Tag archives for tips
✍️ Is there any LanguageTool alternative worth the money?
I started this post about ten days ago and posted an initial version on August 16. Meanwhile, I explored a few other solutions and tested the ones I initially considered…
Securitatea Wi-Fi-ului public: mituri vs. realitate
Unii cretini mă iau la pulă (în comentarii pe care nu le aprob) când postez conversații cu chatboți, dar această discuție este informativă și nu am detectat halucinații în ea.…
From whisper to whisper.cpp
I have used OpenAI’s Whisper a couple of times, with satisfactory results. I mentioned my Debian/Ubuntu setup in a post from 16 months ago: python3 -m venv whisper_env source whisper_env/bin/activate…
Maybe I wasn’t wrong to hate PackageKit, after all
I hated PackageKit in 2008, then I got used to it as it became omnipresent, so I just ignored it. Most people have nothing against it (it’s for your security!)…
Is there an ePub apocalypse? A case study and beyond it
A chat with Gemini, what else? ❶ Ludditus: Back in the day, when ePub readers included models from Sony (PRS-300, 350, 500, 505) and many other brands, I was rabid…
AI and Linux: a bit of ranting
From the hundreds of URLs visited per week, here are a bunch of comments based on a very short selection of news from the last 3 weeks. I am unhappy…
Camomile for your Windows laptop (if you really must)
Remember when I wrote Stop drinking Kool-Aid regarding battery life in Linux? Well, how about battery life and laptop's temperature in Windows? Despite using the Balanced power plan, there's no…
File Explorer: less annoying sans Automatic Folder Type Discovery
I prefer all folders to open by default in the compact List view; some other people prefer the Detailed view by default. Either way, only morons need a folder to…
Stop drinking Kool-Aid regarding battery life in Linux
There is an open secret that a laptop’s battery life in Linux is worse than in Windows. At least, this was true for Win7-Win10, because Win11, I'm told, is worse,…
Christopher Barnatt is sometimes useful
I once wanted to write a post about the SMR (Shielded Magnetic Recording), which is one of the worst possible ideas of the 21st century! Some retarded, accountant-minded CEO considered…
A cursory look at WPS Office
Years ago, I quite liked Kingsoft Office. I remember I have used it under Win7 and Android. Since the suite became WPS Office (from Writer, Presentation, Spreadsheets, not from “Wonderfully…
Did Gemini Pro really get that worse? 4 threads to test it!
I just had 3 conversations with Gemini Pro Extended Thinking. It all started from my refusal to watch two videos about Claude skills, but the first thread evolved into covering…
Small polish touches to Debian 13 installed via Xebian
Since the home page of Xebian insists that this Debian blend (not derivative!), “with only a thin layer for artwork and configuration that differs from Debian,” is “based on Debian Unstable/sid,” I…
Who isn’t on the Big Bad Web?
I’m not a huge fan of Kagi's products and services. Their web search is not free. Kagi Translate seems to be temporarily free, and it usually performs great translations, except…
My Lenovo’s resume-after-sleep bug fixed in one minute
Somewhere, I mentioned the fact that my new, cheap but premium-finished Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 had a single issue under Kubuntu 26.04 LTS: resuming after sleep would break Bluetooth. I…
On using ffmpeg with Intel GPU
There are a few reasons I neither need nor want a computer with an NVIDIA card. In no particular order: NVIDIA is a pain in the ass under Linux, and…
Why your next budget laptop should be a 14-inch one
If it has to be cheap, make it be 14". Apparently, this magically makes it premium. Here's Copilot answering my questions: Ludditus: Why do I have the impression that 14-in…
Agentic AI 101 with Tina Huang
While I abhor OpenClaw for reasons I won’t list here, there are some advantages of it over more traditional agentic AI workflows. To oversimplify, let’s say it’s a shift from…
Handwriting is fitness for the brain, they say (uni-ball agrees)
I am a scribbler in the literal (not literary) sense: I need paper to organize my thoughts and to make lists or just to jot down something, even if eventually…
Dafuq: Claude Code appears to have leaked! 😱
Via Reddit, via Hacker News: Claude Code's source code has been leaked! 🗄️src.zip Claude code source code has been leaked via a map file in their npm registry! Code: https://t.co/jBiMoOzt8G…