Posts

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In German / auf Deutsch: Langfristig / Gründe / Kehrseite(n)

Meine Schwester plant den Kauf eines neuen Autos. Die Gründe wie auch bei uns: die Kosten für Instandhaltung des Alten übersteigen irgendwann den Restwert des Fahrzeugs, sprich weiterhin Geld für den Alten auszugeben ist ab einem gewissen Punkt einfach nicht mehr wirtschaftlich.

Mein Rat, langfristig (also in Bezug auf rein elektrisch bewegte Fahrzeuge): schaut nach China, aus Gründen die in einem Artikel in Heise Autos sehr schön dargelegt werden. Und für alle die es noch nicht wußten: ja, der Volvo ist ein chinesisches Fahrzeug.

Die Chinesen sind längst Marktführer vor allem bei Batterien, siehe hier. Und die genannte Natriumzelle wird mit Sicherheit ein nicht nur finanzieller Erfolg.

Ohne China geht es nicht; wir haben uns jahrzehntelang selbst in diese Situation hinein maneuvriert. Leider hat das Geschäftemachen mit China aber auch deutliche Schattenseiten wie zum Beispiel Zwangsarbeit. Und das nehmen nicht nur chinesische Firmen in Kauf sondern auch wir, und nicht nur in Bezug auf Autos. Im letzten meiner Links werden zum Beispiel folgende Firmen genannt:

Abercrombie & Fitch, Acer, Adidas, Alstom, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BAIC Motor, Bestway, BMW, Bombardier, Bosch, BYD, Calvin Klein, Candy, Carter’s, Cerruti 1881, Changan Automobile, Cisco, CRRC, Dell, Electrolux, Fila, Founder Group, GAC Group (automobiles), Gap, Geely Auto, General Motors, Google, Goertek, H&M, Haier, Hart Schaffner Marx, Hisense, Hitachi, HP, HTC, Huawei, iFlyTek, Jack & Jones, Jaguar, Japan Display Inc., L.L.Bean, Lacoste, Land Rover, Lenovo, LG, Li-Ning, Mayor, Meizu, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Nike, Nintendo, Nokia, Oculus, Oppo, Panasonic, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, SAIC Motor, Samsung, SGMW, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, Sony, TDK, Tommy Hilfiger, Toshiba, Tsinghua Tongfang, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Volkswagen, Xiaomi, Zara, Zegna, ZTE

Heißt also: wer wie wir Mainboards oder ein Notebook von Asus oder Lenovo, ein Mobiltelefon von Google, Apple oder Samsung, aber auch einen Mercedes oder VW oder Wäsche von Victoria’s Secret oder Schuhe von Adidas oder Puma kauft nimmt dies alles in Kauf. Und wer meint sein (oder unser) Toyota wäre besser: Toyota hat ein Joint Venture mit BYD, dem Batteriehersteller. Und Teile von Bosch sind in so gut wie *jedem* Fahrzeug. Tja…

Fahrräder “Made in Germany” (mit hier hergestelltem Stahl) wären vielleicht ein Ausweg, vor allem für Städter?

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This is fun…

Some two days ago, I installed the new and upcoming (not yet ready) version 12 of Debian GNU/Linux, codenamed “Bookworm”, and wrote about it here already.

The interesting thing for me as a hobby musician is that Debian now changed its default audio setup to pipewire, so while I’m still reading about its configuration – I did have some experience with it from a former Arch installation already – for now I simply started Ardour (Debian now has version 7.3) using this command line:

PIPEWIRE_LATENCY=128/48000 pw-jack ardour

And it runs nicely and without any hiccups (like xruns), with next to no CPU usage in an empty Ardour template (only 3 channel plugins plus Sonarworks in the monitoring section). With the Gnome environment (now version 43) set to dark mode, it looks like that:

Cool. Can’t wait to make some music with this new setup.

Like always, thanks for reading.

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About phone (and desktop) security

I know at least one former colleague who really cared about privacy and security concerning his mobile phone. And this morning, I’ve heard an interesting interview with Gabe, one of the developers of GrapheneOS, using NewPipe on GrapheneOS on my late brother’s Pixel 3a device – that looked like this:

That’s one and a half hours of a really interesting interview, so it’s really worth it. And I can confirm how secure those mentioned Titan M chips are, not even Google could hack or circumvent those, so if I wouldn’t have been able to guess my brother’s passcode, that device of his would have been an expensive paperweight.

I also liked how Gabe gave lots of credits to Apple because of their long-term support of their iPhones and devices, but yes, with the Pixel 6 and newer, things are improving on the Android side as well.

About desktop security: it’s actually worse than this, the same interviewer has some other interesting videos about that, or tips how to use Tor on your phone.

Recommended listening. And like always, thanks for reading.

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Back to a triple boot, added Debian 12, and a lighter theme again…

The headline basically says it all. I had to slightly shrink one of the partitions, then I installed “Bookworm”, and switched both my environment and also my web page back to a lighter theme for now. So my desktop looks like this now:

Like always, thanks for reading.

P.S.: added a dark/light mode switcher which floats in the bottom right of the page. Enjoy.

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Testing Testing

Due to the installation of GrapheneOS on the Pixel 3a, and thinking about security in general – also on the desktop – I switched Debian back to using Wayland instead of X.Org. That works well, unless you have to work with screen capturing which would additionally require pipewire.

And because I also make music with my PC and until now heavily rely on Jack, I decided to try Debian’s upcoming version named “Bookworm”, or, in repository talk, “testing”. So I set up a virtual machine to try it. In case you’ll also want to do that, you can find the installer here.

So, after staring up a virtual machine with that installer, you’re greeted with something like this:

I decided to *not* use the selected Grahical Install but the “normal” and old-fashioned Install just below it. That’s text (ncurses) based, and looks like this while working:

And, after downloading some stuff which was not included or newer than in the downloaded installer, you’re rebooting into it like this:

And, after a few seconds, you’ll see the few initial (one time) configuration steps, like this:

And that’s pretty much it – takes some 10 minutes from starting the installer until here, and most of that time is spent downloading stuff you don’t already have.

And yes, my first check was whether screen capture works with Wayland (and now pipewire), which it does. Further checks will have to be done elsewhere, since audio recording is pretty much a realtime task, and thus not very well suited inside of virtual machines.

But anyway, I’m looking forward to using the upcoming “Bookworm” – when it moves from “testing” into “stable” later this year. Looking at the open RC (release-critical) bugs, it might already be more stable than stable… 😉

Like always, thanks for reading.

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Most popular on XDA

Well this is interesting. Over at XDA Developers, there’s an article about the “Most popular custom ROMs for Android in 2023“. And of course on top of that list there just had to be LineageOS, as it’s probably the most popular custom ROM anywhere, not only on the XDA developers’ site.

What’s more interesting than that is the place 2 of the list, which is PixelExperience, or PE in short. And that’s interesting because it supports lots of vendors, and it turns their devices basically into almost original Pixel phones (minus the hardware like Titan chips of course). Haven’t tried it yet, but for the Pixel 3a like for many others there’s Android 13 available.

Until now, and both on the Google Nexus 5 and now on the Pixel 3a, I have tried /e/OS, LineageOS, and most recently now, GrapheneOS – so I’ve had basically every possible experience with and without Google services like microG or even the original ones (also on original phones). And all of these have their virtues, and also their different goals. While some of these ROMs simply prolong the lifespan of your device, others try to avoid Google and are built more on security aspects like application sandboxing and memory isolation. All valid reasons to try something different than a Google or Apple (or Samsung or any other) device.

I find all of that interesting. If the 3a (or the 4a) were still my “daily drivers”, then I’d be glad that I have choices, and would try and check if GrapheneOS and the app from my bank like each other. If not, I’d probably try PixelExperience – or any other one which supports the devices longer than Google does. The 3a is out of support since a while, the 4a will soon be, and so on… and anything is better than throwing devices away, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading.

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Cookie, sleeping by my side

Took a snapshot of one of the male neighbours’ cats today, using my phone. Cookie was sleeping on the sofa right next to me, so I thought that would make a nice picture. Converted the photo in-“camera” (in the phone) using Google’s “Black & White Portrait” preset. And that looks like this:

PXL_20230329_141124695.PORTRAIT~2
Cookie, sleeping by my side
Mörfelden-Walldorf 2023
in-“camera” black & white portrait

Like always, thanks for viewing.

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That iconic theme from Midsomer Murders

Mitchie loves the series – “Inspector Barnaby” like it is called here in Germany. And we all love the music. See and hear it being played on the Theremin by Celia Sheen:

Celia Sheen plays Midsomer Murders on Theremin

Like always, thanks for watching, and for listening.