Not that I’d own a smart fridge, but if I did and they started shoving ads on it, it’d look like this later that day:

Yeah, that one took me a minute. I think “drip” or “slow drip”? I know “drip” used to be a term but was never one I associated with “screwball” or “crackpot”. Usually I’d heard “drip” to mean something closer to “dull” or “boring”.

Pretty decent unless there’s a lot of animation / video in them. Calling, texting, looking up something on the internet, bank app, auth app, etc all work great. Some of the stock Android components don’t work super great with it, though, like the quick action buttons (though, arguably, they don’t work great on any Android phone either lol).

Feels sluggish at times but that’s just the e-ink being what it is. I mostly treat it like a dumb phone that’s also an e-reader.

I’ve always joked that coding as a hobby is just digital knitting lol.

I’ve gradually weaned off of smartphones over the last 18 months. Currently daily-driving the Minimal Phone and loving its distraction-free (or at least distraction-lite) ways.

I may not be analog like the article is highlighting, but I have basically eliminated the doom scrolling and have reignited my passion for reading (the one “distraction” the Minimal Phone does well is being an e-reader since it’s got an e-ink screen).

Roughly 1,600 TikTok posts were tagged #AnalogLife during the first nine months of 2025

I’m just going to ignore the irony of that and appreciate it at face value 😆

Ooh, I haven’t tried RTL-SDR on it yet, but I think I’m nearing capacity on what it can do at once lol.

Here’s the block diagram for it (in spoiler below). Everything’s up and running except the Bluetooth Receiver -> Snapcast (it works on the bench but I don’t have the scripting/automation done yet). I’m also adding an SMA connector for an external antenna, but the new base part is still printing. Photo shows it “as is” of this writing.

SSL for the web apps was a PITA since I wanted real certs. Had to make a wildcard domain under my main hobby domain, so all my apps are like “https://{APP_NAME}.mobile.mydomain.xyz/”

As soon as I can get the Bluetooth + Pulseaudio scripting done, I’m gonna try to do a write up and maybe a show/tell post.

I would love to have a small Wikipedia browser that can survive the apocalypse.

I’ve got the full 120 GB Wikipedia dump running in Kiwix on a Raspberry Pi Zero. Works great (surprisingly)

E-ink display, mini keyboard

Have been using a Minimal Phone for a few months now which has both of those. Can connect to the Pi easily.

multiple ways/ports to transfer info,

Add a USB-C hub (or add a hub to the Pi) and you’re set

All wrapped up in a heavy duty equipment case that’s able to survive a building collapses and burns in an earthquake, that’s shielded from EMP.

And that’s where I’m limited - My 3D printer can only do so much lol. 😆

I’ve been working on a side project this week with a Orange Pi Zero 2W (Pi Zero “clone” but with better specs). It’s got the Kiwix+Wikipedia like my older Pi (described above) plus a bunch of other neat stuff. It’s kind of a combination travel router, portable web app server, party box, and extremely over-engineered bluetooth speaker all-in-one. Hoping to put together a show-and-tell post about it when I get the last of it squared away.

What kind of mad person shuffles their whole collection?

Me! lol

The musical whiplash is strong. It’ll go Pantera, Slipknot, Lady Gaga, Children of Bodom, the theme from Three’s Company, Spice Girls, Waylon Jennings, N’Sync, Foo Fighters, STP, Britney Spears, etc. You never know what’s next.

The sad thing is I have a fully functional MPD + Snapcast setup I could use (including a TUI MPD client), but this is just what I’ve always done. Old habits and such lol.

This allows for seamless communication with biological cells

Smartphones in 2040:

Whatever. As long as I can run LineageOS or Debian on it.

Because if we don’t build and profit from the Torment Nexus, someone else will

Keep this in mind when you see brand new accounts spewing out random news sites you’ve never heard of.

It’s like phone manufacturers have run out of ideas and will do anything except stop making tall, skinny phones. I miss horizontal pixels and not needing a step ladder to reach the top of the screen, dammit!

Most of the last mile fiber network is passive (doesn’t require active electronics to pass the signal like DOCSIS/cable internet or ADSL).

Cable and DSL typically have the equivalent of UPSs in their neighborhood nodes, but they often go unmaintained.

Very good. I’ve seen too many random Google Forms going around just harvesting emails / info to plug my details into any that I don’t click into from a legit/verified site. Not that I’m accusing OP of that, just that I don’t know where they got that form link.

Is that an official Google form and/or who am I providing my (required) email address to?

Is there an official Google page that links to this? Sorry but anyone can share a Google form.

I like how I was courageous enough to not fix the actual typos/failed commands in the actual history lol.

Pretty much, yeah.

Rather than jot down in a text file the various ffmpeg commands I use frequently…

Raktajino@laptop:~/Downloads$ history | grep ffmpeg
   12  sudo apt install audacity gimp ffmpeg mplayer
  184  history | grep ffmpeg
  215  ffmpeg -i source.mkv -ss 629 -t 7 out.mkv
  217  ffmpeg -i out.mkv -s 0.5 -vf scale=1280:720 out.mp4
  218  ffmpeg -i out.mkv -ss 0.5 -vf scale=1280:720 out.mp4
  231  ffmpeg -i out.mp4 -vf "subtitles=out.srt" final.mp4
  503  ffmpeg -i toofat.wav toofat.mp3
  ...
  682  history | grep ffmpeg
  684  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[1:0] [2:0] concat=n=2" out.gif
  685  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[1:0] [2:0] concat=n=2:v=1" out.gif
  686  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[1:0] [2:0] concat=n=2:v=1" -map '[v]' out.gif
  687  history | grep ffmpeg
  688  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[0:0] 12:0] concat=n=2:v=1" -map '[v]' out.gif
  689  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[0:0] 1:0] concat=n=2:v=1" -map '[v]' out.gif
  690  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[0:0] [1:0] concat=n=2:v=1" -map '[v]' out.gif
  691  ffmpeg -i 1.gif -i 2.gif -filter_complex "[0:0] [1:0] concat=n=2"  out.gif
  694  history | grep ffmpeg

Yeah, for sure. I tend to use WebDAV with that to connect to my Nextcloud more than the actual Nextcloud app. Works great.