I’ve been looking more in depth about the issues on my Linux desktop, and so far I managed to fix two things.
First, there was the issue the computer would take about a minute to shutdown. Systemd was waiting on a process to respond, and it didn’t. It seemed that disconnecting from my old Mac Mini, which I keep online mostly for storage, resolved this problem—no more hang-ups.
The second issue, which is Emacs-specific, was the result of my laziness: I installed Emacs from a flatpak (I know, I know, what was I thinking). As a result, a few things didn’t work right. After installing it from savannah.gnu.org as I should and building it, it works as it should… kind of. There’s still the odd font issue where it doesn’t pick up italics, but I think I have a workaround.
Next, I need to clean a couple of libraries that are taking up space on my hard drive, and probably a few more games I’m not really playing. First, I need to have a good backup.
Instead of wiping my Linux desktop this morning, I started looking into the individual problems I have. Already making progress – the reason it was hanging in shutdown and taking 30 seconds to turn off, for example, was a network share I should have dismounted.
Keep PopOS, or go back to Mint?
While I’m overall happy with my Thelio Mira, it has been collecting “issues” to the point that I think of wiping it and starting fresh. To be fair, this is probably my fault for installing and downloading different libraries and half-baked programs without giving it a second thought, and basically being a bad Linux citizen.
I feel I miss Linux Mint. Mint (especially Cinnamon) is more polished and finished than PopOS’s desktop environment. While it comes with a nice window management snapping system, I never got quite used to it and found that the keyboard shortcuts don’t always work. It’s… fine, it does the job, but it’s not a feature I absolutely must have. I know System76 is working on Cosmic, but it’s still in alpha.
I do use this computer mainly for gaming. Popos comes with an application “Store” that has Steam and NVIDIA drivers ready to install, but when you have experience tweaking games to work on Linux you go get what you need yourself rather than rely on a store that tends to break when you installed said drivers and has you working in terminal to fix what it broke.
On the other hand, PopOS does feel more snappy, and things install and run on it quickly. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles Mint does, but I’m not sure I need those. Besides, Mint has its own share of problems too; I know nostalgia plays a part in this as well.
Tampopo, 1985 - ★★★
A fun movie. I haven't watched enough Japanese films to know if the style of parallel plots happening here is classic, or something unique to this film, but it works.
It's a comedy dipped with serious food passion (some sexual food-related scenes emphasize that), which centers around ramen noodles. The reason I picked this movie up in the first place is that its first scene is set in a ramen noodle restaurant, which is called - of course - Tampopo.
There's a bit too much women-cliche-gender role in this movie, but it is from the 80s and it is from a more traditional cinema, so that didn't surprise me; still, it was a bit annoying that they had to slap that "a woman chef! amazing!" thing at the end.
Coffee time.
I woke up wondering about .org-id-locations. You know, that Emacs file that keeps track of all of your org-mode IDs. How does it know where are the headers in the files it refers to? Is there a size limit? Can I use a different file (or files) if I want to for the hell of it?
What?? Don’t look at me like that. I often think about Emacs just before I fall asleep and when I wake up. Don’t you?
Many apps I used to install with apt now seem to prefer AppImage. I understand AppImages are easy to use and are always up to date, but it doesn’t seem like a good blanket solution for everything.
I’m finding it hard to enjoy video games recently. They all feel… the same. I keep playing World of Warships (that’s more of an addiction) and Helldivers here and there, but I want something with a story, and even though there are a couple of options, I can’t seem to be interested in anything in particular.
Nature takes over… good day for a walk today. 📷
Some good news:
It’s a drop on the bucket, but it’s something.
“In every state other than Montana, if police want to know where you have been, rather than presenting evidence and sending a warrant signed by a judge to a company like Verizon or Google to get your geolocation data for a particular set of time, they only need to buy that same data from data brokers”
I’m considering freezing or canceling my Adobe plan.
It’s supposed to be $10 for Photoshop and Lightroom, it’s now $16 after tax and some other thing, and I don’t use it enough to justify it. For what I need, built in tools in Photos, Gimp Krita and Darkroom are more than enough.
Two Eamcs tweaks I forgot about (most of you will know these):
Use Consult’s recentf to see a list of files that were edited recently:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x C-r") 'consult-recent-file)
Consult’s org-agenda (jump to heading) is quicker than what I usually do, which is to list all ACTIVE keywords in emacs (this is how I list my projects), and then go down the tree to find the specific TODO header I want.
Since I often know what I’m looking for within active projects, I can use consult-org-agenda, which narrows headers dynamically as I search. Much faster and clutter-free:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-h") 'consult-org-agenda)
Something good happened when I got my new TV. I started enjoying movies and TV shows more. I know, what a surprise, right? There are a few things at play here.
The apartment’s natural darkness and quiet make it ideal for watching movies. We also got two headsets connected to it (this required a Bluetooth hub, which works great), which adds to the experience. The Sony TV’s color depth and detail make 4K resolution really pop. And last but not least, I connected my old Mac mini to it to watch whatever movies I have saved on my backlog.
With all of that, I started catching up on shows and movies. For now, Nat and I started watching Severance, and I caught up on Better Call Saul, which I never followed up on; I’m happy to see all the episodes are still on Netflix. We’re also finishing up on the second season of Bear when we get the chance.
With video games I want to follow up on, movies, and books, there’s a lot to keep track of. There are good websites for some of these things, like letterboxd for movies and backlogged for video games (and I’m on both), and of course there’s Micro.blog for books, but it’s challenging to follow up media on all these different sites which are set up differently and have their own accounts - so I turned back to a suggestion I once read on Lou’s blog: Sequel.
Everything I want to follow on, whether a TV show (down to each episode of each season), a video game (with release dates), a book, or a movie - it’s there. It has a beautiful interface that makes it a breeze to find and add something. Oh, and it’s available on macOS and iOS, so I can mark the latest episode of Better Call Saul I just watched from the sofa.
For posts on this blog, I still need to review movies with letterboxd and games with backlogged, because the sites' RSS feeds goes directly to the blog, but Sequel is great to keep track of it all.
One of the things I realized (again) on this staycation: I am curious and my hunger for technology didn’t go anywhere. It was just squished under layers of workload.
I’m relying increasingly on Journelly to save quick links and notes. It’s swift, and it’s easy to add to org-mode as a project or the agenda
Warfare, 2025 - ★★★½
I decided to watch this on a whim today, and I'm glad I did. This is a difficult movie to watch, not just because of the subject matter but also because there's no real plot or story. I think that's part of the point.
This is an authentic story (as much as I can gather) of one of many instances - and just that, one moment (well, a 90-minute-long moment) of the war in Iraq, with all its horrors. It was created as a memory, like a journal note, of how things were back then for the people who were there; it's not the kind of movie you watch in a theater, eating popcorn.
What I appreciate about this movie is that it doesn't attempt to draw politics in. There's also no attempt at heroism or really any symbolism. It's a simple movie that makes a simple delivery.
Emacs' windows navigations and some Emacs zen
Turns out I didn’t know and forgot about all sorts of built-in fucntions in Emacs that help you navigate windows better. A bit of help from System’s Crafters video and I wised up quite a bit.
Windows in Emacs probably come to you as second nature now, as it does to me, but imagine how it looks to people from the outside for a minute:
Look at the diagram on the screen. Read the explanation. Look at the “huh?” expression of David of System Crafters (awesome channel for Emacs learning by the way)… Need I say more? 😂
I love Emacs, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to managing its windows…
A blog check list
A checklist (in org-mode, but it doesn’t have to be) I use to keep my blog perrrrrty. (ok, yes, I need to actuall use it now, I know…)
We started watching Severance, episode 1 of season 1. I only vaguely know what it’s about, but it’s intriguing, so I want to keep at it.
Emacs window management tweaking
Tweaking Emacs’ window management as a way to get tired and go to bed again.