Ciro Santilli's favorite music genre.

Ciro's 2020 perfect Friday evening: jazz fusion + study quantum field theory on an Amazon Kindle. Ahhhhhh.

Ciro Santilli took courses once upon a time, maybe that has influenced his passion? Ciro Santilli's musical education.

I had meant to make an update earlier, but I wanted to try and add some more "visible end-user changes" to OurBigBook.com.

Just noticed BTW that signup on the website is broken. Facepalm. Not that it matters much since it is not very useful in the current state, but still. Going to fix that soon. EDIT: nevermind, it wasn't broken, I just had JavaScript disabled on that website with an extension to test if pages are visible without JavaScript, and yes, they are perfectly visible, you can't tell the difference! But you can't login without JavaScript either!

I still haven't the user visible ones I wanted, but I've hit major milestones, and it feels like time for an update.

I have now finished all the OurBigBook CLI features that I wanted for 1.0, all of which will be automatically reused in ourbigbook.com.

The two big things since last email were the following:

A secondary but also important advance was: further improvements to the website's base technology.

I knew I was going to do them for several months now, and I knew they were going to hurt, and they did, but I did them.

These change caused two big bugs that I will solve next, one them infinite recursion in the database recursive query, but they shouldn't be too hard.

I was trying to learn about how some types of quantum computers work, when I came across this pearl:

I also did a bit of cycling tourism: bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/3779/im-going-to-take-my-bike-with-me-on-a-plane-do-i-really-need-a-special-bike-tr/84238#84238

A linear map $A$ can be seen as a (1,1) tensor because:is a number, $v\ast$. is a dual vector, and W is a vector. Furthermoe, $T$ is linear in both $v\ast$ and $w$. All of this makes $T$ fullfill the definition of a (1,1) tensor.

All with olive oil and salt mixed up before roasting.

2021-04-05 180C:

2021-02-06 180C:

2021-01-04:

2020-11-21:

2024-04: got two backpacks "for free" with the Lenovo reward points from buying the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s gen4 amd, not bad, that was already cheap and now I got some extra swag:The sport backpack has a fatal flaw: no strap to hold laptop in place, wo it just tumbles back and forth as you walk.

Neither of them have very good padding below the laptop, but at least the Elite one has a slightly elevated inner bag which woudl likely help a lot in case of a drop.

Skullcandy earphones, first one circa. 2016 most likely. Used them a lot, these are good.

2023-07: one of the sides broke near center, rebuying.

2021-07: wire half broke near connector, only works in some positions. The funny thing is: only voices seem to be blocked out! Rebuying.

2021-06: a small bottom piece of the left earpiece broke. Wire seems find, that is like a little extension to protect wire. Let's see for how long.

2020-20: wires at one of ears broke, not sure how.

Look they looked exactly like: "Skullcandy Smokin' Buds 2 In-Ear Audio Earbud Headphones with In-Line Microphone - Black".

Re-buying that one 10 pounds:

Tech specs:

~1TB.

Has a separate power cord, not USB powered. Unbelievable. Edit: actually high ends are still like that as of 2023, e.g. at that time, a the max non-cabled was 5 TB, but top of line was 20 TB.

Disk label: wd1t.

Ubuntu 20.04 gnome-disks benchmark, ext4 partition: 37MB/s.

Bought December 2023 for 300 pounds, so 15 pounds / TB. Needs power supply unfrotunately besides USB, the largest one without needing power supply was only 5 TB at the time so not worth it, given that my P14s alreay carriers 2 TB. 10x is a must for the external crap.

www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/external-drives/wd-elements-desktop-usb-3-0-hdd?sku=WDBWLG0030HBK-EESN (archive)

Noise: it has a constant pleasant hum, with a not so nice click every 5 seconds or so. Reasonable, but not amazingly incredible.

The size is reasonable, not megaportable, but definitely reasonable.

Home 2017 TalkTalk 38Mbps nominal, Google M-lab speed test:

Board LED does not turn on (turned on on first plug, Ethernet always turns on):

Now just HDMI does not work. Possibly a monitor vs television problem:

Takes two AAA rechargeable batteries.

2021-08: rechargeable battery charges were in, nominal marked 1.2V nickel metal hydride, measured as 1.38V and 1.42V.

Bought: January 2020 from store.google.com/ for 350 pounds.

Official specs: support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7158570?hl=en&ref_topic=7530176

GMS Arena: www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_3a-9408.php

Front camera video on Android 11: about 100MiB / minute. The encoding is however super inefficient, a FFmpeg re-encode without any options reduces it by 1/3.

For Fastboot mode: Power and Volume down simultaneously for 10-15s. It is OK if screen sleeps. On "no command", power then volume up to see options.

2023-10: touchscreen not registering touches anymore. Still displays images. Manage to regain access with wired USB mouse + a simple USB-C adapter. RIP. Will attempt replacement: store.ifixit.co.uk/products/google-pixel-3a-screen-genuine?variant=42388954448071, partly to get Authy access which I had never properly tested... Replaced screen, but at exact same status as before: shows image but no touch. thus I wasted my money and time (minus the learning) something else is broken.

£112.99

Buying October 2023 as an immediate backup phone after the Google Pixel 3a (2020) touchscreen died, and Motorola Moto G6 Play (2018) wouldn't connect to giffgaff.

Still working checks: May 2024.

When I came, two Bell GU4 (MR11) 20W 12v.

One burnt. Put in an ASDA halogen one.

ASDA burnt, put in TopLux on right, old Bell left.

2019-01-24, right one burnt a few days ago, old Bell still works. Inner part black, and black dot on the wire. Putting new TopLux again, but this time on the left, old bell on right.

2019-01-24 toilet top lamp also burnt a few days ago, but not at the same time as mirror. Diall, 240V 40W, GU10. Putting in IKEA 240V 35W.

2019-02-02 toilet mirror lamp left (TopLux) burnt. Don't know what to do anymore. Only the magic Bell lamp works.

2019-03-06 toilet top lamp left burnt, IKEA 240V 35W GU10. Putting in another one.

2019-03-28 toilet top lamp right burnt, IKEA 240V 35W GU10. Waiting for people to come to look at transformer, there is definitely something wrong.

2019-04-03 top lamps: replaced with LED (LAP GU10 3W) since lower power, transformer not changed. Mirror lamps: transformer changed, left one replaced with Homebase Halogen 20W 12V. When I came back lamps flickering badly and sometimes not turning on, recalled technician.

2019-04-12 mirror lamp: it was just he connector that was bad, it was changed, also put LEDs there to make it less warm and hopefully have less tear on connector.

Brand according to documents: SMEG.

Most similar models I an find: www.smeguk.com/products/UKC8173N1F and www.smeguk.com/products/UKC81721F, the keyword are "built-in" and "integrated", other very similar ones: www.smeguk.com/refrigerators/built-in

Looks like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c_LBVnU4ec and that's how to unclog the drain.

2020-11-28: defrost. Some small Styrofoam was broken lose from top, noticed small burn or rust marks on top grid nearby.