Archive of 2024 | datalars

August 2024

Aa!! It's a zorting…

I came across an interesting Bash issue today, as I was trying to restore a zstd-compressed CloneZilla Partclone image to a raw file in order to extract some data from it. For some reason, none of the solutions on the internet worked, and searching for the error message turned up no useful results. This was the command line I had constructed: $ zstdcat nvme0n1p3.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.* | sudo partclone.ntfs -C -r -W -s - -O image.img Notice the glob at the end of the only argument to zstdcat. This only gave me: Partclone v0.3.17 http://partclone.org Starting to restore image (-) to device (image.img) This is not partclone image. Partclone fail, please check /var/log/partclone.log ! partclone kept saying This is not partclone image no matter what I did. I did some sanity checking with the commands: $ ls nvme0n1p3.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.* and also $ ls nvme0n1p3.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.a[a-x] Both returned the following list: nvme0n1p3.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.ab nvme0n1p3.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.ah…

Permanent link to “Aa!! It's a zorting zombie!”

Fixing macOS'…

This is kind of a followup post to Using a Mac Mini as a bedroom PC for Kodi, Moonlight and YouTube. It's been nearly a year since I set up a Mac Mini as my one-stop-shop for all multimedia related tasks in the bedroom. It's generally worked well, and both streaming media, games, general web browsing and PC usage has been smooth. You're rolling around in bed, playing video games, watching YouTube, or maybe the freshest episode of Smiling Friends. But then you fall asleep, and the fun abruptly stops. "I'm gonna wreck it!" - Apple, probably Sometimes, the computer will still be on and fully active in the morning after falling asleep using it, soaking up all those precious jiggawatts, directly out of your wallet. Why, I hear you ask? Maybe there is a mouse connected that causes jiggle when you shuffle around in your sleep? No, only a USB remote and a keyboard + touchpad combo device (the Logitech K400 Plus, which is absolute fucking garbage[1]) are connected. How can this be,…

Permanent link to “Fixing macOS' defective sleep mode with a Hammer (...Spoon)”

Bash script:…

The problem I recently purchased a double pack of wireless microphones (specifically, these ones) to replace my ageing and faltering wired one. I am very happy with the audio quality, their ease of use and their range, but for my specific use case, the battery life (around 3 hours) leaves a little to be desired. I mainly use these while hanging out with a friend over the internet while sharing my screen, and we'll watch movies and TV shows together. That can last a couple of hours or even most of the day, and at some point the battery for the microphone will run out. The first time this happened, it took me a little while to understand what was going on, as there was no beep or any indication from the microphone to signal its demise. Apparently the LED on the device will blink when it's low on battery, but that's impossible to see when it's clipped to my shirt right underneath my chin. But, through the magic of buying two of them, the solution is easy — swap the depleted mic with a…

Permanent link to “Bash script: Reminder to swap mics with automatic pausing of all media players”