Starting a virtual phone

Zuleikha’s Google Pixel 3a was supported by Google until May of this year – read more about that on Android Authority for instance. She will get Mitchie’s 4a 5G next week, so on her 3a I will most probably install LineageOS – see here about that image for ‘sargo’ (Codename of her phone), and here about how to generally do this.

I’ve downloaded all the necessary tools and images already, and while I’ve been at it I also downloaded the Android SDK again which comes with an emulator for several phones, tablets, and so on. So here is a virtual Google Pixel 3a starting on my screen on Arch Linux:

virtual Google Pixel 3a, first boot steps…

We haven’t yet decided what to do with the device once it’s ready – most people do own at least one mobile phone already, and others who don’t probably don’t even want one (like me until I ‘inherited’ Mitchie’s Pixel 4a). But ok; it will be interesting to see how long a 3rd party free and open source provider like LineageOS can support older hardware like that – I guess until a newer kernel or firewall won’t be available for the hardware anymore (like what was the case with/for the older Nexus 5 and other devices)?

Anyway, it’s good to see (and know) that you don’t have to dump something just because Google (or Apple or Microsoft or your other ‘Enterpri$e’ vendor of choice) thinks you should… (and shove more money their way in the process…)

As always, thanks for reading.

I make an exception for this one…

Normally I don’t like the terms “competition” and “art” when used together – but this one is very artistic indeed:

Salut Salon “Wettstreit zu viert” | “Competitive Foursome”

Awesome, all of them. And as always, thanks for viewing. This was found and posted by Hartmut in Wikiloops. Thanks for sharing it, my friend 🙂

Jadcp (Just another dozing Cookie pic)

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Cookie, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2022

Took this less than an hour ago. As usual, my camera was set to black & white, but since I “developed” this using RawTherapee 5.8 on Linux, I thought why not try a colour film simulation? So I chose Kodak Portra 400 (the camera took ISO 400, so that fits), and I cropped it into a more cinema-like format of 64:27 (which is 4³:3³, see Wikipedia about it). The simulated Kodak film gives the image some very pleasing and warm colour tones, I like that a lot. Should probably try the real thing in my Olympus OM-2N film camera.

As always, thanks for viewing.

Computer as a fridge?

Looking at my screen today, I noticed that the average temperatures inside of my computer were lower than the ones outside:

37°C outside, 34°C in the machine…

So is your computer actually a fridge? No, of course not – our room temps at the moment are under 26°C, and of course the computer, like any electrical device, adds to the heat, even an older and slower one like mine (without a graphics card or a 200+W CPU monster from Intel). Which means that the best thing you can do is to actually power everything off which isn’t needed, oh and “surfing” with a mobile phone also takes lots less power than running your typical PC. Just saying…

As always, thanks for reading.

Being a cat

I guess most cat friendly people asked themselves how it would be to be a cat, and to see the world from that perspective. Well now you can; just found this:

STRAY | Release Date Trailer

STRAY is a game developed in Southern France, and it seems to run not only on a Playstation but also on Steam – see here. But although the system requirements seem to be quite modest, I still don’t know whether this would run on Mitchie’s AMD Ryzen 5700G (with built-in graphics, we haven’t spent the money for a discrete graphics card), and on Linux of course. Maybe some of you know, and if so you could tell us…

Found via its review in The Guardian.

As always, thanks for reading.

“Selfie”

Took this today, and “developed” it using RawTherapee 5.8 on Debian GNU/Linux:

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“Selfie”, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2022

Triggered the camera with the mobile phone, and cropped the picture into a 5:4 format. I used my Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk2 camera with Mitchie’s Panasonic Lumix 20mm/1.7 lens at an aperture of 1:1.8.

Like always, thanks for viewing.

Cookie dozing again

Continuing to use RawTherapee 5.8 instead of the OM Workspace raw converter for which I’d have to boot into Windows, I made this today:

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Cookie dozing again, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2022

I used Mitchie’s 20mm/1.7 Panasonic lens because she has my 17mm/1.8 which is much faster in auto focussing for her videos. I also used colour at the moment for these tests…

Cropped the image into a 2:1 format which is more cinema-like.

As always, thanks for viewing.

Wilma’s lair

The little huntress likes this place:

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Wilma’s lair, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2022

As always, thanks for viewing.