Rick's b.log - entry 2025/08/08

Wednesday

Enid is, somehow, even perkier.

Enid being adorable.
Wednesday season 2; © 2025 Netflix.

Wednesday's scathing sarcasm leaves no casualties.

Having dealt with French bureaucrats.....no comment!
Wednesday season 2; © 2025 Netflix.

And tell me Tim Burton is involved without telling me Tim Burton is involved.

Is that Helena Bonham-Carter there on the right? 😂
Wednesday season 2; © 2025 Netflix.

Given that she was pretty instrumental is "saving the school", Wednesday now has a fan club and celebrity. I'm sure you can imagine how utterly thrilled she is by that.

Isn't it strange how the right person at the right time is exactly the right Wednesday. Try to imagine who might have been chosen had this been made a decade ago. Who would they have got to play the part? Taylor Momsen with a wig in her fledgling goth transition? It wouldn't have been right.

LibreOffice in proper English

So you click on the Tools menu, choose Options, expand Languages and Locales of the dialogue that appears, choose General and finally you see it, the option to alter the User Interface.

Only... "English (USA)" is the only option. Well, it makes sense, don't want to clutter up everybody's harddiscs just for us purists who insist upon the correct way of spelling words like aluminium.

No problem, just go to the Software Manager and download a language pack, right?

Good luck with that.

But we can try searching on the command line, it's probably quicker than waiting for the Software Manager to update its cache again.

First, let's see what's there:

apt search libreoffice

It will think for a few moments and then it'll spit out loads of entries. There's a lot of stuff, so can we narrow it down any?

~$ apt search libreoffice | grep gb
v   libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb  -                                           
p   libreoffice-help-en-gb          - office productivity suite -- English_briti
p   libreoffice-l10n-en-gb          - office productivity suite -- English_briti
~$

Okay, it is clipped at the screen width, but whatever, we have something in British (en-gb) but lion? Sure, that's the unofficial flag of England, three of 'em, but what does a lion have to do with anything?

Well, it's actually ell-ten-en (l 10 n) which is a rather tedious shorthand for "localisation" (with or without a 'z'), meaning "it starts with 'l', ends with an 'n', and has ten letters in between - localisation. Yes, it's really that daft.

Now we know what we're looking for, it can be installed.

If you are unsure, you can use this for lots of information about the package.

~$ apt show libreoffice-l10n-en-gb

But since we have deduced from the name that it's the localisation files, we can just go ahead and install it.

~$ sudo apt install libreoffice-l10n-en-gb

It has to download about 106MB of files to update some of the bits of LibreOffice, and an additional ~4MB of files for language specific things.

And then, it'll spell stuff correctly on-screen. ☺

Android's default printing is still bollocks

Then go to Administration and select the Share printers connected to this system option. Then click on Change settings to make it so.
CUPS will restart, and the browser will fail to fetch anything. Don't panic, count to ten slowly and then refresh the page, it'll be there.

Setting the print server options.

Now click on Administration again, and then on Manage printers. Your printers will appear.

Seeing the available printers.

• The same printer appears twice in this picture. This is intentional. The long-name one is automatically detected when it is plugged in, and is given a basic "driverless" setup. It works, but... the short-name one was manually added and Linux searched for an appropriate driver and installed it (you can see the difference under the "Make and model" column). This allows for additional options such as choosing a better output quality than the standard Normal or Draft options. I have it set to FastRes 1200 which offers good looking output.

If you let the mouse hover over a link, it'll show you the full URL to the printer. For other devices that are difficult <cough>Android</cough> you might need to provide this swapping "localhost" for the machine's IP address, though this is no guarantee.

Now, the printers appear as expected in Service browser. They are being advertised over mDNS and are present on the local network. Note that the inkjet is not shared from Linux as it supports WiFi itself so can be directly reached.

Everything is showing up in Service Browser.

Unfortunately, when you go to the absolutely rubbish System printing service, it may or may not find the printer...

Like magic, it appears.

...and when you go to use it, it may or may not actually stay active and present. I have only once managed to print something to the printer from Android using the System printing service.

Easy come, easy go.

My personal theory for this is that Android expects you to share with a specific printer app so the default print service is pitiful. Indeed, you can only actually use it with apps that have a specific Print option. Often these days, you're expected to print by sharing the file directly to the printer app for your printer; which isn't a bad thing as many third party apps allow all sorts of additional things such as moving/scaling/rotating the print before actually doing it, thus providing a pretty good preview of what you'll get.

There is a workaround, thankfully, just install the Mopria print app. This might take a while to find the printer, but when it does it'll work. Additionally, since it's an app, you can share to it so it'll work everywhere including when there's no specific Print option.

Note that I experienced the same behaviour on a Samsung S9 with Android 8/SamEx 9, a Xiaomi Mi 10T with Android 10/MIUI 12, and a Redmi Note 12 Pro with Android 13/MIUI 14. So it's not a weird implementation in one device, it's just Google's lack of giving a crap, rather like how woeful hardware keyboards are at dealing with accented characters on an English QWERTY keyboard, something Windows and RISC OS alike had sorted in the early '90s - yes, three and a half decades ago.

And by way of demonstrating how utterly rubbish Android's default print service is, I fired up the old iPad running an ancient iOS 7 and told it to print a picture, selecting A5 paper size so it didn't burn through all of my toner. It did, no problems at all.

Printing from iOS.

To give you an idea of why these blog posts take so long to create, asides from my attention span being useless... well as we know iOS doesn't allow you to zip files around using Bluetooth like practically everything else on the planet. So I tried plugging it into Linux, and I got stuck in a loop of asking if I trust this computer, and it just wouldn't go away.
Now, you might think that the sensible thing would be to just upload the file directly to my server. Well, Apple was quite late in adopting SNI, which is necessary these days now that just about everything is using TLS so the server needs to know what site you're actually trying to connect to at the point of starting the encrypted session, way before the HTTP request where it is usually given.
Without that, https servers on a shared host (that is to say, the vast majority of them) just won't work any more. I cannot connect to heyrick.eu using my iPad.
If I could, it probably wouldn't work anyway as the TLS is too old, and also the trust chain is broken as it doesn't recognise modern certificates. Apparently the certificate recognition is quite an issue with iOS judging by forum comments I came across.
I could fetch mail from heyrick.eu (OVH), but sending it failed. Of course, being iOS, it didn't give anything even remotely resembling a reason why.
Eventually I managed to email the picture to myself using a mailbox set up a long time ago by a friend (thanks, Mick!). It complained regularly about a certificate error, but at least it had a "Continue" option so I could use the server.
In this SSL/TLS https world, an iOS 7 device is basically a shiny placemat. It's a shame as the hardware still works, the display is still vivid, the battery even holds a good charge all this time later. But the firmware? Not up to scratch any more.

Oh, and that "Food safety" thing you can see in the screenshot? That's something mom took a screenshot of back in July 2019. That was, pretty much literally, the very last thing she looked at using this device - which was her portal to the internet. I swiped through a few more photos and screenshots and, well, I could have done without all of those memories right now...

Speaking of mom:

Mom vindicated

Mom wondered if it was specifically some version of Imidazole, but actually there's a huge list of chemicals with "azole" somewhere in the name. They are widely used as antifungals. It's not just that mom was wearing wellies too long and her feet objected, it is used in perfume, in washing machine liquid - the reason I used to buy pre-dosed capsules even though the dose is often more than is actually necessary is purely habit - I had to use them for mom even when handwashing because they don't need to contain the antifungal due to being sealed until dissolved.

I recently went to the supermarket to get some more of the 2-in-1 liquid that I use (bamboo and cherry blosson), and it seems they don't make that any more, so I got a bright pink green tea and cherry blossom one that...smells more like bubblegum to me. Anyway, I saw this on the label.

This product has no Methylisothiazolinone in it.

Because these days, we know that products such as Methylisothiazolinone are allergens and simply pushing a button to get a washing machine, already fine-tuned to use as little water as it can, to perform and extra rinse cycle just isn't going to cut it. The only option is not to use this stuff in the first place.

Which sounds to me like vindication.

Lidl rechargeable batteries

Charging the batteries in the kitchen.

I got that, along with two packs of AA cells (8 in total) and two packs of AAA cells (8 in total), also actually cheaper than branded batteries of the same size.
The AA cells are rated 2500mAh and the AAAs are 1000mAh (far better than the 550mAh weaklings in my walkie-phone handset). Being NiMH cells, their rated output is 1.2V though I measured 1.39V for the AAs and 1.37V for the AAAs when fully charged.

I plan to mostly use these in torches, and a little LED light bar that is by my bed. This time of year I use the light bar dimmed down in my room at night. I don't want to use anything more powerful as my window is open and too much light would attract bugs. Plus don't need it that much, as the days are long. It's not like winter when the desk lamp will be on - if I'm in my room - from like 5pm until bedtime...

A cup of batteries.

Now let's void the warranty and look inside. What is inside is pretty much exactly what I expected. And note that it uses those lump-in-the-middle flat-head screws which is rather ridiculous given that I purchased this charger from Lidl, which is the exact same place I purchased a ratchet screwdriver set that includes exactly the right piece to undo those sorts of screws. This is only really doing to defeat somebody so dumb they think screws can be undone using a steak knife...

This is what is inside.

There are four main parts. The first is the power conditioning circuitry by the USB input. Then there's the control and conditioning circuitry for each battery. The positive side is common but there's a different negative for each size of battery - the difference being the AA is connected to -ve and the AAA is connected to that via a resistor (because the AAs can charge at 500mA but the AAAs want 200mA), and that's then connected to the microcontroller by way of another resistor and a capacitor so it can detect when there's something to charge.
It is all controlled by some sort of microcontroller that has no markings whatsoever. Note there's an NTC temperature sensor next to the chip.
Finally, in order to keep costs down, the LCD panel is a separate unit with its own microcontroller (a Chinese TM1621B which is a software controllable multi-purpose LCD driver with 34×4 bits of display RAM) that is controlled by the main microcontroller using a serial connection of some sort. This means that the display only needs four wires (power, ground, serial data, clock) rather than however many it would take otherwise.

The charging works by monitoring the charging voltage, and then using a small drop in voltage (it's around 5mV) to know when charging has finished - the box says "Minus Delta U", but what they really mean is -δV which is that specific drop, as shown in this diagram that I threw together.

Keep chucking power into the cell until the voltage drops slightly, that's how it says it is full.

Charging is pretty slow, quoted at around 5h for AAA and 7h for AA, although using a single USB input from a 2A power pack (not supplied), how much can be pushed into each cell will likely depend upon how many are inserted. 2A for eight cells is only 250mA each, assuming nothing at all taken by the charger itself (which is obviously rubbish but it keeps the maths simple). That being said, dumping too much into an NiMH too quickly is a good way to ruin it. Slower is better.
It is also fully independent, you can freely place any number of cells (up to 8 in total) in any slot in any mixture of AAs and/or AAAs. It's not one of those chargers that needs identical types paired.

AI album art

Because I was looking for artwork for albums, I had different aesthetics compared to regular image creation. A lot of this was added afterwards using my mobile phone's image editor.

The first example is the girl sitting under the tree. It proved next to impossible to get the AI to have her holding a cup of tea at the same time, and with the need to pretend to watch a minute's worth of advertising for sodding Temu each and every generation, I wasn't going to put too much effort into it. This photo looked pleasing enough. She's a little younger than I was aiming for, but points for looking like a teenage Clara Oswald.
I removed the watermark as being clipped to 1:1 aspect would chop it in half. With some measure of irony, my phone's photo editor has an AI option that will analyse selected things to remove them, so I just needed to drag my finger around the watermark. It looked for what was different, selected it, and replaced it filling in the holes in a reasonably convincing manner.
I then used the bokeh option to throw the background a little more out of focus. This was another AI editing option that determined what was in the foreground (the girl) and appears to have also worked out that the tree is closer so gets less blurring.
I then lightened the image slightly using the exposure setting, and added a touch more saturation. Finally, I added in some grain in order to make the picture look more like it was taken from a photograph.

Peacefully reading under a tree.

I got absolutely nowhere trying to get the AI to understand a ruined and neglected school playground. I tried various different ways of phrasing it but nothing looked right. In the end I settled for this sort-of-urban image. There's no watermark to worry about because the 1:1 cropping clipped it off.
I played with the exposure and contrast to try to get something a lot bolder, an almost chiaroscuro vibe. Then I pushed up the saturation for effect.

There's just something a little off about this place.

Finally, for the introvert song, the one lone guy standing in a city when everybody else is motion-blurred. Again the watermark had to go because for this one I pushed hard. Bokeh to blur the background (and then selecting the guy so the AI knew what I wanted to leave unblurred) and then that was cranked right up to max. Next, saturation. Not quite max, as it got weird, but as far as it could go without suffering mathematical oddities. Add a spot of contrast and pull down the darks a touch and it is, to my mind, a pretty good allegory for one guy alone in the noise and chaos of a city.

Been there, felt that...

Likewise, not pictured here, the metal band had the black level adjusted down for more ambience (that chiaroscuro thing again), the background flames bokeh-blurred slightly, and lights/saturation pushed to make the flames stand out more. Remember, I'm not trying to make photos, I'm trying to make album covers that sort-of relate to the song and, in their own way, tell a story alongside the lyrics.

Yet more AI songs (9 (!) songs to download)

Chaos Constellation

Fragments shatter / Black winds churn / Crimson echoes / Planets burn
Vortex spirals / Venomous tide / Whispers fracture / Stars collide...

Eternal Abyss

It is also worth noting that the 'feel' of this song is quite different to the others, not just because it is notably darker but also because at long last Suno finally delivered something in 6 4 time rather than the 4 4 that practically everything else is written in.

• For those who aren't so familiar with music structure, if you listen for the most emphasised beat in a piece of music (it's easier with pop/rock as the drums guide you), you can count off one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four and you'll notice that important things, starts of lines, and so on almost always line up with the 'one'.
  This piece of music counts to six, which makes it feel rather different, especially compared to regular common time music.
  This isn't that unusual. While it is so usual to use 4 4 that it gets called "common time", many other time signatures exist. A waltz, for instance, is 3 4 (one, two, three, one, two, three...) and prog rock can do all sorts of weird and wonderful time signatures. And if you're Dream Theater, all of them in the same song!

Quantum Groove

Golden Alchemy

Yes... I'm enough of a nerd to enjoy a song about the chemistry of what happens when you take food and add fire.

Storm's Fury

A Whisper in the Dark

All of that aside, this is how I feel when I have to go to urban areas. Like, ugh, people.

Rain Revival

Shadows of the Playground

Under the Old Oak Tree

So there you have it. After twenty five AI generated songs, I think we can say that I create...

• Happy songs about tea (and croissants)
• Perky songs about nerdy sciencey things
• Over the top (power) metal songs about ridiculous things like rubber ducks and warrior kittens
• And everything else ticks whatever goth/emo/dark box you care to offer

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jgh, 10th August 2025, 00:46

LibreOffice in proper English:  On RISC OS, you'd just copy the !LibOffice.Resources.Trumpton file to !LibOfficeResources.UK and edit it. As it should be.

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