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SAS vs SATA and Recovery

SAS and SATA are electrically compatible to a degree that allows connecting a SATA storage device to a SAS controller. The SAS controller understands the SATA protocol so this works. A SAS device can’t be physically connected to a SATA controller and if you did manage to connect it then it wouldn’t work.

Some SAS […]

Links December 2023

David Brin wrote an insightful blog post about the latest round of UFO delusion [1]. There aren’t a heap of scientists secretly working on UFOs.

David Brin wrote an informative and insightful blog post about rich doomsday preppers who want to destroy democracy [2].

Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting article about how ChatGPT helps people […]

Abuse and Free Software

People in positions of power can get away with mistreating other people. For any organisation to operate effectively there have to be mechanisms to address bad behaviour, both to help the organisation to achieve it’s goals and to protect people who work for it.

When an organisation operates in the public interest there is a […]

Fat Finger Shell

I’ve been trying out the Fat Finger Shell which is a terminal emulator for Linux on touch screen devices where the keyboard is overlayed with the terminal output. This means that instead of having a tiny keyboard and a tiny terminal output you have the full screen for both. There is a YouTube video showing […]

Links November 2023

The Long Now has an insightful article about air quality [1].

Every country needs food labelling laws like Mexico has [2]. Also we need to abolish the investor state tribunals, companies should just accept local laws and obey them – or be treated in the same way as pirates on the high seas.

Ian Jackson […]

Links October 2023

The Daily Kos has an interesting article about a new more effective method of desalination [1].

Here is a video of a crazy guy zapping things with 100 car batteries [2]. This is sonmething you should avoid if you want to die of natural causes. Does dying while making a science video count for a […]

Hello Kitty

I’ve just discovered a new xterm replacement named Kitty [1]. It boasts about being faster due to threading and using the GPU and it does appear faster on some of my systems but that’s not why I like it.

A trend in terminal programs in recent years has been tabbed operation so you can have […]

Bluetooth Versions and PineTime

I’ve done some tests with the PineTime [1] on different Android phones. On a Huawei Mate 10 Pro (from 2017 with Bluetooth 4.2) it has very slow transfer speeds for updating the firmware (less than 1KB/s) and unreliable connection to the phone. On a Huawei Nova 7i (from 2020 with Bluetooth 4.2) it has slow […]

Brother MFC-J4440DW Printer

I just had to setup a Brother MFC-J4440DW for a relative. They were replacing an old HP laser printer that mysteriously stopped printing as dark as it should, I don’t know whether the HP printer had worn out or if the HP firmware decided to hobble it to make them buy a new printer. In […]

More About the PineTime

Since my initial review of the PineTime 10 days ago [1] I’ve used it in more situations. My initial tests were done connecting to a Huawei Nova 7i [2], I am now using it with a Huawei Mate 10 Pro. I’ve also upgraded the PineTime from version 1.11 (from memory) of the Infinitime software that […]