Posts

cd burning: use "wodim"

Note to self: burn to optical media with wodim, like so:     # wodim -eject $ISO Background: it was originally called cdrecord, but this was forked and the name changed with it.  At some point it was called cdrkit. Support for new media, DVDs and then Bluray BDs was only made available in the newly-named programs.

git: listing directories to include

In its normal behaviour, git is for a whole directory, apart from exclusions via .gitignore, and any special git files. What if we want to whitelist what to include?  There isn't a .gitfoo file for this.  But it can probably be achieved via a double negative for files, and a double negative twice for directories: .gitignore: * !included_file !included_dir/ !included_dir/* This is especially useful for picking out parts of a home directory to replicate.

Bright lights on x90

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 I took the 3:30 coach to Gatwick.  I sat at the back because driver had pop music on at the front. There are two bright lights, in the reading lights positions, shining directly into my eyes. I tried turning them off, using what looked like reading lights buttons. These things are bright. From my vantage point at the back, I notice that of a dozen passengers, four try to turn off their lights over the next minute. I go to the front. “Excuse me, there are some bright lights, right in my eyes, and I can’t turn them off”.  “We have to have those while we’re in the city. The others are even brighter. I can turn on the others if you want”. I already travel with tape for covering lights in hotel rooms, from fire detectors etc. Looks like adhesive covering should become a briefcase item. Back at the back. The three people closest, newly boarded, are all trying to turn off their lights, and are coordinating with each other. “I’ve spoken to the driver. He said he’ll switch them o...

easyjet random error with firefox

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It got a bit further with firefox than with chromium, but then failed with similar error when trying to log in: And this when trying to log in from homepage on chromium: and then, after trying quite a few more times, it randomly works: WTF, easyjet

airline in unable to sell plane tickets shock (easyjet)

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  Am I going to have to go all the way to Munich, because Easyjet's web site is broken again?

attempt at commerce ends in bicycle-identifying ordeal

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  Tried renting car.  Got asked to identify squares with bicyles.  Attempted.  Got asked to identify more squares with bicycles.  Gave up and decided to use something else instead.

copy and paste doesn't work on unix : reminder

I seem to have already written this article: < https://wibblement.blogspot.com/2021/11/copy-and-paste-keeps-getting-worse.html >. Copy and paste failures happen all the time, but I've just had another case.  I was trying to copy a bit of text out of a terminal emulator running a shell and into a web editor.  I selected the text.  Middle clicked in blogger's editor in web page in chromium.  It pasted in a picture that was previously in the clipboard / in the other clipboard.  Since it's just a shell running in a terminal, there was no other way to ask for it to copy.  I tried ctrl-v in the browser editor: same result.  So I tried middle-clicking in emacs's scratch buffer.  That pasted in the right text.  Then selected the text and did ctrl-w, which is an emacs thing.  Now I can ctrl-v in the browser editor, and the right text is pasted.  Conclusion: the browser or blogger editor is probably handling middle-click itself, and pas...