Me a reader in Science and Technology. I cannot find four partners to play Bridge now but I play Bridge using a cellphone. I try to improve my game. Bottom line is boys love playing video games but only a few girls play video games. The Coronavirus has made girls to join the Band Wagon of video games. That is a good thing but ignore their comments about Steam Deck and Dock. Mind you, these guys come from Windows and Apple background and does not know what is Linux. The current Linux 15 Kernel can handle many graphic cards, if the
O.E.M. guysvolunteer their specifications to the Linux developers. Equally they have some game boxes from childhood that they have
Pathological Attachment (term pathology has disease connotation here) to
those devices.They are all biased in their opinions and they are not
comparative or balanced. I see Steam Deck 2 coming in the future since old guys like me have visual problems to counter and I prefer a very BIG Display. Coronavirus has added lot of grannies and grand dads playing Steam Games. The joystick and touch pads will improve coordination problems,
especially after mild form of stroke and if, I am one of the directors
of the hospital, I would order some Steam Deck and Dock items for both
children and geriatric patients. So if you are philanthropist please keep my above observation as a reference point. Steam should focus the global nature of games. If we can cut down on the pills and if Steam contributes to that
goal, even a little childhood fancy game played by a sick adult is a
bonus to recovery. It is very big thing! Back to home for recuperation. It has a relatively big display screen which is touch sensitive. This display is not BIG enough for my age. It has both touch pad and two joysticks. It has SD card ports to upgrade capacity but playing with SD card is not an option. SD card slows the system. It has Linux OS (Steam OS 3) and probably latest KDE plasma, I guess. Mind you it is coming in December and book now. There is no crowd sourcing and it has got capital from Steam Machine sales in the years gone by. Steam Valve is the operating company. It is a standalone PC for a work desk. Since it is a PC one can install 1. Windows 10 or 11 with Steam running on top of Windows. 2. It can run on any Linux distribution that supports Steam
(since Steam is Linux almost all Linux distributions support it but one
has to purchase Steam games). 3. Why not run on its own Steam OS 3 and enjoy 50,000 games you will never finish in a life time? It has Photon which is modified Wine that runs Windows games on Linux box. It is a Three In One Game Box. It has AMD CPU Zen and AMD RDNA GPU. What a nice combination to beat Intel architecture owned by Lenova in China. It beats, IBM based of Lenova in China by a big margin. It has ports in the dock for all the connectivity and WiFi connection off the dock. No need of PS5 of Sony and XBox of Microsoft. Linux is the winner after all. The best buy in the market today. I have a Console of a Cheap Chinese made Copycat in which I could not play a single game.
I paid a big sum in Rupees. It's keyboard could not type my 18 digit alpha numeric password for WiFi connectivity to download new games. I tried even in French Keyboard but failed. So do not buy cheap Chinese stuff. Chinese alphabet is a graphic design not alphanumeric like the English Keyboard. Luckily the computer software and hardware are based on the English keyboard for instructions. It can be hacked but not easily duplicated in China. That is why they are developing Kline OP in China. The Chinese are very bad in typing English and Linux Code. If not for American's base in Taiwan and British in Honk Kong
Chinese ambition to go to Mars bypassing the Van Allen Belt is only a
daydream. They are number one Copycats on this planet.
It took one hour for me to remember the name Bluefish to install in my latest Debian Forky.
That was after referring my book on Linux Essentials not yet published. I am supposed to be a pet fish lover and and I can remeber only Guppy fish and the ugly Goby fish.
Bluefish
Bluefish is a fast, lightweight, open-source code editor for Linux designed for programmers and web developers, offering IDE-like features such as syntax highlighting, project support, and regex-capable search.
It supports many languages
HTML,
CSS,
PHP,
Python
and is ideal for editing dynamic websites.
Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and web developers, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code.
Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages.
Bluefish is an open source development project, released under the GNU GPL licence.
Bluefish is a multi platform application that runs on most desktop operating systems including Linux, macOS, Windows, Free BSD and Open BSD
Bluefish utility has 9 Code crunching applications in Trixie but not not in Forky.
Update
Debian Forky has ;listened to my comments and has included Bluefish.
Thankfully BlueStar Linux Distribution supports Bluefish which I accidentally found under Octopi Package List.
What Synaptic lacks I can fine from Octopi.
Thank YOU Octopi guys and girls.
Octopi is the best package manager for me under ARCH.
Green Cabin in Bambalapotiya and Pilawoos in Colpetty, where I used to have a good meal in late 1960 to early 1970s when I visied Colombo.
This in addition to Seafood Restaurant in Galle Face, Green Cabin in Union place and Elephant House. They were known for good CEYLONESE beer not lampraise.
Green Cabin is still there and Pilawoos came much later.
Then, return ticket to Singspore was Rs. 7800/=.
My Salary in a Private Hospital was Rs. 15,000/=.
Incidentally, some guys used to drop . Rs. 30,000/= or more having known my predicament without a note to indentify who dropped it.
I guessed the guy but never probed.
I made lot of friends in Negambo and free ticket to a Hotel meal was a norm and I loved the fresh and crispy prawns.
Then still later Banana Leaves came in where I used to enjoy Masala and Dosai until I found Komala Villa in Sarangoon Road (Little India) in Singapore.
Then, still later, I found a Japanse Restaurant Ji Ling in Orchard Street, near Dhoby Ghaut Tube Station in Singspore.
Mustafa Center was where I did all my shopping.
I have never been to Mandarin Hotel but stayed in a boutique hotel near it.
Coming to lampraise, it was a delicious but a cheap meal. I was an "omnitarian" and lampraise is made on the base of meat stock. I am informed that there is vegetation and fish lampraise introduced on later occasions.
There is no lampraise in the city of KANDY.
It is Rs. 1500 to 2000 in COLOMBO and KANDYAN are so poor they have to eat what is dished out by Green Park Hotel chain in Pilimithalawa. Green Park Hotel is nowhere near the standard of Green Cabin and Pilawoos.
It looks like KANDY base price for a meal is Rs. 500 to 1000/=.
I had a secret place in the middle of the KANDY City with Singapore style meal where I used to go for a beer (no meals).
That is untill, the takeaway string hoppers and hoppers are dished out once the midday meals are cleared from the dining table.
CEYLONESE love a heavy "bath adi" which I became allergic, due to five types of chemicals in our rice.
Thursday, November 13, 2025 Jayarathna Pathiraarchchi Jayarathna Pathiraarchchi comes out with venom Over 700 yearsfrom Muslim to Portuguese to Dutch to British to Indian Tamil Monks distorted our True History. Time for Course Correction was long overdue.
Just in time an ORACLE has come.
He is Jayarathna Pathiraarchchi.
He has collected all the Stone Edits. Additionally, in the past our monks have kept the records of historical events inDeepavaliya and Poojavaliya.
Mahavansa is a cooked up story of Indian Tamil monks.
Mahavansa by Mahanamais a colossal distortion by Indians Tamil monks with vested interests.
Never believe an Indian is my cardinal principle.
It worked alright to this day.
For some unknown reason, he is waiting till 2035.
I think, he probably wants the guys who are taking center-stage to gradually fade away from the scene. May be he is allowing NPP/JVP and Indian COMBO to succumb in due course.
Both India and NPP are a big obstacle on our Way to Course Correction.
He is a prudent guy.
He does not want to jump the gun.
He has some uncanny ability to predict the future in a scientific way.
My guess he was a Buddhist monk in a previous birth and he has gathered, all the facts over many births. Problem with previous birth recollection, in my own study is that, they do not flow in a sequential manner.
The recollections are random and erratic.
My belief is that previous birth events are voluntarily suppressed during our long human childhood.
However, Buddhist Devas (not Indian) have the ability to remember, a few to many past births.
Buddhas
can remember a lot but they are also suppressed for good reason.
Only
if and when they were relevant to a particular individual, they were
retold.
If they were not relevant to the path dishing them out is redundant.
Jathaka Kathas are cock and bull stories and should be passed as veritable Buddhist literature with no relevance to path entry.
1. Sirisangabo is such a classic story.
2. Just like Sinhabahu and Sinhala origin.
3. Vijaya and Kuveni is such a story.
The above stories should be removed from children books. They give a wrong connotation to children.
I have no problems adults monks and layman using them for their own amusement.
RAVANA history is much relevance to Buddhas.
I
love them, since I had some interest in Prehistoric Man of Ceylon which
extend up to 150,000 years into the past not 5000 years as stated in
Western literature.
In Epstein files he is named with some exceptional quotes.
Dalai Lama has received money from CIA.
Please do not go to Tibet looking for spiritual upliftment.
I forgot to mention that Mahatma Gandhi was an ace pedophile and he used anti British stance to cover up his sordid activities.
I have my own theory about the origin of Tibetan Race.
They were an Alien Race of prehistoric time.
Story goes like this, long, long time ago, an alien race crash landed on Tibetan mountains. The Space Craft had limited capacity. Besides, as stated in Hindu Wimanaya stories, there were many aliens fighting in space for ariel dominance.
This had some relevance to Jayaratne Pathiraarchchi's Vimana or Bimana translations of Stone Edits or SelLipi.
Coming back to Tibetan story about 200 to 300 of these aliens were left in limbo in Tibetan mountains not being recovered by their mother ships. They developed their Mantras to communicate with themselves and also expecting them to be RECOVERED on a future date by their masters.
The word Master or Rishi has a relevance here.
Their (Alien Tibetan) lifespan was on the order of 5000 years or more.
They could live on Low Oxygen saturation and their hemoglobin is different from Chinese hemoglobin. The Chinese always lost in high mountain battles and they only managed to subjugate them in late 1950s.
There was an uprising in 1959 in Lhasa and Dalai Lama fled to India.
The Chinese always hated Tibetans.
I do not carry a brief to Tibetans simply because they distort Buddha Dhamma with their own version. The Alien Tibetans were not Buddhists who believed in eternal life due to their long life.
Those Rishi monks still carry some form of Alien Language as a secret language of cosmological significance and connection.
Over time intermarriage, deprivation by Chinese and loss of a spiritual leader, fragmentation and difficult terrain made the disappearance of the Tibetan race.
You may ask me, how did I formulate the above theory.
This is all related to my name Asoka which I hated.
In fact, my birth certificate did not have Asoka.
Let me discuss it later.
Helena Blavasky and Colonel Olcott and Theosophical Society in India and CEYLON made me to dig into this Tibetan SAGA.
Anagarika Dharmapala is also a side issue.
He decided that Buddha was born in India.
But records in CEYLON indicate Buddha was born in CEYLON.
In one of my books, I did a detailed (copies are in CEYLON in SSD Drives) description of this powerful lady with esoteric powers.
She was well versed and well traveled entity in her time.
She was not Buddhist by birth but she converted herself to Buddhism having come to CEYLON during Migatuwavatta Debate.
But later years she tried to spread her own ideas and esoteric powers.
I do not know whether she used substance like ayahuaska (DMT) but I did not have any evidence.
She deliberately tried to reach Tibet in her time but the BRITISH prevented her reaching there. She had this uncanny ability to communicate (something like Remote Viewing) with Rushis of Tibet.
Some of her writing are probably related to these communications with various Indian Gurus.
BRITISH and specially the Christian Church suppressed her activities.
She antagonized this by forming the Theosophical Society in Adair, Madras in India. Somehow they formed a Asoka Bavan (probably an attempt by Indian to establish the Indian King Asoka in CEYLON) Society and there were Asoka Lodges all over CEYLON including KANDY.
They all belonged to the Indian Theosophical Society.
One of my distant maternal uncles was a member of this society and he became the chief organizer and he made me a member and wanted me to take over the Science portion of the Theosophical Society. I did go to the branch in Peterson Lane, Wellawatta and the Tamil guys there did not like me, a SINHALA guy working for them.
I told my uncle not to believe those guys and I resigned immediately.
I think my uncle also gradually weaned himself off from this society and became a true Buddhist.
Over time Colonel A. S. Olcott dissociated from Blavatsky and why I do not know.
I think he was pressured by the then Church.
Of course, my father in law and mother in law had formed a different society which promoted meditation practice without involving Buddhist monks.
Why I hate Asoka, the name.
1. Asoka is a beautiful flower.
I do not like me to be compared to a flower that wilts away within 12 hours.
2. It is a female name not male in SINHALA.
3. Asoka was a king of India.
I hate all Indian subcultures.
4. Asoka was not in my birth certificate.
Nimal was the correct name in my birth certificate.
5. My father inadvertently gave Asoka as my Christian name at Dharmaraja College ENTRY.
I did not know all these until I got my 'O' Level certificate.
But I continued to use it by choice until I finished my studies in the University.
I had no choice but to adopt it on long term basis.
6. When I decided to go to UK and was applying for the Passport and Visa I went to a prominent lawyer in Colombo and asked his Advice.
He suggested that I carry an affidavit saying that all these names refer to me and has no conflict with my brother who is Sunimal.
7. Every time I go abroad or get a new passport I have an affidavit accompanying the passport application.
Very simple procedure.
8. Then one fine day in mid 1990s, I made a "Decree Ni Si" in SINHALA claiming that I have so many names and those names have no legal consequences.
Decree Nisi is usually used in Divorce cases which becomes absolute in 3 to 6 months.
It can be used in cases similar to how I used it to declare my legal intentions.
However, the lawyer I consulted in COLOMBO did not informed me of its availability.
One has to know the law oneself is the underlying concept.
I know the law preamble comes from that premise.
9. One year after my retirement and having claimed all my dues from the University, I finally decided to get my last passport in order so that my dependents do not have to issue a Decree Nisi to say that Asoka is an adopted name and not the original.
10. None of my Classmates or Teachers used Asoka to address me.
I had a shorter form to address me and only my classmates know it.
But it is no longer in my passport.
Out of 7 of my close friends 4 has already gone.
Only 3 left including me.
I inadvertently left the ABC Telephone book in Ceylon and my new cellphone has no record of them.
It has only two.
Sumane who did come to the last gate at the KATUNAYAKE Airport (Thank YOU) and my relative brother who went to Canada, after I left CEYLON.
His connection with pedophiles and with Epstein sickens me the most.
Why I hate Microsoft and Bill Gate
Windows
is a shoddy operating system and resource hungry where my first
computer with 2 MB RAM could not handle Win 95 but I used Debian 6 with
over 6CDs which could do a better job then.
Later I migrated to Redhatsince there were many books written from Redhat 7 onward. Then of course,Caldera,Debianand Mandriva and still later Knoppixtook me to New Heights in Linux. About Mr. Bill Gate I have nothing personal to say and his divorce probably is good for both.
He getting venereal disease from a Russian tart is exposed by the leaked Epstein files. Hanging onto a breaking relationship is nerve racking to any human being. I hope both do some productive work on their own volition. My grouse with him is his ploy with manufacturers to insinuate O.E.M. hardware with BOGUS UEFI-MEFI (it was named Unified Framework but I used M
for Microsoft here for his personal use) or framework interface was an
atrocious business plan to stifle Linux users. I do not have to take permission from Bill Gate to use open source
Linux in my laptop initially installed with Microsoft Windows. It does not let me use legacy BIOS and still have a UEFI script
hidden in the memory or within the hardware architecture of the OEM
portion. Simple method to overcome this ploy is to stick a SD of at least 32 GB and install the boot loader there. UEFI won't let you use legacy GRUB to boot multiple Linux distributions. I have now tried Linux ESP partition to bypass UEFI blocking mechanism. If OEM software says no boot medium even after having installed a Linux distribution, this is what you have to do. 1. Download BSD TRUE OS DVD, Debian DVD 1 and Genome Partition (GPT) iso CD. 2. Install TRUE OS and it virtually takes over the Disk Drive of your laptop. 3. Unfortunately it does not let you boot any other distribution. 4. Boot GPT partition disk.
Delete the tank partition of BSD leaving only the ESP partition which the TRUE OS had created. Then.partition the disk.with Ex4 or Btrfs partitions. 5. Mount Debian DVD and install. You.have the option of using the unused part of the hard disk but
remember to.mount ESP partition (but do not format the ESP lest
partition.details are erased). There is a very simple solution, if the Microsoft Media is not bootable. 1. Buy a mounted SATA disk and attach it to the Laptop.
One terabyte is cheap now.
I sometime go to Singapore and do my usual shopping and see offers for
about a week and by all the stuff one third the price in Ceylon.
Now Coronavirus has put a stop to it. Coming back to the external SATA disk one partition it, they way one likes it. Ultimately install a Linux distribution to boot from while attached to the laptop. The GRUB boot loader will detect the distributions unbootable from the laptop and boot them via the external disk. One can use a SD card or USB but installing a distribution in a
tightly packed USB is slow and may break down in the middle of the
installation. That problem one does not encounter with a one terabyte external disk. I have used my innovative methods to erase OEM blocking ploy with BSD and then to install Debian thereafter. Unfortunately even Ubuntu gives up and succumb to UEFI ploy and it destroyed my booting options. Only BSD does erase everything and install ESP partition. Not even Debian can handle it.
– Hello Philippe, to begin this interview, could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
With pleasure . My name is Philippe NEAU , I live in the Vendée region, department 85, and I am 67 years old. It
has now been 48 years since I lost my sight following a car accident
caused by fog and the fact that windshields back then shattered into a
thousand pieces.
I quickly realized that I needed to retrain, especially since I was
about to turn 20 and my future was still very much ahead of me. So I
went back to school to catch up on the high school diploma I hadn't obtained, and continued with a physiotherapy course, first in Paris and finally in Limoges.
I completed this course in 1985, and I was hired in Les Sables-d'Olonne
where I practiced my profession as a physiotherapist for 31 years before
retiring in 2016. That's
my professional career of recycling, if I can express it that way, and I
still reside in Les Sables-d'Olonne about thirty kilometers from La
Roche-sur-Yon, my hometown.
– Under what circumstances did you get into computers?
For
blind people, computers offer a gateway to the world, insofar as they
provide access to writing, even if it's through a screen read by a
speech synthesizer. It's important to remember that access to written
language used to be through Braille, with all its limitations, and the
content of books is often outdated. Now, thanks to computers and speech
synthesis, blind people have access to general and universal
information. Braille is, of course, still relevant, especially in
associations, but it's relatively expensive because you have to buy Braille
pages or books ,
you have to know how to read Braille, and it's not very time-consuming,
even though people born blind are often very adept at it.
I lost my sight in 1977, and I started using computers a few years later, as soon as the first computer-based speech synthesizers became available (see note 1).
– And how did you switch to Linux?
I
stayed with Windows until version 10, but when I realized how closely
monitored and spied on it was, I initially went back to Windows 8. Then I
learned that Linux seemed more appealing because it didn't require
antivirus software and was more secure, making me feel safer.
So, about ten years ago, I switched to a Debian distribution with, of course, Orca as my screen reader.
For a better listening experience, I bought the Voxin speech synthesizer , which I'm happy with because it sounds more "human" than other synthesized voices.
– In Emmabuntüs we also have Piper. What do you think?
I
did try it, but you have to find an application that's well-suited to
it, like reading a book over a long period, because its execution speed
is quite slow. But I don't personally have experience with that kind of
reading. In fact, I'm spending a lot of time on social media these days,
where I have PDFs that I have read quickly using text-to-speech.
– But let's go back a bit: how did you meet Patrick and Emmabuntüs?
In fact, it all started at a meeting about the June free currency . One of the participants then informed Claude [Editor's note: President of the YOVOTOGO
association ] that a blind person was using a Linux computer, and we
made contact. We later met at another June meeting. This led to my
connection with Patrick via WhatsApp, and I took control of a
refurbished computer on which Emmabuntüs was installed.
– Now that you are retired, what are your interests?
I'm
a bit of a computer geek myself, sometimes even out of necessity. For
example, earlier I wanted to make an online purchase, and it took me
ages because some e-commerce sites aren't very accessible to visually
impaired people. Not to mention the Captcha tests, which are a complete
obstacle for us if they don't include an audio file. And even the audio
files sometimes speak in difficult-to-understand English, forcing you to
restart the Captcha hoping to get a French voice.
Sometimes you also spend ages filling out a form only to end up with a fatal Captcha or a timeout. Very frustrating!
– But in these cases, are there people or an association that could help you on an occasional basis?
Yes,
there are associations, but they generally provide training over one or
more days to teach people how to use new software, for example. They
aren't designed for one-off, on-the-spot troubleshooting.
And with the experience gained over the years, we always try to troubleshoot, progress, and discover new things on our own.
– With that in mind, you should be happy to be able to test the new Emmabuntüs system.
Patrick
explained to me that Emmabuntüs comes with a lot of software because in
some countries, like Togo, internet connections are unreliable—or even
nonexistent—which isn't the case where we live. Besides, it's also
useful to have books in ePub or Daisy format on your computer and be
able to read them offline.
There are some programs I already use on my current computer, like the
Thunderbird email client, and I haven't reconfigured it on Emmabuntüs
because I already have enough trouble managing duplicates and syncing my
mobile phone with my computer.
I
also have a computer technician neighbor who, for a very affordable
maintenance cost, helped me to upgrade the initial configuration of my
computer, and allowed me to discover other ways to access my Debian
system and now I manage well.
This
computer was originally configured and maintained by the Hypra
association, for which I had also conducted tests to identify website
navigation difficulties for visually impaired users, making it
completely unintuitive.
I've also noticed that navigating my smartphone is becoming increasingly
difficult. Even with the effort of mentally visualizing websites, you
have to be extremely careful about where you touch the screen.
Once, my screen even started displaying Japanese characters, and I
couldn't turn it back. I showed it to a sighted person who also
couldn't, as the display was also in Japanese. Then, on another attempt,
I recognized some Japanese words and managed to switch back to French
after a few very uncomfortable moments.
– How do you manage to get around outside? Do you have a guide dog to help you?
So,
taking a train trip like yesterday, even just 50 km from home, can be
as unpredictable as going to Beijing, Cuba, or Yokohama. I couldn't find
a bus or taxi at the arrival station, and by sheer luck, someone
offered to help and ended up giving me a ride to my appointment. So, we
always need to allow plenty of time and be very patient to ensure we
arrive on time for our appointments.
Walking
in my neighborhood is less of a problem since I've lived here for a
long time and I use the TOM THUMB device (see note 2), which allows me
to anticipate obstacles and adjust my trajectory accordingly. There's
also the city of La Roche-sur-Yon, where I feel comfortable because I
have familiar landmarks from the years before my accident. But in a
foreign city, everything quickly becomes very complicated.
On
the other hand, I never wanted a dog, firstly because of my job, as it
would have had to lie under a table for more than seven hours a day, and
secondly, my workplace was right next to my home.
Another reason is that I travel a lot abroad, and having a dog during
these long trips isn't always possible. In fact, I speak Esperanto, and
an international congress is organized every year in a different city
around the world. This event is now well-established, since the first World Esperanto Congress
was held in France in 1905, and it's like a small family gathering.
There's a lot of mutual support among Esperanto speakers, which allowed
me to travel far from home. But in this context, a dog wasn't
necessarily a good option.
– How did you develop this interest in Esperanto?
I'd
heard about it in middle school, around the age of fifteen, and I
thought it was an excellent idea. Then in 1994, I heard a radio program
where someone was presenting their arguments in favor of Esperanto, and
at the end of the program, I called the radio station and got the
contact information for a blind man who became my teacher for ten
lessons, using Braille and audio cassettes. After that, I was able to
continue on my own, and this wonderful adventure led to my first
international trips. Thanks to Esperanto, I've been able to travel to
eleven different countries, and at each congress, there are an average
of sixty countries represented, although some less developed countries
can't always send participants because of the cost of long-distance
travel.
– Does a speech synthesizer speak in Esperanto?
Yes,
there is one on eSpeak, but it's monstrously robotic, tiring, and not
pleasant at all. There's also a Croatian woman who lent her voice, which
I managed to get working on Windows, but I haven't been able to get it
working on Linux.
– Thank you Philippe for your time, and I hope we can continue to work together on the Emmabuntüs distribution.
See you soon or ĝis baldaŭ in Esperanto.
Philippe testing a computer running Emmabuntüs in accessibility mode
Note 1 : Some milestones in speech synthesis
In
1961, John Larry Kelly Jr., a physicist at Bell Labs, used an IBM
computer to synthesize speech. His vocoder (voice recorder synthesizer)
recreated the song Daisy Bell.
In 1984, Apple unveiled the Macintosh with MacinTalk speech synthesis.
In 1995, Microsoft integrated the first text-to-speech (TTS) system into Windows 95.
In 1999, Microsoft launched Narrator, a screen reader solution now included in every copy of Microsoft Windows.
Note 2 : Tom Thumb is a removable electronic device developed by the Visio
Foundation , a recognized public-benefit organization, that transforms a
traditional white cane into an electronic one. This device uses
infrared beams and a laser to detect obstacles, whether fixed or moving,
at an adjustable distance of 1 to 15 meters in front of the user, as
well as at a height of up to 2.5 meters. It anticipates the risk of
collision, including with overhead obstacles such as shop shutters or
branches, by signaling their presence through vibrations transmitted to
the user's hand.
Me a reader in Science and Technology. I cannot find four partners to play Bridge now but I play Bridge using a cellphone. I try to improve my game. Bottom line is boys love playing video games but only a few girls play video games. The Coronavirus has made girls to join the Band Wagon of video games. That is a good thing but ignore their comments about Steam Deck and Dock. Mind you, these guys come from Windows and Apple background and does not know what is Linux. The current Linux 15 Kernel can handle many graphic cards, if the
O.E.M. guysvolunteer their specifications to the Linux developers. Equally they have some game boxes from childhood that they have
Pathological Attachment (term pathology has disease connotation here) to
those devices.They are all biased in their opinions and they are not
comparative or balanced. I see Steam Deck 2 coming in the future since old guys like me have visual problems to counter and I prefer a very BIG Display. Coronavirus has added lot of grannies and grand dads playing Steam Games. The joystick and touch pads will improve coordination problems,
especially after mild form of stroke and if, I am one of the directors
of the hospital, I would order some Steam Deck and Dock items for both
children and geriatric patients. So if you are philanthropist please keep my above observation as a reference point. Steam should focus the global nature of games. If we can cut down on the pills and if Steam contributes to that
goal, even a little childhood fancy game played by a sick adult is a
bonus to recovery. It is very big thing! Back to home for recuperation. It has a relatively big display screen which is touch sensitive. This display is not BIG enough for my age. It has both touch pad and two joysticks. It has SD card ports to upgrade capacity but playing with SD card is not an option. SD card slows the system. It has Linux OS (Steam OS 3) and probably latest KDE plasma, I guess. Mind you it is coming in December and book now. There is no crowd sourcing and it has got capital from Steam Machine sales in the years gone by. Steam Valve is the operating company. It is a standalone PC for a work desk. Since it is a PC one can install 1. Windows 10 or 11 with Steam running on top of Windows. 2. It can run on any Linux distribution that supports Steam
(since Steam is Linux almost all Linux distributions support it but one
has to purchase Steam games). 3. Why not run on its own Steam OS 3 and enjoy 50,000 games you will never finish in a life time? It has Photon which is modified Wine that runs Windows games on Linux box. It is a Three In One Game Box. It has AMD CPU Zen and AMD RDNA GPU. What a nice combination to beat Intel architecture owned by Lenova in China. It beats, IBM based of Lenova in China by a big margin. It has ports in the dock for all the connectivity and WiFi connection off the dock. No need of PS5 of Sony and XBox of Microsoft. Linux is the winner after all. The best buy in the market today. I have a Console of a Cheap Chinese made Copycat in which I could not not play a single game. I paid a big sum in Rupees. It's keyboard could not type my 18 digit alpha numeric password for WiFi connectivity to download new games. I tried even in French Keyboard but failed. So do not buy cheap Chinese stuff. Chinese alphabet is a graphic design not alphanumeric like the English Keyboard. Luckily the computer software and hardware are based on the English keyboard for instructions. It can be hacked but not easily duplicated in China. That is why they are developing Kline OP in China. The Chinese are very bad in typing English and Linux Code. If not for American's base in Taiwan and British in Honk Kong
Chinese ambition to go to Mars bypassing the Van Allen Belt is only a
daydream. They are number one Copycats on this planet.
What
Arthur Scargill did was as bad as what Margaret Thatcher did by
cancelling the right to Union Action or Association with Unions at the
behest of Ronald Reagan.
He took the money and disappeared.
He
should have refunded the money to its active members.
I did not pay a
lot but I stopped association with any Union except Medical Protection
Union in UK.
In this regard Internet Banking is also included.
Cellphone, Technology, Linux, Cryptocurrency, Politics and Global Warming
This is not a gossip column like, Facebook, Twitter and Freedom Platform. One might not see the connections, if one does not understand the basic physics. If you do not understand how physics works in real world, do not read this beyond this point. This is a scientific exegesis not a bizarre meditation session with delusion and illusion revisited. First of all thanks to Donald Trump and his extreme Ultra Right Wing for using Freedom OS which is a derivative of Lineage OS. I supported the Lineage OS, Linux Magazine and Linux Voice but
stopped subscribing to the Magazine (reading scientific stuff is in my
genes) due to poor supply of Dollars from abroad. To dispense with money matters and currency first, I hate single currency of EU for a very good reason. It comes from a small city called (Equivalent of Singapore in
Europe ) Belgium where the King plundered West Africafor centuries and
was helpful in spreading AIDS (equivalent of bat fever or Coronavirus of
mainland China) globally. AIDS came from a tiny tree monkey in Africa whom they used for animal experimentation. We have not discovered a treatment for AIDS or for that matter
Malaria from which millions of Children still die every year in Africa. The simple reason for objecting to single currency is: It would dilute the stupidity of all our Finance Ministers after independence. Mind you, British left us surplus of money in our coffers and the Air Ceylon to fly (for the politicians to plunder later). This even Victor Ivan understands. Mind you, I have a chapter on Victor in my book "Politics
Revisited at Amazon"for young ones to read how we plundered money and
freedom and we have now geared for a military government which is
failing by the day. I prudently, stopped writing my Political Vision dead at 2010. This vision, Ma Ra and Si Ra combination erased from our history. Any opportunity for recovery in a sensible redirection was lost. I think, "The Third Force" can emerge from the proverbial ashes of Phoenix. A victory path from the prison. Mr. Ranjan Ramanayake should steer it from the prison cell
provided a bright guy writes a book on his behalf and in his name (one
should get ideas from him and put in legible Sinhala and not in Amu
Sinhala or Kunu Harupa). All good revolutions started from long incarceration, in the history of mankind. Longer he stays in prison better for him because more and more
blunders will accumulate like the way Coronavirus spreads, in spite of
so called robust vaccination programs. Mandela is a good example but White South Africans by covert design muted it. Coming to Linux and cryptocurrency. The Alt Right is based in Austria where cryptocurrency has one of
it's bases where illegal money is invested globally, with robust farm
of computers. These computers need graphic cards, the reason I do not
understand but guess they use PDF photo-proof for blockchain
transactions which are invisible to the banking systems.
I now know unlike the CPU, the Graphic Card layout which is in multiples can do trillions of calculations per second.
However they consume lot of energy and need a robust heat sink to cool the system.
PDF means portable document Format. These computers consume large amounts of electricity which even Nuclear Energy cannot cope with. Electricity does not come cheap. All digital gadgets needs electricity and the rechargeable batteries need electricity for recharging. They need compact circuits and every circuit including your
cellphone contributes to the Global Warming which is the bottom line. That is my bone of contention. So only way to mitigate is to stop using Internet, me posting
here (soon be terminated, could not keep that promise but would be soon)
a blog post included and every email adds to the global warming and
there is no end in sight. You switching to CFL Lights and LED won't mitigate it. The game box or the cellphone off the hook running on batteries
may not contribute to much heat but the uploading, downloading and
playing games over the Internet, Yes the Internet is driving the World
to Global Warming. With 3G and 4G upgraded to 5G every living soul (including
grannies and grand dads) playing video games, video conferencing and
video on demand or virtual class rooms popping up everywhere (due to
Coronavirus) may encourage global warming as the final end product. The photosynthesis converts only 1 to 3% of light energy to biological energy. The plants leaves by transpiration cools the planet (this is kids science which the current president does not understand). The trees contribute to cloud formation and rain. The the Tank, the Dagaba (where the soil was mounted and there is
no religious connotation here) and the Forest were our ancient concepts of
self preservation and not done by borrowed money from China. China has to learn lot more from our history than us learning
from them and they are the leaders in pollution and global warming. India only comes second in contribution to global.warming, population dynamics and emerging economics of the world today. We importing cheap cellphones and even rice in 1952 are classic examples of our impotence in real politics. Coming to chip production I think Taiwan comes first not the mainland China. 1. Taiwan 2. Korea 3. Japan for old American and the new Apple type industry. 4. China fourth India nowhere and Ceylon with (rubber industry in doldrums) all
the rare metals and pure sand available, which China is mining secretly
(in the camouflage hotel industry operation concept) in the East and in
the West Coast of Ceylon. We cannot make a simple chip or circuit here but import large
discarded computers from the West which need Water Cooling Systems to
run them in a 24/7 cycle. We become suckers to Communist China and they started with only
erecting a massive Auditorium in Colombo to utter empty rhetoric which
"Nelum Pokuna" can never match in spite of its height or the elevation. Our aspirations have vanished to thin air. But our debt is mounting. What a paradox? We do not have even Nalum Ala (the rhizome) with poisons in them to eat, now. I will finish this with the Steam OS. Now all game boxes including Steam OS contribute directly and indirectly to Global Warming. Linux was way behind the XBox of Microsoft in games. Microsoft killed the innovations by enticing young with imaginary
games in the trend of Star Wars and Visual Basics and no line of Code
for creative work, while Linux has grown into 128 million lines in Code
in current Linux 15 Kernel. Steam OS probably has used this kernel for Steam Deck and Dock
outsmarting Microsoft (would not win the never ending battle of Wits and
Wisdom or even a rematch). It is cheap and under $400/=. ASUS Tablet with more punch is $3000/= ACER is little below $1500/= Mind you, this is a Standalone PC with a Game Pack. Incredible price and I hope the RDNA GPU supplies come good by December, if not the ZEN CPU. I would recommend you to buy the next level of $500/= odd
version for connectivity to NVMe external drives instead of SATA, SSD
and eMMC disks. SATA stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment which is relatively slow. All serial as opposed to parallel devices are slow by nature and draw power from the computer (no power jack is necessary). All my external devices which I paid a fortune including to Imation needed separate power supply. Companies that produce them are: 1. Western Digital
2. Seagate
3. Samsung
4. Toshiba
5. Adata
6. Sandisk
7. Imation (gone bust I believe)
8. Hitachi All my hard disks are working (having used many a times, to boot
Linux and for Data and erased many a times in that process using
Gparted of Linux) except one portable Sandisk which I paid a lot. Sandisk's internal connection to USB 3 broke. There
was bad metal connection inside it (with all my portable data Lost),
that connects to the USB 3 connection wire (and then to the PC). I do not recommend it. SSD stands for Solid Sate Device with no moving parts for flash memory. NVMe stands for Non Volatile Memory Express only for PC with PCIe slot in the mother board. I think MMe means multimedia multiplexing environment and not a hard disk type. This slot in the motherboard is used in earlier designs of
computers for graphic cards to support faster data transfer but now is
used by NVMe. In old computers the RAM was limited to 1 GB RAM (32 bit
computers) and graphic was dedicated to a graphic cards to save RAM
memory and did not heat up when running. Please do not accept a 32 bit computer even, if it is given free. They are Energy Vultures and consume lot of electricity. GPU means Graphic Processing Unit. In old computers only the CPU was running hot and needed a heat sink and fans running, all the time to cool the computer. When I was running 13 computers (32 bit) in our home network,
three of them caught fire when the temperature was hovering around 85 to
90 Fahrenheit. Of course few of the Cathode Ray Tubes of TVs caught fire,too. When these things happened, I started using thermometers for my pet fish tanks outside and they die at 84 Fahrenheit. I stopped keeping fish in fish tanks altogether. Wild fires in Canada and Australia are natural outcomes which Oil Ministers all over the globe ignored for over 70 years. The new CPUs and GPUs are all integrated in thin wafer circuits
all into one motherboard and they consume more energy than old PCs and
without heat sinking measures, they are too hot to handle. In cold countries with heating bills going up playing a game in a
box is a quick way to go to sleep with warmth (heat) to cushion you. My PC has only PCI slots. eMMC means embedded Multi Media Card and the controller system. All the gadgets in this world contribute to global warming from production line to the user base at home. Blaming only cars and vehicles is barking at the wrong tree. The vehicles at least deliver goods. What is the contribution of computers to the alleviation of hunger and poverty in the Globe (that Coronavirus has exposed us)? Coming to Steam Deck and Dock. I have to make a few early observations to counteract, mostly negative remarks. I played my first game with kids with Atari. Coming from a generation where children's toys were baby dolls
and motorized cars with hard to manipulate remote controllers, DOS video
games were master stroke in history of children games. I must say I and my adult friends played them more than the kids. For kids the games were passing stage of their childhood development. But Disney Game on Lion King had a lasting impact. Lion king was a classic film for kids and adults. Playing golf was painful in.Atari. Myself a good snooker and billiard player playing a billiard game on cellphone is very painful to say the least. One needs applied mathematics brain to workout the game strategy
and lot of skill and practice to go with it, to pot a billiard ball (not
pools). I used to beat British guys in UK and they see this little guy
from Ceylon humble them in billiards and snooker (mind you I did not
play with professional guys or in clubs). Actually I win my post (out of 60 odd candidates) in a selection
interview by asking the interview board, is there a snooker table in the
hospital. If they ask why, my ready made answer is I could practice playing
snooker while I wait for a patient to arrive from a distance or kill my
time practising alone till midnight. Waking up from sleep to answer a call is very annoying and miserable thing. But I was good at cat naps. Watching TV or sipping beer was not my way and I never sip a
drink when on call and absolute concentration is necessary in critical
care. With that background playing games with PlayStation with only two
games with the first buy was sucking dollars and pounds from poor
parents. My son stop playing PlayStation in less than two months. My daughter loved reading and that also fiction. Me a reader in Science and Technology. I cannot find four partners to play Bridge now but I play Bridge using a cellphone. I try to improve my game. Bottom line is boys love playing video games but only a few girls play video games. The Coronavirus has made girls to join the Band Wagon of video games. That is a good thing but ignore their comments about Steam Deck and Dock. Mind you, these guys come from Windows and Apple background and does not know what is Linux. The current Linux 15 Kernel can handle many graphic cards, if the
O.E.M. guys volunteer their specifications to the Linux developers. Equally they have some game boxes from childhood that they have
Pathological Attachment (term pathology has disease connotation here) to
those devices.They are all biased in their opinions and they are not
comparative or balanced. I see Steam Deck 2 coming in the future since old guys like me have visual problems to counter and I prefer a very BIG Display. Coronavirus has added lot of grannies and grand dads playing Steam Games. The joystick and touch pads will improve coordination problems,
especially after mild form of stroke and if, I am one of the directors
of the hospital, I would order some Steam Deck and Dock items for both
children and geriatric patients. So if you are philanthropist please keep my above observation as a reference point. Steam should focus the global nature of games. If we can cut down on the pills and if Steam contributes to that
goal, even a little childhood fancy game played by a sick adult is a
bonus to recovery. It is very big thing! Back to home for recuperation. It has a relatively big display screen which is touch sensitive. This display is not BIG enough for my age. It has both touch pad and two joysticks. It has SD card ports to upgrade capacity but playing with SD card is not an option. SD card slows the system. It has Linux OS (Steam OS 3) and probably latest KDE plasma, I guess. Mind you it is coming in December and book now. There is no crowd sourcing and it has got capital from Steam Machine sales in the years gone by. Steam Valve is the operating company. It is a standalone PC for a work desk. Since it is a PC one can install 1. Windows 10 or 11 with Steam running on top of Windows. 2. It can run on any Linux distribution that supports Steam
(since Steam is Linux almost all Linux distributions support it but one
has to purchase Steam games). 3. Why not run on its own Steam OS 3 and enjoy 50,000 games you will never finish in a life time? It has Photon which is modified Wine that runs Windows games on Linux box. It is a Three In One Game Box. It has AMD CPU Zen and AMD RDNA GPU. What a nice combination to beat Intel architecture owned by Lenova in China. It beats, IBM based of Lenova in China by a big margin. It has ports in the dock for all the connectivity and WiFi connection off the dock. No need of PS5 of Sony and XBox of Microsoft. Linux is the winner after all. The best buy in the market today. I have a Console of a Cheap Chinese made Copycat in which I could not not play a single game. I paid a big sum in Rupees. It's keyboard could not type my 18 digit alpha numeric password for WiFi connectivity to download new games. I tried even in French Keyboard but failed. So do not buy cheap Chinese stuff. Chinese alphabet is a graphic design not alphanumeric like the English Keyboard. Luckily the computer software and hardware are based on the English keyboard for instructions. It can be hacked but not easily duplicated in China. That is why they are developing Kline OP in China. The Chinese are very bad in typing English and Linux Code. If not for American's base in Taiwan and British in Honk Kong
Chinese ambition to go to Mars bypassing the Van Allen Belt is only a
daydream. They are number one Copycats on this planet.
