolution caused me to be scared of this specifically. Now of course there are non audio things that scare me, like the solar plexus clown glider or PHEN-228. But at the same time those are kinda hit or miss, while writing this I just searched up those 2 things, and despite me being alone I wasnt scared of them (probably because its still daylight). But then I look at the villains wiki page for PHEN-228, and play the audio recording of the broadcast hijacking and less than a second in im immediately unnerved. It makes me wonder why my otherwise brave demeanor is completely shattered by sounds.

sidenote2: While writing this I remembered a greentext about a guy that called himself in a dream, I cant explain properly explain it. Image and audio attached.

greentext link audio link

Spying

2024/08/22 6:37pm

You know how in my last entry I said "this way of thinking is far from some impenetrable wall", online (and somewhat offline) privacy is one of the things that just destroy that wall that I keep trying to build up. I go throught a privcay phase every 4-6 months, this one has been especially bad. It was starting to set on about a week ago, a few days ago I was looking through .onion sites/blogs, as I like to do every once in a while when im feeling bored. And I stumbled upon a blog (link), this I feel is what kinda pushed me over the edge. Ive been thinking about online privacy near constantly since then.

Althought, a silver lining to turning into a bit of a schizo is I ive been learning a lot about tech stuff. I would say that using linux and fixing the problems related to it, in combination with learning about privacy and protection, I would say ive learned more about computers in the last 4 months than I have in the last 4 years. Unfortunately, ive noticed the more tech literate I get the more paranoid I get. Althought that being said, in terms of "tech literate" people I would still consider myself to be on the lower half of the bell curve, at least for now. Althought THAT being said, Im 99% sure that a lot of tech literate people dont care about their privacy as well. You could say that at some point in your tech nerd journey you are presenting with a blue and red pill. Take the red, you become a schizo. Take the blue, you become a "soydev" (I promise im not an incel). As much as I would like to say I took the red pill (or the orange pill as ive seen some people call it). Nothing I do seems to be fully adequate. Chrome? user firefox, firefox? use mullvad, mullvad? use tor, tor? use I2P. And even if I do have the best online privacy, as the blog I was reading throught put it: "The guy sitting in his apartment wearing a hoodie, running a fully libre ThinkPad, unbreakable Qubes OS, TOR for all connections, carefully avoiding all stylometry and sharing any personal data at all, encrypting his stuff with a one time pad three times, and worrying whether some botnet hasn't slipped in anyway. He has no phone or only uses "burner phones" and pays with bitcoins. And then...he finally has to come out of his house, and has his face recorded by a CCTV camera a hundred times. This guy has to be respected for his dedication, but he is useless for a revolution. You cannot combat The Botnet using tech only." link to that article.

This article, I feel, does a really good job at demonstrating that, even thought you might have build yourself an impenetrable wall. You have to come out eventually, if not you either go insane or starve. And while defending yourself is a good temporary fix, its just that. A temporary fix. The solution is to attack the root cause. To try and stop megacorporations from doing the shit they do, and as foolish as that might sound: 'an army of nerds trying to stop a 3Trillion dollar company'. Even thought im a bit of a doomer, I still got a little bit of optimism left in me. that unkillable core of human nature, of human drive to push forward, and I know for a fact you have the capacity to care as well, cause your a human being, and no matter how depressed or sociopathic you might be, I know for a fact that you have the capacity to care, its one ofthe things that makes us human.

With all that being said, I think im go gonna get some fresh air, go take my dog on a walk, I suggest you do the same...

Post-pessimism

2024/08/20 7:25pm

Over the past few years ive developed a way of viewing the world that I call post-pessimism (Theres probably an existing and/or better term for this way of thinking, but im not well versed in philosophy). If I where to describe it in one sentence it would be: "life is meaningless and were all gonna die... and thats OK". That, although things seem bad. Thats just how things be, you just gonna have to live with it sometimes. Another way of saying it would be that, although, yes. The glass if half empty, it isnt completely empty, theres still a good amount of water in there. And thats something to be haapy about, something to be excited about. A while after adopting this way of thinking, something just clicked. For a lot of my life I had a short temper and anger issues, I would often get pissed at trivial shit. Then, one day I was I think 11 or 12 if I remember correctly. My mom informed me that my cat had died, and I just, accepted that. No greif, no anger, no sadness. I had, at that moment, gained control of my emotions. I had learned to stay level headed. I had learned to accept that sometimes, shit just happenes.

Althought, this way of thinking is far from some impenetrable wall protecting some divine enlightenment. This ideology is not impenetrable, and im far from being enlightened. Sometimes the cracks start to show, sometimes shit just happends that REALLY pisses me the fuck off. And theres not much I can do about that.

Windows 11 (and modern tech in general)

2024/08/11 10:40pm

Chirstmas 2021 I was gifted a laptop, this laptop came with windows 11 pre installed. This event changed how I viewed operating systems and computers in general, because of how much I fucking HATED windows 11, windows 11 is what got me (and probably 100,000s of other people) into linux. And, while I still have that laptop, and while I still use it on occasion. Ive proudly started using a refurbished thinkpad (As is required in the linux contract I signed with my blood). Anyways. Things like windows 11, copilot + recall, DRM, and anti right to repair, really test my abilty to not be a doomer about this kinda stuff, along with the fact that barely anyone seems to care. I try to keep strong, but man, does that get more difficult by the day. I think it would be cool if they released windows 7 again, windows 7 my beloved.

Random stuff thats on my mind and I feel like talking about.