e-ink book readers

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading — the Kobo, the Nook, the Kindle and even the iPad — are closed devices, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners’ interests are not always aligned with readers’.

From “The Open Book Project” on GitHub

Joeycastillo‘s aims are more than good. It is a step in the right direction. Sadly, the e-ink screen currently available for such “built-it-yourself” hardware is not comparable with those of Kobo, Nook or Kindle. It’s way too small, and its resolution are too coarse.

I would rather prefer a “free-as-in-freedom” ROM for my Kobo. Luckily it seems that there are several custom firmware for Kobo, according to DuckDuckGo. You can even turn your Kobo into a Debian Linux Tablet. Here’s some random links about it:

The one I liked more is okreader. Its README says:

Free/libre software stack for Kobo ebook readers. No proprietary software (except WiFi and EPD controller firmware), no spyware and no DRM. Based on koreader and Debian.

I now have an official excuse to get me another Kobo: I can’t mess up those of my daughter, she will need it this summer!

Wasm links

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Some assorted links about Web Assembly:

Debian: programmi da stable, testing, unstable ed anche experimental senza traumi

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Nell’uso quotidiano dei computer capita spesso di avere la necessità di una base stabile ed allo stesso tempo di utilizzare versioni recenti, molto recenti o anche “beta/alpha/sperimentali” di alcuni specifici programmi. Gli utenti di Debian e quindi di tutte le derivate a partire da Ubuntu non sono da meno, anzi!

Debian pinning – installare versioni di uno specifico repository
Matteo propone – come molti altri – di usare la possibilità di “pinning” di Debian.

In realtà se la necessità è di avere “quasi tutti” i programmi stabili, qualcuno più recente e pochi “recentissimi” è possibile ottenere questo comportamento sfruttando l’algoritmo base del gestore pacchetti di Debian apt. Consultando le man-pages che ci dice come impostare le nostre fonti (man sources.list) leggiamo:

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Shutter – Feature-rich but “aging” Screenshot Tool

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Screenshots | Shutter – Feature-rich Screenshot Tool

Well, it’s really a shame that such a tool is slowly fading into Debian’s oldstable and oldoldstable.

Then I found why: it’s written in Perl which is a perfectly good programming language but it is currently considered too “old-fashioned”. It is also “stuck” using the old Gnome 2 libraries and it shows all its aging. You may say that software does not “age” and you are right. I expected it would install a lot of old libraries so I tried to issue sudo apt install shutter on my Debian box just to see how many packages it would have pulled. It failed. Oh, my. I can resign myself to use the simpler Gnome 3 screenshot tool.

Wonder Boy or Monster Boy?

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

I already posted one a video of Wonder Boy. Now on the same “plot” or genre there’s Monster Boy and the cursed kingdom, “created in cooperation with series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa”

Wonderful. Even if proprietary. And for “plain old computers” is served throught Steam. Ok, it runs on Linux too. Bi-wonderful. So I finally installed steam, even if I perfectly knew that such a platform is laden with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Yes, digital handcuffs. Luckily my guardian angel is on me:

So Monster Boy is not available on Linux. No worries, the other, the one which can switch at will to a cute 8-bit version, Wonder Boy and the dragon’s trap is available on GoG.Com. Without digital handcuffs. So it will yours forever (even if it is still proprietary). But it works on Linux. So my choice is made and I suggest you Wonder Boy. For another reason, too:

Your daughters can play it as… Wonder Girl!

Borders

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

I do like Gutenberg, the “next-gen” WordPress editor. Yet it is still in its infancy as there are many little graphical customization that its basic blocks does not allow for. Neither the old editor allowed them, I must acknoledge, but you could switch to the HTML code and add a <div style="border: red double thick;"> to get something like

I could keep doing it but I would have lost all the ease-of-use that Gutenberg bring us. So a quick search with my favourite duck told me to try “Multipurpose Gutenberg Block” as it allow to define borders, padding, background gradients and so on.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/multipurpose-block/

I hope all those features will come to basic Gutenberg blocks. But they won’t be “basic” anymore and most probably they won’t came as all those features would add too many sliders and options to the “paragraph” block.

Many WordPress developers would not like all that complexity as it is often unneeded. And unneeded complexity makes software harder to use and slower.

I also suspect that those borders aren’t stylish enough, according to “modern webpage typesetting”. Oh, all those fashions! Don’t show pages like “Space Jam” to young web developers: they could die on the spot for the shock!

‘Space Jam’ Forever: The Website That Wouldn’t Die

Mark Zuckerberg Again Calls for Big Tech to be Regulated – Slashdot

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Mark Zuckerberg Again Calls for Big Tech to be Regulated – Slashdot

Zuckerberg has previously called for more government regulation of internet companies, and reiterated his arguments in favor of laws covering four major areas: elections, harmful content, privacy and data portability. “I don’t think private companies should make so many decisions alone when they touch on fundamental democratic values,” he wrote, adding: “We have to balance promoting innovation and research against protecting people’s privacy and security.”

I think that most of the issues could be solved or made much easier to deal with if all those Big Tech make their code base “Free as in Freedom”, ideally releasing the software they actually use to run their services under the GNU Affero General Public License