The transcription for the first part of the documentary is done. Thanks to @Sasha who worked so hard for these past days. She also finished the 3rd part but still needs a final check. @Tio made the transcription for the 2nd part, and @Rokosun is working on the last part.
Tomorrow the 2nd and 3rd part should be done.
We are already sending them to the translators, but we'd like to do so privately so that we do not ruin the documentary release for the rest, if we were to make them public. We plan to release the documentary later on this month, to give some time for the translators to translate.
Since this is a massive documentary it may not be enough time to translate it into other langues before the release, but it will for sure be translated in several languages in the following weeks/months.
There is no such thing as a "short attention span" that is happening today. This is a myth. People watch/read whatever they are curious about, and mostly it is simplistic and retarded content, be it in short form like tiktok videos, or nonsense netflix series that are hours long.
So if anyone thinks that the TROM II documentary is "too long" for today's "short attention span", I think their "attention span" needs to enlarge and see that's not the case. If people would be interested in reality, they would watch that documentary even if it was 10 hours long.
Again, people watch TV series that are hundreds of episodes long and are not getting bored by them. Why? That's how they grew up, in a society where these tv series and movies are marketed, while reality is not much. So they learn that those silly shows are way more interesting than what is real.
I think the real issue is a lack of curiosity/interest in trying out new & diverse things. For example, during covid lockdown I picked up the habit of watching documentaries and listening to podcasts, I still do those things to this day and I've learned a lot from it. If I wasn't willing to try out new things then I wouldn't have known about this beautiful world of podcasting and educational documentaries. Linux, the fediverse, etc are other things that I've tried out and really loved it.
I see an increase in bot registrations tries for our Friendica. This is getting more and more of an issue. Read this article krebsonsecurity.com/2023/06/se… to see how easy it is to create hundreds of fake accounts per minute and spam the fediverse...
We suddenly went from like three registrations per minute to 900 a minute,” Chaput said. “There was nothing in the Mastodon software to detect that activity, and the protocol is not designed to handle this.”
This is very worrying especially with the rise of these "AI" language models that can make it nearly impossible to detect these spambots.
Our Friendica and Peertube will still be ok since they require manual approval and everyone is forced to explain why they want to join, so I can filter out most of the bots. But our Nextcloud and Matrix are going to be flooded. I am worried about our Matrix that is perhaps already hosting a bun
... show more
I see an increase in bot registrations tries for our Friendica. This is getting more and more of an issue. Read this article krebsonsecurity.com/2023/06/se… to see how easy it is to create hundreds of fake accounts per minute and spam the fediverse...
We suddenly went from like three registrations per minute to 900 a minute,” Chaput said. “There was nothing in the Mastodon software to detect that activity, and the protocol is not designed to handle this.”
This is very worrying especially with the rise of these "AI" language models that can make it nearly impossible to detect these spambots.
Our Friendica and Peertube will still be ok since they require manual approval and everyone is forced to explain why they want to join, so I can filter out most of the bots. But our Nextcloud and Matrix are going to be flooded. I am worried about our Matrix that is perhaps already hosting a bunch of these bots and eventually we may be defederated from the greater matrix network.
I am afraid that it is going to become hellish for us who host these services because we do not have the resources and manpower to deal with this.
This looks ugly.
And it is, of course, another side effect of the trade-society we live in. Where people need to trade in order to survive, and over time that mutates into a craze of trades where people are not just struggling to survive, but want endless shit. And thus, they cut forests, and make spambots, and pollute, and deceive, and lie, and all of that.
One of the most expensive aspects of any cybercriminal operation is the time and effort it takes to create large numbers of new throwaway email accounts. Now a new service offers to help dramatically cut costs associated with large-scale spam…
I am helping with the transcriptions for the TROM II documentary. Finished 47 minutes from part 2. I do them "fine" not as perfect as @Sasha :) . @Rokosun said he could also help. We must finish them all this week so that we give some chances to those who want to translate to do so before the release. Speaking of that the release will be at latest at the end of this month.
I am still impressed by how good Kdenlive did the auto-transcriptions. Impressive. I also tried a bunch of subtitle editors and Kdenlive is far far better. Easy to use. Sane. Quite interesting that specialized subtitling software can be way worse than the subtitling tool of a video editor.
@Rokosun was saying that this is the most indie documentary ever haha. He is right. I filmed it (with the help of Sasha). I edited it alone with FOSS software. I and a few friends are doing the transcriptions. I made the website where it will be published, I setup the Peertube instance that will stream it. What else can I do? :))
Or how you can make a "cool" video about a nonsense product, showing people doing the same lame tasks over and over again. Browse their photo albums, playing video games, watching movies. This time with a huge thing strapped on their faces.
Apple, the Sad Vision.
How about people having real and sane relationships, enjoying the nature, not buying shit!?
This company has a fruit as the name, but is doing nothing "natural" or healthy.
Such a lame video. A failed product anyway. But scary to see that there are many people who think this is "wow so cool".
The era of spatial computing is here, where digital content blends seamlessly with your physical space. So you can do the things you love in ways never before possible. This is Apple Vision Pro.
Learn More: https://apple.
Last time I tried a VR was years ago and wearing it made me nauseated within half an hour, maybe the technology has improved now but I'm skeptical. And how can this AR thing be better than just a smart TV or your laptop or mobile phone? I bet its not as stable or comfy as they show us in their ad. But sure if you wanna watch a movie on a big screen while on an airplane than you may need it, but even then imagine if the plane goes through a turbulence and you're wearing this shit 😆
its interesting to see how what people consider "cool" or "futuristic" today is mainly influenced by the SciFi movies they watch. And the thing you should know about movies is that they often show you things based on how aesthetically pleasing or cool it is to look at, that doesn't mean its practical in real life. Technologies like AR/VR may be useful for things like 3D designing, but that's not what Apple shows on their ad because they want normal people to buy it not just some designers.
The first TROM Meeting was in 2019, in May. Some 12 people came. We rented something for 3 weeks here where I live. It was very exciting at first, to see everyone for the first time: But then I started to realize how tiring it is to have so many people around at once. So I was struggling a bit. However the worst was when I started to pee blood, mid way the meeting, and I thought am gonna die :D. It was a hellish experience for me. Read this blog post to know more about.
However looking back it was a very nice time, those first days, maybe the first 2 weeks, when I was not as sick. Memories, you know. I’ll try to keep the best and discard the worse.
Since then a bunch of things have changed. My health greatly improved, some people lost interest in TROM, new people gained interest. I created trom.tf and a bunch more stuff, plus managed to finish the TROM II documentary that should be released this month. So we decided to make another TROM Meeting, 4 years after the first one. EXCITED!
All healthy, the documentary (huge project) done and shared with the ones coming at the meeting, new excitement felt in the air. We rented a place near where we live in Spain, and invited some 14 people. Only around 10 or so could come, but then things got more complicated because now most people had jobs (unlike the first time we met) and had a hard time taking some time off for the meeting. I struggled to organize it, but we finally decided to meet for 8-10 days. Based on the first meeting, 3 weeks was way too long.
Unfortunately, again, a few could not come for health reasons or unable to get time off from their jobs, and others came later. But we were all set. I organized everything. Sasha and Georgi helped me prepare it all :). Was so excited about it. I needed a break! I wanted to laugh, to dance, to hike, to spend time with some wonderful beings. I worked too much on the documentary for the past 2-3 years. So I needed a break. It was a great timing since Sasha also finished her book and she also felt similarly.
All set. GO!
I went to the house with Sasha to organize things: She was not feeling that well. Some abdominal discomfort on and off for the past weeks. But nothing too serious. We continued. Vicky and Rafa came first, with their car. Drove for 6 hours. They are such positive creatures you will smile 90% of the time when you are with them. So kind, so organized, so friendly. Roma came the next day after the train he supposed to take here, was canceled numerous times. Roma is my brother for sure 🙂 – friendly, organized, in a good mood, helpful, so kind. We were all getting used to being with each other, but a bit tired. They were tired because they had to travel for so long, we were tired because we had to radically change our sleeping schedule to wake up earlier.
Then Alexio came. He was the only one we did not meet in person. He was so tall, and his kindness on par with that 🙂
So positive, always smiling, always friendly.
Me, Sasha, Georgi, Vicky, Rafa, Roma and Alexio. That was the team. Unfortunately Guil had a bad accident a few days before the meeting so he could not come 🙁 – he would need a few months to recover. Aaron was also unable to take any days off from his job…
We were all quite sad that that they could not come.
Ok. Let’s have some fun.
We went to some parks nearby: To show off our athletic skills 🙂 And coolness 🙂 We then visited the seaside: And found some alien creatures: The next day we decided to go to a nearby park in the forest and we spent some really fun time there. Laying down in the hammocks in the shade: We played “mime”, a game where someone gives you 2 words, like say “inhabitable exoplanet”, and you have to mime that without making any sounds, and the rest have to guess it. I love this game because everyone is engaged. We laughed, it was fun. I had to mime: endless time. Go figure….how do you do that? But I managed it eventually haha. I’ll let you guess what Sasha might be miming here haha. Or Georgi. Or Rafa being an octopus stripper: We had such a great time there. Was not too hot, it was calm, it was fun. I felt like a kid again 🙂 Going there, coming back, cooking food, staying in the house, were flavored with us talking about all sort of interesting things, from TROM to the universe, from computers to us. Later that day we had a barbecue. And I always end up in charge of that and smelling like a burned piece of wood at the end.
At night we could see the Moon and Venus from the backyard: Unfortunately I had no time to get the telescope from home to watch some of this stuff….You see, the food aspect of life takes so much time. Especially when you are 7 or so people, and some like me having to cook separately because of stomach issues. It is so time consuming and exhausting to buy food, deposit it, cook, eat, clean….I started to get a bit tired. Sasha kept on having those health issues and would wake up in the middle of the night because of that. I tried to keep myself engaged and positive because I had many reasons to. But it was tiring….and a bit stressful because of Sasha’s issues.
You see when these wonderful people come for these meetings they are so eager to talk. And talk. And talk about many many interesting things. And that can become very tiring. Especially for me since I just finished a 2-3 years work for the documentary and I wanted to mostly chill and relax. But I cannot ignore interesting people and discussions. I can’t :D.
Ok.
Next. We visited a medieval town nearby. Was quite nice.
And at home we reinstalled TROMjaro on Rafa’s MiniPC: But Sasha’s issues did not go away. She had them every morning. Not too painful really, just a weird discomfort in the lower part of the abdomen, as if you have an UTI. We went to the doctor and no UTI. Strange. She was sent for more tests. You see Sasha’s stomach, the digestive machine, is amazing 🙂 – she can eat anything and pretty much never has any stomach issues. But now suddenly she started to have these uncomfortable stomach issues that were on a daily basis and lasted on and off for more than a month by this time. And for the past days it was a daily occurrence.
I was like….wtf….the first TROM Meeting was ruined by my weird health issues and now Sasha has these weird health problems. This is too much….
Of course, the important bit was for her to be healthy, the meeting was secondary. But I was thinking how unlucky we are… Her health issues made us kinda stressed, tired, and cut the fun in half. At least for me for sure.
But anyway, we tried to still keep ourselves happy.
The Song.
A year or so ago we (I, Georgi and Sasha) made a song. Original lyrics and all that. So we printed it for everyone and sang it together. These are the lyrics: And here’s a bad recording of us trying it out 🙂 – bad in terms of video quality 🙂
Everyone really liked the song. Actually we had a guitar and an ukulele and we jammed a bunch of times together. I know how to play them but only a little bit :), Sasha and Rafa know a lot more. Roma knows some too :). So it was fun to play some songs together.
Two more people came the following days: Matthias and Ann. I met Matthias when he came a year or two ago to our place for a barbecue with Dima. He was volunteering with the same organization as Dima and came back with him to stay at his place for a day or so. I really liked the guy. He seemed very interested in TROM. He said he will visit us but we had to kindly refuse any visit for the past year or so in order to finish our documentary and the book. So I told him that he can come for the meeting. He is so kind, interested and interesting. Same is Ann. Very nice and calm people. Chill as fuck :).
We were more now, but Matthias and Ann had a van and a tent and they were staying near by in that nice forest where we put the hammocks. So the house was still not that crowded.
The next days we went to visit a very nice botanical garden. Another reason to talk more about interesting things. Vicky is studying the plants for some courses she takes and she knew a lot about plants and insects. Her English improved since the last meeting, by a lot, and she is so funny. She uses the word “fuck” many times, and that’s so hilarious when combined with her Spanish accent. By the way, I really like the girl from this above photo. Just saying. We spent several hours in that garden and took a million photos. Right Alexio!? 🙂
We then visited a castle that’s on a very high hill where you can see all of the surrounding areas.
I was getting more and more tired. And a bit stressed because of Sasha’s issues. But the “party” continued. One night we made some TROM tshirts like we did the last time. Basically all you need is some tshirts (old or buy new ones) and some normal paint. And then you can put your handprint on them. That easy! Unfortunately it was late at night and Matthias and Ann were “long gone” to their cozy forest, so we did not make any for them 🙁 .
We wanted to do one more trip before the meeting was over. To a place where we always find friendly octopuses. And so we went: It is such a beautiful place. Sasha found a grumpy old octopus a bit far, so only Rafa, Matthias and Ann adventured to see it. You may wonder….this all sounds like a fun nice vacation. What’s so TROM about it? You see, the work I/we do for TROM is happening behind the screens. I work like a maniac almost every single day. Alexio is always on the chats helping out, Roma helped the project financially so many times it is insane, plus he helps with TROMjaro and such; And so are the rest helping whenever they can. The meeting is supposed to be for creating some bonds, some relationships; to talk, to enjoy, to get to know each other better. You can’t realistically do more than that. I know a bunch of projects that have these “brainstorm” gatherings and in reality they do not do anything more than that. For TROM is the opposite. The work is done in silence, individually, by each of us. And when we meet is for the connections between us.
Sasha worked quite a bit on the transcription in that meantime is true, I tried too. But it is difficult to focus much on these things. Too many people around, doing many things.
She also cooked for everyone a bunch of times, for hours. Even thought Alexio how to cook 🙂
I think that’s by FAR the best outcome from these meetings. To know each other, get comfortable with each other, and create new relationships. After all that’s how I and Sasha ended up together. That’s how I and Aaron became best friends and how I see this happening with Roma and Alexio and me. That’s how we got to know Vicky and not only Rafa, and get so close to them. That’s how we now got to know Matthias and Ann and who knows maybe we will meet again with them, maybe they’ll get involved with the TROM project in the future….
One comment I’ve seen from Matthias and Ann was that they were expecting more talks about TROM, maybe even to watch the documentary together and such, however for one I was exhausted, and second I did not want to shove down people’s throat this project. We have so many materials online so I thought to not make it look like a “cult meeting” :). In any case, this meeting was (from the get-go) one about friends more than one about TROM. Dima and Mara came basically after the meeting was officially over, when Vicky and Rafa were already gone. Unfortunately we were all too tired by that time. I kept in touch with Dima over Signal for these past 2 years so it was nice to see him again. The last 2 days were basically all about Alexio kicking everyone’s butt at chess 🙂 – apparently he is a grand-master at chess. He was so good no one stood a single chance. And yet so funny and kind. You can’t get angry at having your ass kicked by him :).
Final days.
It was getting very hot, Sasha’s problems were still problems, we were getting only a few hours of sleep, and it was becoming more and more of a struggle for us. Oh, did I mention that all of this time Sasha was forced to deal with a lot of papers? The residency, the work, the this, the that….It was insane and endless. We still did not solve the paper situation….
We needed a break.
Everyone left except Roma who stayed 3 more days to our place and we had a more chill time together. Such a wonderful kind! Despite us being tired and all that, this guy did not bother us at all. He manages his own shit and is so friendly you can’t be bothered by him.
I wish Roko or Shas could have come too, but they live far far away and on this paper planet you need a ton of papers to go from one place to another.
The meeting was better than I expected now that I look at it in perspective. Was quite comfortable and despite tiring it was super fun many times.
Why no more TROM Meetings?
When we rented a new place I did NOT want to rent the same house because that house looks haunted to me :D. It was the place where I had to stay while having so many health issues. It felt like an awful place towards the end of that meeting. For this new meeting me and Sasha stayed in a weird room, tho comfy still. The room was partly a bathroom. Had a sink and a shower inside. The toilette was in a separate room. I mean is cozy to have your own shower and sink in the room, but because of Sasha’s health issues and waking up in the middle of the night and all that, I started to feel like being in a hospital for the last days. And that felt very strange. I mean it kinda looks like a hospital room.
So I honestly am sick of being sick when we do these sort of meetings. It is too much planning involved, too much responsibility for me to organize stuff for everyone, and so on. So I do not want to do this anymore. I want to relax more. If we meet we should do it somewhere else and I should not have to organize it, but all of us to.
The TROM Meeting is also more of a personal meeting so it may make no sense to call it that way.
Therefore I think this could have been the last “TROM Meeting” but for sure not the last meeting that we will have. Maybe even this year at the end of it we may meet again, at least some of us.
Sasha feels a bit better now, but we are still investigating. So far it does not seem to be anything that serious.
Conclusion.
Despite that interpretation of the bathroom/bedroom, the house was very nice: With a cozy living-room and a fireplace:
A nice backyard: And a nice terrace: And despite the tiredness, everything was wonderful and I absolutely appreciate these awesome human beings: And I hope to see each other more often, and dance, and play the guitar and ukulele, and make a new song, and go in nature, and have fun, and talk about interesting things, and live. Because life is like a domino game that has already started for all of us. And at times it is tricky and complex, at times it is smooth, but the fact is, that IT IS. And we should enjoy it while it is. The fun part of a domino game is while it is “rolling”, not when it ends.
So let’s enjoy the ride folks, as long as the ride is riding!
I appreciate you all very much, and if there is one victory I can claim in my personal life so far, it cannot be the change of this trade system that I talk about, it cannot be the popularity of the content I’ve created over the years, and it cannot be any big success with TROM. But I can claim victory when it comes to the relationships and the humans I’ve met. They are real, and they are enough for me.
A trade-free video hosting platform for science/technology/nature videos in the English language. You do not have to trade your currency, data, attention, freedom or anything else, in order to use it.
We have a little surprise, the integration of @TBlock into the system! We named it Internet Content Blocker, and it is basically an ad/tracker blocker that works system-wide. Super cool and super useful and in line with our trade-free approach.
The usual Manjaro Stable updates plus some more stuff. Fix: many apps take a long time to open Open the terminal and paste this: sudo pacman -Rdd xdg-desktop-portal-gnome - hit enter. Add your password.
The TROM Meeting is over. I will make a big blog post all about it because it cannot be condensed that easily. I am happy, and tired, and stressed, and honored, and all of these. In the next few days we have to deal with a lot of bullshit in terms of papers for Sasha, and also get some rest, I need to get back on track with the servers and updates and all. Plus a few personal issues we have to manage.
I still plan to release the documentary this month. I hope all will be ok for the release in terms of my personal life so that I can fully enjoy and focus on the release. #tromstuff
A bunch of wonderful humans who came to visit us. People who help this project, and people who are very good friends. So calm, so nice, so human.
A huge thank you to them all. Too bad we could not gather all of them for the meeting. But we will do more.
We mostly meet in order to have some good time together but also to work on some TROM stuff. We will try to work on the transcriptions for the TROM II documentary and a few other things, will see.
Looking forward to release the documentary in June. #tromlive
Just a reminder that we live in a society where nudity and sex are seen as "bad", yet violent video games, that look more and more realistic, are ok. Youtube will ban a trailer for a game that's about a girl without a bra planting flowers, but will promote a game that's about some humans slicing heads, crushing skulls, and have bloody battles. Just watch the last bits of that video.
Again, I'd not care about this if it wasn't for the outrageous contrast with nudity and sex.
This society of humans would look so weird to any alien species.
@blueberry It would be so weird if life on 2 different planets evolved the same way, let alone have similar cultures and social norms. If we find an alien species that's exactly the same as us then scientists would be so confused 😅
@futureisfoss yeah, it’s unlikely that they’d be exactly the same as us, but I just wanted to point out that aliens may not be any more reasonable or make any more sense than we expect them to be
@blueberry True, aliens may not be very smart or reasonable, we have no idea how they are. If you look at different cultures here on earth for example, you'll see that one culture may have their own myths and believes which may seem unreasonable to the other cultures and vice versa. So even tho aliens may not have the same social norms as us, its possible that they have their own equally unreasonable ones which may surprise people here on earth 🤔
We live in a world where everyone is busy, everyone is consumed, everyone seems confused. Money, social credits, ads, data collection, prices and billionaires.
I think I fixed the laptop's trackpad finally. I updated my blog post tiotrom.com/2023/01/why-i-am-k… see the very last update at the bottom. Basically I had to solder a piece of wire from the trackpad to a screw on the laptop. Scary thing to do but so far the trackpad works wonders. And it's been 3 days of many hours of use.
Fuck you Dell for selling these laptops with a fucked up trackpad for the past 2-3 years and not fixing it.
... show more
I think I fixed the laptop's trackpad finally. I updated my blog post tiotrom.com/2023/01/why-i-am-k… see the very last update at the bottom. Basically I had to solder a piece of wire from the trackpad to a screw on the laptop. Scary thing to do but so far the trackpad works wonders. And it's been 3 days of many hours of use.
Fuck you Dell for selling these laptops with a fucked up trackpad for the past 2-3 years and not fixing it.
This is it: I needed a new laptop to get rid of my old one that was not portable. I made 3 posts already about this journey: 1, 2, 3 – so I will try not to repeat myself.
My mission: get a sturdy and powerful laptop that can last me for a decade. Upgradable and fixable in a reasonable manner. Big screen, yet portable. Do it!
After months of searching and thanks to Roma and Guil primarily, who donated 98% of the money for the laptop, I settled for the Dell Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 16 inches. It has a core i7-1260p – 12 cores 16 threads. An Nvidia MX550, 64GB of RAM and 4TB NVME. 4k screen, 16:10 aspect ratio.
I will tell you why I chose this one.
First let me tell you the negative parts of this laptop, since none can be perfect for me I guess. Then I’ll tell you why overall it is a great laptop for me.
What I don’t quite like.
The keyboard. You see I write a lot and I want a great keyboard. This one is too shallow. I miss the depth of the previous keyboard….but I guess I’ll get used to it eventually. The keyboard is also in German….since I bought the laptop from germany, ebay, second hand but unused. Basically brand new. The Y and Z are switched but I chose a QWERTY layout in TROMjaro so despite showing differently, the letters are in a QWERTY format. I will try to also manually switch them but I am affraid not to break them.
I also kinda don’t like the arrow keys… The up and down arrows are too tiny. This is a bad design on any keyboard.
To add salt to the injury… this layer: It is a layer of some sort of plastic/glass on top of the metal chassis, that is great for the touchpad but the edges are a bit sharp so when I type my arms get cut a bit in these edges….that happens when I sit on my desk. Like 99% of the time….
SO the typing experience is not that great. Not awful, and I will get used to it, but yeah….that’s the biggest downside so far.
Another slight discomfort: opening the laptop to upgrade was a scary experience. You have a few screws but once you start unscrewing them the top part of the bottom case starts to violently try to get out, and things are bendy and make noises. Maybe the captive screws on that side should not be fully unscrewed but loosen and then try to open the case little by little. Like all laptops (almost) the bottom detachable case has plastic bits inside that clip into the laptop, and these are always sketchy…so I even broke 2 while opening it. Was not a great experience but I guess next time it will be easy. Luckily the entire laptop is made out of aluminium so even without these plastic things everything can close pretty tight.
It can be loud and it is a bit heavy. Having a dedicated GPU the fans will be pretty loud when you do intensive tasks, but probably that’s quite normal… Also it is heavy for a “tablet” and quite huge. So this is not really comfortable to use it like that. On the desk is properly fine.
Software-related issues.
Since this laptop is quite new, not even a year old, the hardware is not flawless with Linux. The worst of them all: the speakers will stop working after a few minutes of use. You have to restart pulseaudio for them to work again for a bit. Then they stop again. This seems to be a bug that was reported and should be fixed with newer releases of the kernel. I can easily put up with that since I never use the laptop’s speakers – I have external ones – but for most people this would be a reason not to use Linux on this laptop.
The Hibernate mode kills your laptop. I found out the hard way. I had to fix some bad sectors on the drive because it was not booting up anymore. Probably another issue that will be fixed in the near future, but for now no Hibernate mode. Suspend works ok tho.
If I turn the screen brightness down completely, from the keyboard, I cannot bring it up again. I have to shut down the laptop from the power button….that sucks.
The face recognition camera does not have any real support in Linux so that’s not usable….this is the case for all laptops as far as I know.
Closing the lid won’t respect the XFCE settings I setup for it, so it won’t turn off the screen, or lock, or else.
Basically, with Linux, this laptop is not easily portable. You can’t use the speakers, you can’t hibernate it, you can’t even close the lid to have it turn off the screen….
So, you may wonder, why did I keep this laptop if it has these issues?
First of all the software related issues will be fixed and they won’t bother me much at all. Pretty much every laptop I had to install Linux on, had some sort of issues like that. It is normal when you create an operating system for ALL laptops out there.
Second, the hardware-related issues are not that bad. I am getting used to the keyboard and I won’t have to open up the laptop that often anyway.
So, then, the good parts.
The build quality is great. This is all metal. Slimbook for example felt flimsy, this one feels really sturdy. I can kill a human and a dog with this laptop and I am sure it will still work 😀. The hinges, metal, feel like they will last me a lifetime. It barely bends, no cracks, and feels really solid overall…
It is also super slim and of course bendable 360 degrees: Look how great that looks. So thin, so portable. This is a lot more slim-book than the Slimbook one 😀. And the charger is also tiny compared to the Slimbook or my previous laptop:
The touchscreen is also a plus since I can test TROMjaro directly on my own machine.
Speaking of the screen, the screen is AMAZING. The blacks are so black that if I were to select a 16:9 instead of 16:10 resolution I can’t even tell since the black borders are as black as the screen’s chassis. The colors are vibrant and it looks amazing from all angles.
Also…am I crazy or 3-4k resolution is no different from Full HD!? I tested with this laptop and there is 0 difference in how it looks. That’s good since I can use the FullHD resolution and this improves the battery life. From my initial tests it can last some 5-6 hours on wifi doing things. Others have tested this and it can last some 20h if you are not connected to the internet and just watch local media.
When the speakers work they are very loud and sound great, despite only using 2 of them out of 4 in Linux…..when they will all work this laptop will sound amazing am sure.
The touchpad is great. Smooth, HUGE, and looks neat. The glassy surface that cuts my arms while typing feels great when using the touchpad 😁
Speaking of looking neat, there is only 1 logo on the back. And that’s not even that visible. I like that.
The port selection is perfect. On the left side you get an HDMI, normal USB, and two USB C / Thunderbolt – meaning they support any sort of connection basically. On the right side you get another normal USB port, an audio jack, and a full SD size card reader. So you can be sure that this laptop can connect to anything.
For example the way I set it up now that I have to work on TROM II and need a bunch of external stuff, I use a USB-C dock. It connects to the laptop into one of the USB C ports. One cable, mind you. This dock has the following connected to it: 3 HDDs totaling 14TB of data + my headphones + speakers + external microphone + mouse + external display + projector + 1GB Ethernet + power charging so that it also charges the laptop + webcam. This is so amazing. It means I can quickly unplug one single cable and take the laptop. Then plug it in and all of those are connected.
The webcam is also better than your average laptop camera, like for example many times better than Slimbook’s. The built-in microphone I’ve heard is also very good but I have not tested it yet. The webcam also has a physical shutter so you can block it.
THE INSIDES! I think this is the only laptop-convertible in the world that’s 16inches and has a 16:10 aspect ratio, is so slim yet all metal build, but allows you to replace the RAM and has 2 slots for it. This was a must for me. It was advertised as 32GB max, but I easily added 64GB of RAM. DDR4. And I upgraded the NVME M2 to 4TB.
To compare it now with the Slimbook Executive 16, that one costs 1.750 Euros with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Sure, the CPU is a bit better and the GPU much better (useful only if you play video games which I do not). This laptop, the Inspiron 7620 costed me 1.100 Euros and with 64GB of RAM + 4TB SSD around 1.700 Euros. MUCH MUCH MUCH better in all regards than the Slimbook offer.
Lastly the power button it is also a fingerprint reader: And I managed to make it work in TROMjaro – wasn’t that difficult. How amazing that now I can unlock the computer with the fingerprint and works perfectly fine. Or when I install new packages….FINGERPRINT! NO more typing my very long admin password 😀.
OVERALL.
For 1.700 Euros I got a great laptop. It has a big and amazing screen, great port selection, fantastic build quality, great touchpad, good webcam and mic, ok upgradability and repairability, great CPU and good GPU. Touchscreen, bendable 360 degrees, consumes less energy than the Slimbook, small power charger (USB C), great price overall. In time I’ll get used to the keyboard too and the software related issues will be fixed.
Ok ok, a very long post…..but to me this machine is important since it allows me to do the so many projects I am doing. It is an extension to my brain. So it matters to me.
Now I plan to give my old laptop to a dear TROM friend who has helped the project a lot for the past year or two. If I manage to send it to the other side of the globe somehow to not break our pockets. I want to give my older stuff to others who can use it for longer.
I will try to get “laptops” out of my head and in a week or so to focus again on TROM II. I spent a lot of time searching for a good laptop and I feel like I have finally found it. It is time to move on 😀
UPDATE
I wanted to post an update about the laptop now that I’ve used it for a bit.
I got used with the keyboard. Of course this was meant to happen. I still think is not the greatest keyboard I’ve used but it is ok. You don’t think about it after some time. I also managed to physically switch the Y and Z keys without breaking them 😀 Now everything seems more “natural” in terms of typing.
However the trackpad makes some rattling sounds when I use the laptop in bed. Almost like it is a tiny bit loose. I may try to fix that another time.
Build quality is not as great as I thought.
I opened the laptop today to properly look inside. I have to say it was easier to open than before, as I was expecting, but still not a great experience. The worst is what I discovered…I realized that yes the laptop is a metal built BUT inside where the hardware is, there is a plastic mesh/backbone where everything is held into place…which means the screws are screwed into the plastic, and so are the hinges. Watch this video to see my disappointment:
I was and still am very disappointed. I did not realize that the first time I have opened it. Thing is even if I did, I cannot find a better laptop overall. From the screen size, to the ports, outside chassis, specs….cannot….so it is what it is. But it is deceiving and stupid to make a metal chassis but not have the components screwed into it. Now I will have to be extra careful with this laptop to not break the plastic….my worst nightmare. I have used it today all day while sitting in bed and felt very sturdy and all that. So I hope it will be ok and last me for a long time. And if not I can later on sell it and hopefully Framework can make some 16inch ones so I can grab one of those.
Don’t get me wrong, the laptop feels very well built, but now that I know how it is screwed inside, I will be more careful with it.
It is many times better than my previous laptop so….that’s great.
Software issues?
Almost no more software issues. Everything was fixed with the new 6.1 kernel and with the 6.2 one the 2 speakers out of 4 that do not work now, will also work. So yeah, as I was predicting, in Linux is not a big deal if some hardware does not work ok. It will in the near future especially when we talk about a newly released laptop.
I LOVE the fingerprint reader. Install/remove packages, unlock the computer, are done in a split of a second now. The fingerprint reader works like a charm and I will add a package for it for the next release of TROMjaro and a tutorial about how you can enable it.
The rest?
The screen is wonderful. FullHD or 4k look the same so I use it in FullHD. The laptop is fast, allowing me to compile a new TROMjaro ISO in some 15 minutes compared to 50 minutes before. The mic and camera are good. The speakers very good and I could only test it with 2 out of 4. The battery is ok…nothing special about it.
I made a shitty quality video about it today to show the laptop a bit and the fingerprint reader 🙂 – I am lazy to record it properly but here you go:
I cannot find a better laptop for my needs now. This one is indeed great. Even if the insides are plastic….it is ok (at least I hope so). Having this portable laptop is fantastic and 64GB of RAM + 4TB NVME are heaven for me haha.
I should leave this behind and work on TROM II, to finish it in 2-3 months. 😉
LAST AND SMALL UPDATE:
Today I got another kernel update and all speakers work. 4 speakers. They sound great for a laptop. Very loud, very clear. Very happy about that. Also, am less and less disappointed about that plastic inside. The laptop feels sturdy so I hope all will be ok.
Touchpad issues update
After 2 months of use there are 2 issues with the touchpad. Mind you I rarely use the touchpad so perhaps these are much bigger issues for most people than they are for me. But there is a fix for them.
The noises, the rattles.
From the beginning I noticed that when I use the touchpad it made a sound when I tapped it to click. As if it is not screwed well into place. And after a while it gets annoying and more noisy. Basically the touchpad is a bit lose. To fix this I had to add some paper tape and some sticky foam pads. Here is the video:
As you can see this requires a little bit of effort since you have to test and see what works best for you. The other issue is that if you fix it you may make it too stiff and if you are used to push-to-click instead of tap-to-click it may become annoying. Mine is a bit too stiff but I much rather prefer that. I never push-to-click on the touchpad. Tapping is much easier for me.
The electrons are mad.
One HUGE issue with this trackpad is something I’ve read about before buying it but I did not think it would happen to me. Basically the mouse pointer would jump chaotically on the screen when you used the touchpad, or click, it was a mess. There are many forum posts about it and this is the main reason people return these Dell 7 thousand series back. I finally found this forum thread where people discovered that there is an issue with the grounding and static electricity building up. So basically a hardware issue. Funny enough if you were to create a friction between your palm and the touchpad for a few seconds, it would work again.
The real solution is to create a better connection between two pieces of metal on the touchpad. And so I did:
I hope it will work from now on, if not I’ll try to connect those bits better.
Yeah for such an expensive laptop you expect better. But I am happy that these are the only issues I experienced so far and are quite easy to fix. Overall the battery is very good, the build quality is great, the speakers are ok, the keyboard is fine, the port selection is bloody useful, and the screen is AMAZING. I love it.
It is powerful enough for me for the many years o come, it is portable, and overall I love it.
That’s all I hope.
Touchpad update
The electric tape solution didn’t work at all. In a day or two it went back to how it was. Since then it became worse and worse. The trackpad/touchpad was unusable. I then decided to go for the soldering. I really didn’t want to do that to my laptop but I did it. For details see this forum post. I did a really bad job at soldering because I was tired and the bits I was soldering to on the trackpad were so tiny. I did that some 3-4 days ago and since then the trackpad works like a charm. I still can’t believe it. This really stressed me out and made this laptop unusable as a laptop really, unless you always have a mouse with you.
Anyway, so far it works perfectly fine and I really hope this did it. It is the solution that everyone recommends.
The laptop itself is great. Very well built, amazing screen, very good speakers, powerful and all of that, so I would not know what else to buy if it wasn’t for this one, so I am beyond happy if this issue is finally solved….
As for the rattling I realized that the simplest solution is to put a paper tape between those two little metal things and the laptop’s chassis. So that when they touch they make a lot less noise. So bellow those as you see in the photo, I added one piece of tape. Now all is fine.
So right now the laptop is well and dandy. I love it overall considering the alternatives. I really hope this is the last update.
Hi all,
As many of us are facing issues with the Inspiron 7610 touchpad, I have noticed that Dell has not taken a position on this and refuses to do anything besides forcing you to send in the lapt...
I wonder what's the motivation behind these bots? I bet it's not the incentive for humans to trade, and thus consume, and thus want more, and thus aquire more, and thus steal, and thus deceive, and thus create these bots...
Mindblowing. It will only continue to increase, I assume. The internet becomes more and more about advertisment, promotion and selling shit now. Bots can be very effective in that regard and other scams of course.
Same way trade pushed humans to consume forests, and mountains of resources, and other creatures to deplete populations, and in the process create a lot of waste, the internet is now the new territory of exploitation. Very predictable when you understand how the force of trade operates and incentivizes humans. Terrible.
Abso-fuckin-lutely. Just to imagine amount of the resources and energy are spent to support them bots, just scamming and advertising. Insane! What a fucking waste..
@esh How do you define trade again? For me it about energy/matter, socioeconomic status, power, resources, ... inequality. And trade is just a means for that.
Trade is one the method to distribute scarce resources between people, I would say. It has played a defining role in human societies evolution. But unfortunately, at current moment it became a global foundation and most influencing force affecting people lives and behavior. Even if at this level of development we can provide more and more resources in abundance for all people, it still has to be profitable, to be traded to keep the system work. And I would argue that status, power and inequality, all are actually by-products of trade. Artifitial limits, exagerrated marketing, false values are also helping in creation inequality or such concepts like "status", which is used mainly to trade even more "deluxe" stuff to obtain those "statuses". An entire TROM project, which is led by @Tio is about that actually, how trade might be the origin of the most problems humanity faces nowadays and what are the alternative methods of distribution (like trade-free) that may be applied to societies to make them saner and more sustainable.
Yeah actually this is not unusual unfortunately. I do have automated tools that will block these IPs. It is just sad to see this predatory incentive. Especially for projects like ours that are already struggling to keep afloat. I also know that you're around so in case shit hits the fan, I know who to call :D.
Yeah.. There are entire farms of people doing this kind of scam as a daily job. It isn't uncommon that entirely volunteered projects and even famous non-profit organizations suffer from hacking and losing access to their networks or crucial data. Those fuckers just don't care. An opportunity to steal something that can be used for other harms is what has meaning to them. Force of trades has no mercy here as well :disappointed face:
It is very likely that the TROM II trailer that we also posted on youtube and facebook was not "promoted" to the users/followers because we used "bad" words in it, such as "fuck" or "climate change", the latter is (from my knowledge) suppressed because of "conspiracy theories" or being a "controversial" topic. But you never know with these networks.
This can never happen on Peertube. At least not for now, and if it will and some instances could auto-block the distribution of some videos based on such keywords, would be a fuckery.
I don't care anymore. I do the things I find important to do, and use the words I want to use. Am not a prostitute to try and "play by the rules of the game". Better reach a few people in the way I want them to see the content, rather than censor and distort the content in order to reach more people.
I played the TROM II trailer as part of my presentation about TROM.tf at a conference in Romania
Yesterday I played the TROM II trailer and mentioned TROM.tf as part of my presentation about the Rapid deployment of self-hosted cloud platforms for open-source web applications at a conference in Romania.
Today, on the second day of the conference, I presented again TROM.tf and YunoHost. I also had the opportunity to talk about trade-free, the TROM documentaries and the TROM tools during the Q&A about my presentation.
This is a very long but very good video about why these recent AI hype is a craze "The AI Mind Virus" ytb.trom.tf/watch?v=3oS9UG1U2N…
The fear we should fear is not some super-intelligent AI, but what this trade-based society pushes people to do with these tools: more scams, more fake shit, more nonsense content, more hype, selling more shit and so forth.
Go to https://ground.news/ordinary to avoid media bias, manipulative algorithms, and know where your news is coming from. Check it out for free or subscribe for unlimited access through my link if you support the mission as much as I do.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •Tio likes this.