sizeof(cat)

Quake 2 Thunderdome - this time in video

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 23:12:51 +0000

Sorry, your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead.

You know about The Café’s Quake 2 Thunderdome by now, but the images don’t satisfy you? Well, in this case I got your back, here is a video to enjoy: the original demo was recorded on an iMac G5 (I played Quake 2 on it), converted into a movie by recording it in OBS on a MacBook Air, edited in Final Cut Pro on the same iMac G5 and transcoded into mp4 using Handbrake. The beginning is missing for a simple reason: in the heat of the moment, I forgot to start recording. Sorry about that :(

The end result is 13 minutes of blood and carnage. Enjoy.

Tim Cook must go

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:21:56 +0000

Controversial opinion, right? I mean, it’s not like the latest Apple design choices were out of the ordinary or just batshit-crazy, starting with the famous butterfly keyboard, or the famous Intel Core M-powered 12" MacBooks that struggled to even open Finder, or the one-USB-C per laptop meme that evolved into the two-USB-C per laptop meme, or the Touchbar meme, or the notch-gate, or Liquid Ass, or the orange iPhone that turned pink faster than Taylor Swift panties after a night in SoHo. 2014 to 2025, excepting the 2020 moment when Apple launched their own silicon, was funtime. For the people who used Windows, or heaven’s forbid … Linux.

No sir, Apple shifted from a hardware company into a services/subscriptions company and now is a fashion one. In an alternate universe I would be writing this shit on a watercooled Quad PowerPC G5 Powerbook while carrying the pump like a colostomy bag and enjoy every moment of it. In that universe I’d watch Jobs coming on stage with a baseball bat and proceed to smash the latest IBM-compatible to pieces, while Steve Ballmer chants “DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS” all coked out. But unfortunately I’m stuck in a worse universe, writing this on an iBook G4, because everything launched by Apple since 2015 has been plagued by the “creations” of people like Jonny Ive and Tim Cook, strangely, both of them some of the oldest Apple employees. Maybe Steve Jobs was a really good manager and could keep everybody in line, who knows. Or maybe he was supreme in fistfights.

And no, I’m not acting as if during Jobs’ time Apple didn’t had its share of “fun” times with GPU-gate of iBooks and Powerbooks, or the flaming balls of fire that Apple called (and re-called) “Powerbook batteries”. Or the iMacs that could be opened only with suction cups, after you got your very own degree in engineering. But the Apple of that time had some guts, while the Apple of today has Liquid Ass and the pink iPhone that’s actually orange; and I can’t for the love of God (or Allah) comprehend why Tim Cook lacks the power, or ability, or common sense as to do something different (and no, adding another notch to the laptops and call it a day doesn’t count, does the world really need a Dual Notch-Powered MacBook Pro?) and woo the market. Make us watch the next WWDC or whatever it’s called, with our eyes glued to the screen (see what I did there?) while crying like little bitches (but please, no more $7000 MacBooks). What would the Apple fanboys and fangirls do, buy an Asus with Windows 11 and preinstalled malware? No, they will not. The market is saturated with aluminium laptops and glass phones, so why don’t you give us a white polycarbonate MacBook Pro with proper USB-A ports AND HDMI AND MagSafe AND USB-C and Ethernet, Apple? Or make it out of pinewood, just stop with the aluminium, titanium, unobtainium and glass. Just stop.

On the other hand, let’s give Tim Cook lion’s share in growing Apple to the heights of today, I’m not saying “kick Tim in the teeth and fire him” because he did amazing things. For the shareholders. For the company. But absolutely nothing for Apple’s and his own legacy.

I don’t know, maybe I expected more from a company I used to love (both hardware and software) and now I dislike from the bottom of my heart (both hardware and software), maybe I expected modern macOS not to be a steaming pile of donkey turd, maybe I expected iPhones to have a battery that is useful for more than watching five TikToks, maybe I hoped Apple’s hardware wouldn’t turn into the closed ecosystems of today, where you can’t launch an app unless Tim Cooks knows your cock girth or pussy depth. And where you can’t install neither Windows (I know) not Linux (I double know) unless you jump through endless hurdles that will make you question your (in)sanity of buying this MacBook Pro that’s only Pro if you choose to stay under Apple’s umbrella. I mean, really, how do you get from “the fastest laptop in the world” to “the pinkiest orange phone in the world”? Maybe the same way we got from the original iPhone to antenna-gate and “it works if you hold it like this”?

And speaking of running other “authorized” operating systems on your… I mean Apple’s hardware, installing a Linux distro that’s “made” by some autist in his mom’s basement doesn’t count as actually doing something useful, positive or enhancing on your $3k+ machine. And neither is installing Windows for Arm in Parallels (even if Parallels is an amazing piece of machinery).

Maybe what I really need is this new Apple M(+1) silicon that’s almost 3% faster than the old M(-1) one (3% in ideal circumstances, with the CPU cores cooled by virgin blood and only singlecore benchmarks that are officially authorized by Apple™), and Tim Cook is right about everything. Just like Jonny Ive was right about everything, until he wasn’t anymore. Or maybe it’s something cyclical, we had the great Sculley era, the shitstorm that was Spindler era, the so-so Amelio era, the Jobs era and now it’s the return of the Spindler era, only named Cook.

But if someone wants the return of the old Apple versus PC “fights”, it looks as if there are no other solutions but the title of this article.

The Café's Fishy puzzle

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:10:07 +0000

Well, you probably know about The Café by now: it’s a private, invite-only community I have started on August 29, 2025, after being in development for about one month before. We currently have about 160 members so far, and we talk about various stuff (both on the Café and its dedicated IRC channel), we plan events and do puzzles. And the latest puzzle challenge was something I named Fishy and it involved virtual fishing in the Café’s wate… API for clues and secrets. The reward is a unique member title (<Master baiter>) for the first solver + a cool Café badge, and a different title (<Fisher>) + the same badge for everybody who solves it after.

I’ll let the one and only bonk tell you how the puzzle can be solved, since he’s the first to solve it, and therefore will be forever known in the Café annals as <Master baiter> bonk (because he baits masterfully and not for other reasons, you perverts!):

The puzzle started by sizeofcat hinting us by saying “There might be something Fishy here, if you’re looking for a puzzle :D” and linking us the Café badges page. The first clue was the 303th badge’s label that says: “Fishy says L2ZpbGVzL3tiYWl0LGZpc2h5fQ==”.
At first glance, you can see it’s base64. Decoding it reveals: /files/{bait,fishy}.
In bash and many other Unix(-like) shells that would expand to: /files/bait /files/fishy. These are probably files on this website, so bait, fishy.
Bait is a plain text file with the contents being: p6EHsgP79RMUOcanpt8qlUWHC36XaseC, fishy is a 403 - Forbidden page…
I have tried all kinds of things with the contents of bait to get past the 403; GET, POST arguments, HTTP authorization headers, cookies, I even thought it could be a PHP session id, nope.
Just a few days back we got our hands on the shiny new Café API, that gave me an idea…
I requested the API with controller=fishy, it was just a guess lol… and I hooked onto something…

$ curl -X POST https://sizeof.cat/cafe/ -d 'action=api' -d 'token=' -d 'controller=fishy'
{"version":"1.5.66","time":"Wed, 15 Oct 2025 20:09:31 +0000","message":{"error":true,"text":"Fishy demands secrets."}}

Hmm, fishy demands secrets? How about secret=p6EHsgP79RMUOcanpt8qlUWHC36XaseC?

{"version":"1.5.66","time":"Wed, 15 Oct 2025 20:10:32 +0000","message":{"error":true,"text":"Fishy doesn't know you."}}

I think about giving name as a POST argument, nope. username, uid, nope, nothing works. The only thing I noticed was that no matter what’s being passed in secret it would always say “Fishy doesn’t know you”.
Everyone was stumped. Every person on the IRC was losing their sanity (:D), saying things like “RAAAAAAH” non-stop, just see for yourselves:

2025/10/15 21:37:06 <bonkbonk> cat you bastard!!11!
2025/10/15 21:37:02 <sizeofcat> what? :D
2025/10/15 21:37:11 <Myrdincx> ARGHHH
2025/10/15 21:37:12 <Myrdincx> aJDODIAHODAHd
2025/10/15 21:38:24 <bonkbonk> RAAAAH
...
2025/10/15 21:42:27 <sizeofcat> new badge, count the number of "RAAAAH" in the irc channel
2025/10/15 21:42:35 <Myrdincx> fr
2025/10/15 21:42:38 <Myrdincx> RAHHH
2025/10/15 21:43:52 <bonkbonk> RAAAAAAAH
...
2025/10/15 21:45:19 <bonkbonk> https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=PL9iMPx9CpQ
2025/10/15 21:45:21 <bonkbonk> egggh
2025/10/15 21:45:23 <bonkbonk> fibsh
...
2025/10/15 21:55:49 <sizeofcat> i don't understand how you get onto a forbidden access page :D
...
2025/10/15 21:57:10 <sizeofcat> oooh, a change!
2025/10/15 21:57:17 <sizeofcat> no more RAAAAAAh?
2025/10/15 21:57:19 <rosetta> fking 403
2025/10/15 21:57:34 <bonkbonk> RAAAAAAAH
2025/10/15 21:57:25 <sizeofcat> haha
2025/10/15 21:57:26 <rosetta> RAAAH
2025/10/15 21:57:34 <rosetta> WHAT MEAN FORBIDDEN
2025/10/15 21:57:49 <rosetta> i deserve access im pure of heart
...
2025/10/15 22:07:44 <Myrdincx> fishy doesnt like me either :(
...
2025/10/15 22:14:11 <Myrdincx> Im not quite sure what type of secrets fishy demands..
2025/10/15 22:14:20 <Myrdincx> Ive tried all kinds of things
2025/10/15 22:14:35 <sizeofcat> well, you gave fishy the bait?
2025/10/15 22:14:38 <Myrdincx> yeah I did
2025/10/15 22:14:46 <Myrdincx> fishy didnt like my bait :(
...
2025/10/15 22:19:33 <Myrdincx> sizeofcat, fishy doesnt know me :(
2025/10/15 22:19:38 <sizeofcat> :(
...
2025/10/15 22:25:57 <Myrdincx> Im angry at fishy
2025/10/15 22:26:05 <Myrdincx> Ive tried to tell fishy who I am
2025/10/15 22:26:09 <Myrdincx> and he just doesnt care :')
2025/10/15 22:26:14 <Myrdincx> He still doesn't know who I am..
2025/10/15 22:27:58 <bonkbonk> sounds dramatic lol, "after all these years... fishy doesn't even know who i am..."
2025/10/15 22:28:29 <Myrdincx> Fishy demands secrets, I give him secrets (i dont know the secret) and fishy doesnt want to know me..
...
2025/10/15 23:55:48 <bonkbonk> this was the saddest attempt
2025/10/15 23:55:50 <bonkbonk> curl -X POST https://sizeof.cat/cafe/ -d 'action=api' -d 'token=' -d 'controller=fishy' -d 'secret=fishy please let me in'
2025/10/15 23:55:50 <bonkbonk> {"version":"1.5.66","time":"Wed, 15 Oct 2025 20:10:32 +0000","message":{"error":true,"text":"Fishy doesn't know you."}}
2025/10/15 23:55:56 <sizeofcat> haha

(also come join us on irc.libera.chat, channel ##cafe :D)

And then…

2025/10/15 22:52:15 <sizeofcat> oh, that was a big mistake on my side, the rights on the fishy file were not world read
2025/10/15 22:52:23 <sizeofcat> so, go and download the fishy file again :(

(It’s okay cat, everyone makes mistakes.)
So, finally we can move forward again… just until I saw the contents of fishy… It’s a file that’s exactly 300KiB with its contents being encrypted.
The first two things that I though to do were:

$ file fishy
fishy: data
$ file --mime-type fishy
fishy: application/octet-stream

Manually inspecting the start of the file also didn’t help… there is no header.
Here are some of my attempts on trying to read the contents of the file:

$ gpg --decrypt fishy
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
gpg: decrypt_message failed: Unknown system error
$ algorithms=({A LOT OF DIFFERENT ALGORITHMS IN ARRAY HERE}); for i in "${algorithms[@]}"; do openssl enc -d -in fishy -pass file:bait -$i -nosalt; done

Suddenly I remembered one of sizeofcat’s old posts. The file is exactly 300KiB, could it be a LUKS volume?

$ cryptsetup open fishy fish
Device fishy is not a valid LUKS device.

Stumped again.

2025/10/16 14:25:09 <bonkbonk> sudo cryptsetup open fishy fish
2025/10/16 14:25:09 <bonkbonk> Device fishy is not a valid LUKS device.
2025/10/16 14:25:20 <sizeofcat> doublebonk, you might be onto something there

This clue was what got me on the track. I then checked; the LUKS header itself is 2MB, so it couldn’t be LUKS. But I “was onto something”. Might it be Veracrypt then???
DING DING DING DING DING!!! I opened the container using p6EHsgP79RMUOcanpt8qlUWHC36XaseC as password. Before my very eyes I saw fishy’s beautiful readme.txt. It finally explained what exactly to pass in the secret POST argument.

API
http(s)://sizeof.cat/cafe/
ENDPOINT
index.php
PARAMS
action=api
token=
controller=fishy
secret=md5(sha256(bait)+token)
RESULT
enjoy fishy

Okay, bait = p6EHsgP79RMUOcanpt8qlUWHC36XaseC, token is your API access token from The Café, let’s say token = XYZ.
You can use coreutils from or your operating system or a website (sha256, md5).
sha256(bait):

$ echo -n p6EHsgP79RMUOcanpt8qlUWHC36XaseC | sha256sum
6e216b1f0ba01ae4001bd3d93f255d0820418205783290297551f8e6dc45a18e -

sha256(bait)+token = 6e216b1f0ba01ae4001bd3d93f255d0820418205783290297551f8e6dc45a18eXYZ.
md5(sha256(bait)+token):

$ echo -n 6e216b1f0ba01ae4001bd3d93f255d0820418205783290297551f8e6dc45a18eXYZ | md5sum
0c3901c1a6b86fba530c6c8d7f41f1be -

Now to only pass that as secret.

$ curl -X POST https://sizeof.cat/cafe/ -d 'action=api' -d 'token=XYZ' -d 'controller=fishy' -d 'secret=0c3901c1a6b86fba530c6c8d7f41f1be'
{"version":"1.5.70","time":"Thu, 16 Oct 2025 12:44:43 +0000","message":{"error":false,"text":"You caught Fishy!"}}

Finally. Fishy.

After solving the puzzle my way I received this message:

<sizeofcat> there is a secret parameter called bait with the contents fishy
<sizeofcat> you can pass that to the api
<sizeofcat> and there is a 1/5 chance it will reply you with a clue
<sizeofcat> try it :D
<sizeofcat> that's what i was saying "you need to bait the fish!"

curl -X POST https://sizeof.cat/cafe/ -d 'action=api' -d 'token=' -d 'controller=fishy' -d 'bait=fishy'
{"version":"1.5.70","time":"Thu, 16 Oct 2025 20:09:09 +0000","message":{"error":false,"text":"You missed Fishy, but you caught a Vera."}}

Oh. It was that easy…

Moral of the event: fibsh, RAAAAH and

2025/10/15 22:23:42 <Myrdincx> fuck this fish
2025/10/15 22:23:48 <Myrdincx> i dont like him
2025/10/15 22:23:59 <bonkbonk> FUCK THIS FISH

The whole thing was quite fun… The constant thinking and guessing about what could it be and how to open it connected the people on the IRC channel a little more.

Usenet on OS X in 2025

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 05:21:22 +0000

Short article because it’s pretty easy to get on the Usenet using OS X (Leopard, maybe even Tiger), regardless of current year: basically you need a subscription to a News account, a computer running OS X (doh) and a Usenet client.

The subscription part can be solved for free using the services provided by Eternal September: register for an account on their website, make a note of the username you choose and the password you receive in e-mail and you’re good to go.

Next you’ll need a computer running OS X, preferable PowerPC because why not, bonus chic points for PowerBooks or iBooks.

And the Usenet part is pretty easy too, depending on whether you like GUI or TUI applications, you can either go with Emacs or Pan, or a GUI application like Panic’s Unison. Beware of versions 2.0+, you cannot register them easily because they require a connection to Panic’s servers for that, but 1.8.1 is perfect for reading news from the comfort of OS X. Register it using 0001-0589-3106-0032 and you’re done.

The configuration for Eternal September’s New server is this:

Server name: news.eternal-september.org
Port : 119 (NNTP)
Port : 563 (encrypted connection NNTPS)

And since the TLS stack in OS X is so old you can only use the 119 port (no NNTPS). Add your username and password in the mix, make sure you configure Unison, add your signature, and have fun browsing Usenet like it’s 1995. Or something.

Huawei E3131 and friends, on OS X Leopard (PowerPC)

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 19:23:06 +0000

You know I said in this article “how I wish I could find a working PowerPC driver” for my Huawei E3131 3G modem? Well, today I decided to do another try and dig the old archives some more. I already had about 500Mb of drivers, all not working on PowerPC obviously, for various reasons (no ppc slice, using a newer version of IOKit, or simply won’t load), and today I think I went over 1GB of drivers and Huawei partner binaries and ISOs.

After patching so many kexts that my fingers went numb, I ran into a kext that looked promising, except it didn’t trigger anything when I plugged my Huawei E3131 modem in a USB port, which means the device definitions were wrong. So, I opened HuaweiDataCardACMData.kext/Contents/Info.plist and I added the three interface definitions for the E3131 modem, PCui interface and diagnostic interface. The modified kext file can be found here, archived.

<key>HUAWEI_1506_DIAG</key>
<dict>
 <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
 <string>com.huawei.driver.HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceBaseName</key>
 <string>HUAWEIMobile-</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceSuffixName</key>
 <string>Diag</string>
 <key>IOClass</key>
 <string>HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>IOProviderClass</key>
 <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
 <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
 <integer>1</integer>
 <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
 <integer>3</integer>
 <key>idProduct</key>
 <integer>5382</integer>
 <key>idVendor</key>
 <integer>4817</integer>
</dict>
<key>HUAWEI_1506_MODEM</key>
<dict>
 <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
 <string>com.huawei.driver.HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceBaseName</key>
 <string>HUAWEIMobile-</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceSuffixName</key>
 <string>Modem</string>
 <key>IOClass</key>
 <string>HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>IOProviderClass</key>
 <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
 <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
 <integer>1</integer>
 <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
 <integer>0</integer>
 <key>idProduct</key>
 <integer>5382</integer>
 <key>idVendor</key>
 <integer>4817</integer>
</dict>
<key>HUAWEI_1506_PCUI</key>
<dict>
 <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
 <string>com.huawei.driver.HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceBaseName</key>
 <string>HUAWEIMobile-</string>
 <key>HWInterfaceSuffixName</key>
 <string>Pcui</string>
 <key>IOClass</key>
 <string>HuaweiDataCardACMData</string>
 <key>IOProviderClass</key>
 <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
 <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
 <integer>1</integer>
 <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
 <integer>1</integer>
 <key>idProduct</key>
 <integer>5382</integer>
 <key>idVendor</key>
 <integer>4817</integer>
</dict>

To install this kext, unzip, copy the files to /System/Library/Extensions/ and load it using kextload.

$ unzip HuaweiDataCardACMData.kext.zip
$ sudo cp -R HuaweiDataCardACMData.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
$ sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/HuaweiDataCardACMData.kext
$ sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/HuaweiDataCardACMData.kext

If you plug the Huawei E3131 modem into an USB port (and if it has CD mode deactivated), new devices will appear inside /dev/:

ls /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile*
/dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Modem /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui

You can use minicom or screen to connect to the /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui port and issue AT commands to the modem, or you can configure OS X networking to use the /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Modem port to connect to the 3G network.

To configure networking, go to “System Preferences” -> “Network” -> “HUAWEIMobile-Modem”, put *99# as the phone number (or whatever your ISP gave you), click “Advanced” and select modem vendor as “Generic”, model as “GPRS GSM 3G” and APN as “internet” or “net” (depends on your ISP). Click OK or Apply and now you can connect successfully.

I don’t suggest you install the Mobile Partner software since it’s in Java and it starts very slow, but if you want that you can either install this package or just unzip this archive and copy Mobile Partner.app to /Applications (you will also need this Java library for serial comms). Your choice. It will automatically detect the modem if you installed my patched kext and will connect to your ISP network.

You can use screen or minicom to query the modem for capabilities, information, and to switch it from disk mode into modem mode (something a Linux-distro would normally do using the usb-modeswitch package).

$ ls /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile*
/dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui
$ screen /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui
AT^SETPORT="FF;10,12,16"
OK

The AT commands that can be issued to the modem can be found in this parent article.

Huawei E3131 and friends, on macOS Catalina (x64)

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:52:39 +0000

If you have an older Huawei E3131 3G USB stick and you want to use it, and you run macOS Catalina, you’re in for a wild ride. All the drivers you can find online will not work, and good luck trying to find anything on Huawei’s website.

The only working version of the Huawei E3131 modem driver I could find for macOS 10.15 “Catalina” (and I searched for weeks) is this one. All the drivers seem to be for older versions of macOS (32bit ones, how I wish I could find a working PowerPC driver) and for obvious reasons they won’t work on Catalina.

After installing the driver you don’t even need the bloated “Mobile Partner” software (if you find one that works) from Huawei and friends (ISPs usually re-brand the software using their own logos, colors and unneeded features), you can just pop in a SIM card, switch the device from disk mode to modem mode, plug the USB modem in and go to macOS’ “System Preferences” -> “Network”. A new device will be there, called “HUAWEI Mobile” or something similar, and you can use the *99# Telephone Number to dial using the modem.

$ ls /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile*
/dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui
$ screen /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui
AT^SETPORT="A1;10,12,16"
OK

Now if you exit screen and re-plug your modem, you’ll notice an obvious change:

ls /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile*
/dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Modem /dev/tty.HUAWEIMobile-Pcui

The USB modem is operational now, and you can dial *99# to establish a connection.

Getting version info using screen or minicom:

AT^VERSION?
^VERSION:BDT:Apr 10 2014, 14:10:47
^VERSION:EXTS:21.318.25.00.623
^VERSION:INTS:
^VERSION:EXTD:UTPS23.015.05.00.623_MAC23.015.05.00.623_LNX23.015.05.00.623
^VERSION:INTD:
^VERSION:EXTH:CH1E3531SM
^VERSION:INTH:
^VERSION:EXTU:E3131
^VERSION:INTU:
^VERSION:CFG:1004
^VERSION:PRL:
^VERSION:INI:
OK

Getting modem capabilities info:

ATI
Manufacturer: huawei
Model: E3131
Revision: 21.318.25.00.623
IMEI: <REDACTED>
+GCAP: +CGSM,+DS,+ES
OK

Switch the device into modem mode:

AT^SETPORT="A1;10,12,16"
OK

Check the device mode:

AT^SETPORT?
^SETPORT:A1;10,12,16
OK

List all the device modes:

AT^SETPORT=?
^SETPORT:1: MODEM
^SETPORT:2: PCUI
^SETPORT:3: DIAG
^SETPORT:10: 4G MODEM
^SETPORT:12: 4G PCUI
^SETPORT:6: GPS CONTROL
^SETPORT:13: 4G DIAG
^SETPORT:5: GPS
^SETPORT:A: BLUE TOOTH
^SETPORT:16: NCM
^SETPORT:A2: SD
^SETPORT:A1: CDROM
OK

As you can see, this modem has GPS capabilities, but in order to access the GPS data we need to add the GPS mode to the device (both GPS and GPS CONTROL flags), though I haven’t found a way to issue AT_OGPS commands and retrieve GSM data:

AT^SETPORT="A1;10,12,16,5,6"
OK

Be extra careful never to remove the PCUI (2) or 4G PCUI (12) flags from the device modes, else you won’t be able to connect to the modem via serial, anymore. Check the dialing configuration:

AT+CGDCONT?
+CGDCONT: 1,"IP","net","",0,0,0,0
OK

And you can also dial using ATDT *99#.

To send a SMS, switch into text mode first (press CTRL+ Z after you finished writing the message, to send it):

AT+CMGF=1
+CMGF: 1
OK
AT+CMGS="+97121234567"
> hello
+CMGS: 85
OK

To read your SMS messages, switch into text mode first (use all for all messages, rec read for read messages, rec unread for unread messages:

AT+CMGF=1
+CMGF: 1
OK
AT+CMGL="all",
+CMGL: 0,"REC UNREAD","+97121234567",,"25/10/01,10:42:50+12"
hello
OK

To read a specific SMS message, find its ID from the previous command (+CMGL: 0 line, 0 is the ID here) first:

AT+CMGR=0
+CMGR: "REC READ","+97121234567",,"25/10/01,10:42:50+12"
hello
OK

Get various information about the modem:

AT+GMI
huawei
OK
AT+GMM
E3131
OK
AT+GSN
<REDACTED>
OK

If you want to use the 3G modem on macOS Catalina only, and you need just the modem functions (no SD, GPS, CD), set the device modem to minimal (10 is modem, 12 is control interface port):

AT^SETPORT="FF;10,12"
OK

AT codes are fun, aren’t they?

Café Weekend - Round 1: Quake 2

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 10:50:04 +0000

The first event organized by the Café members after almost a month since launch of The Café, completed successfully! We launched our own Quake 2 server, everybody was invited to have fun on it, and on September 27, 20:00 UTC time we all got online to eat pizza (like there was time for that, lol), drink beverages, have fun, and definitely make a mess. Literally, I logged in hours after the event ended and I was greeted by the corpses and limbs of everybody who had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of a rocket launcher. We played the q2dm1 map for almost two hours, using various Yamagi Q2 clients, Fruitz of Dojo, GoG and Steam releases, etc, on both modern and retro hardware (I heard there were people playing on PowerPC machines, but their secret is safe with me).

To be honest I was expecting about 5 people on it (do people really know what Quake is nowadays?), but I was blown away by the participation, 28 people came online at various times during the deathmatch, to say hi and frag with us, with a peak of 21 people online at one time. We even managed to crash the server twice, once after about an hour of carnage and mayhem and another time near the end of the deathmatch.

I hope everybody had fun, including the beginners, who did an EXCELLENT job of holding out against way more experienced players and their fancy rocket jumps and railgunning.

The winner and all the Café participants got their new and shiny badges to certify their accomplishments, and hopefully a night to remember. And thank you Andrei for the excellent promo image and the badge design!

First 12 players on the scoreboard.

We have plans for doing this Café event monthly (with different games, as long as they are multiplayer) and we’re gathering suggestions for the next game. If you’re not already a member of The Café, you don’t even know what you’re losing.

Rectify that error on your part, and send me an e-mail with one reason why you should have a Café invite.

I’ll end this article with one of the speeches from Babylon 5, the Battle of the Line speech. Fans will know.

We continue to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy. They have not responded. We can therefore only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the human race.

In order to buy more time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our homeworld. We will not lie to you. We do not believe that survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle, will never come home. But, for every ten minutes, we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere.

No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of people but I ask you now, to step forward one last time, one last battle to hold the line against the night.

May God go with you all.

Thank you everybody, and see you next game!

Screenshots

The Quake 2 Thunderdome!

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 09:16:52 +0000

Remember, this is the grind, the battle royale between you and your mind, your body and the devil on your shoulders telling you this is just a game, this is just a waste of time, your opponents are stronger than you. Drown out the voice of uncertainty with the sound of your own heartbeat, burn away your self doubt with the fire that’s beneath you. Remember what you’re fighting for and never forget that momentum is a cruel mistress, she can turn on a dime with the smallest mistake, she is ever searching for the weak place in your armor, that one tiny thing you forgot to prepare for. So as long as the demon is hiding the details the question remains: IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? ARE YOU SURE?

And when the answer is YES, when you have done all you can to prepare yourself for battle, THEN it’s time to go forth and boldly face the enemy, the enemy within. Only now you must take that fight into the open, into hostile territory. You are a lion in a field of lions, all hunting the same elusive pray with a desperate starvation that says VICTORY is the only thing that can keep you alive. So believe that voice that says that “you CAN run a little faster”, and “you CAN throw a little harder”, and that, for you, the laws of physics are merely a suggestion.

On September 27, 2025 20:00 UTC time, The Café gang will attempt to organize several Quake 2 deathmatches (no teamplay) on our own Quake 2 server, for glory or shits and giggles. Everybody is invited to join us in our attempt to have fun killing ourselves in various and innovative ways (just kidding, we’ll mostly die due to failed rocket jumps and grenading the walls).

The Café members will get a shiny new badge to wear with pride (and prejudice), and while the participation is not mandatory, the badge will certify their valiant effort in stopping the Strogg… I mean the Cafégg. In the end we’ll all be Knights of the Shiny Railgun!

If you want to join us, you will need a Quake 2 client (Windows, Linux, BSD, macOS, OS X), the Café Quake 2 server address, 46.226.105.97:27910 (“multiplayer” -> “join network server” -> “address book” and fill that in, IP:PORT format) and about an hour of your free time. Server is running Yamagi Q2 and the map will be q2dm1 because it’s the best-known and the most balanced. You don’t need to do this retro-style on your grandpa’s “computer”, but bonus style points for original Quake 2 CDs, Pentium machines, CRT screens and Pamela Anderson wall posters. Or Nick Carter posters, we ain’t judging here. Tryhards not welcomed!

So, prepare the beer, peanuts, pizza or whatever food-for-the-soul you enjoy, chug some Redbulls, pop that old Pantera casette in your tape deck for extra energy, send the kids to sleep, brush up your Quake 2 skills, wear your id Software t-shirt and practice your rocket jumps.

Campers beware, they will be hunted down and gibbed, or even teabagged. There will be no winners, only exhausted people.

If you’re not familiar with Quake 2 yet (heathens!), it’s just like CounterStrike only better.

Let the games begin!!

The Café is alive (and in beta)

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:40:39 +0000

Welcome to The Café, a private invite-only community which tries to revive the old-school communities of the ’00s in a smaller and not-bloated package.

This will not be a long post, but I wanted to announce that The Café is alive starting today, August 29, 2025. If you don’t know what The Café is, read my previous article about it, feast your eyes on some screenshots from the development blog or read my notes.

Since we’re talking about an invite-only community, you will need an invite to sign up for an account. I sent the first “beta” wave of invites to some of the people who e-mailed me about it, but the people who wrote on my guestbook will have to send me an e-mail (because there is no other way I can contact them) so I can send an invite code back. Please do that.

People who are interested in joining The Café should e-mail me, because now it’s the biggest chance to get an invite, later on, they will be really scarce.

The rules of the Café are plain and simple:
- Don't annoy the other participants.
- Don't discuss politics.
- Don't intentionally bait people.
- Don't share your account, I will know and you will lose it.
- Linking to questionable content (you know what I'm talking about, image-wise) will definitely get you in trouble.
- Don't act like drama queens.
- Try not to advertise your Patreon, Twitch, Onlyfans, Pornhub, TikTok, etc, so much that it becomes annoying,
therefore getting in conflict with rule number 1. Feel free to advertise your personal website as much as you
want, though. No, your Youtube channel is not your personal website.
- If in doubt about anything, always ask.
That's it, enjoy.

Start a new private community?

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 06:17:21 +0000

Would my website visitors (and friends) be interested if I start a new private (invite-only) community, on this website? Topic would be anything worth your time (and mine): retro hardware, old Internet, Windows/Linux/macOS stuff, old software, music, movies, self hosting, solar, cyberpunk, promote your websites and ideas, personal projects, as long as it’s not politics and intentional baiting.

No identifiable data will be saved, no logs kept (spam would be pointless since the community would be private, and spamming would get your account removed anyway), I’m thinking about having a mandatory e-mail field on sign-up because I might want to contact you for explanations instead of just nuking your account. I won’t use the e-mail address for anything except that, no confirmations, validations, newsletters, spam, and after creating your account you can change it to something like a@a.com if you’re not interested in future e-mail conversations with me. Nobody else will see your e-mail address and if you change it after creating your account, the original address is no longer visible anywhere, or saved in any logs or databases.

I’m not interested in bringing phpBB or Discourse bloat into this, it will be a custom-made PHP8 “script” with nothing but categories, topics, replies and profiles. Data will get saved into a SQLite database, similar to the guestbook script. Since my website is pretty much compatible with most of the old web browsers anyway (except those that don’t like SVGs), the community part would be (and should be) browseable and usable on older machines too.

No files/images uploads, topics and replies would be Markdown-only with images and any HTML code stripped out. Keeping it as simple as possible.

Does it sound good? Bad? Insane? Batshit insane? Write me an e-mail if you want, or write in my guestbook about it.

ICQ in 2025, on OS X and PowerPC

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 21:21:01 +0000

Running an ICQ client on your PowerPC machine (and OS X 10.1+), in 2025, is not really that hard considering the ICQ network has been shut down since 2024. Download the last version (3.4.23) of ICQ available for OS X and PowerPC architecture, and install it. The nina.chat people are nice enough to provide access to an ICQ service that will allow you to use the old clients. Problem is that you need to patch the server address inside your ICQ client, basically, all occurences of .icq.com will need to be changed into .nina.bz.

Open the /Applications/ICQ/ICQ 3.4 binary in a hex editor and look at offset 0x3EB926. Replace icq.com with nina.bz, do the same thing for the offset 0x3F2DED. Save the file and now your old ICQ client will work over the ICQ service provided by nina.chat.

Same thing can be achieved from a Terminal window using xxd:

$ cd /Applications/ICQ
$ cp "ICQ 3.4" "ICQ 3.4_backup"
$ echo 003EB926: 6E 69 6E 61 2E 62 7A | xxd -r - "ICQ 3.4"
$ echo 003F2DED: 6E 69 6E 61 2E 62 7A | xxd -r - "ICQ 3.4"

Enjoy ICQ.

Workspace: Leopard

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:25:21 +0000

Anniversary - 10 years of website

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 01:15:09 +0000

December 6th, 2025 is the anniversary of 10 years since the first article was published on my website, and I think a little bit of “history” is welcomed, to pinpoint the major website redesigns that this website went through with during those 10 years. This is a long-ish article with personal info, some stories, bits and pieces of the “legacy” around my website. If you’re not interested in that, you can definitely skip it because you’re not losing much. Near the end of the article you’ll be able to feast on some charts generated from the visitor data of one randomly-selected month.

Design and re-design(s)

2015
2017
2019
2021
2024
2025

2015

In 2015 I started this website, with the idea of having a place on the Internet where I can write about my experiences with various mobile operating systems (I used to work on both Tizen and Firefox OS), with a little bit of security audits sprinkled inbetween. That year I started working on Hoshi but I didn’t had the foresight to keep a development log. Or maybe I didn’t imagine it going so far, to a fully-usable custom operating system (it did start as a bootloader, though). The website was generated by Hugo from Markdown source files (it still is).

During 2015 I’ve been writing mostly about ways to interact, modify and play with Tizen and its development devices, Samsung’s RD-210 and RD-PQ. My main machine used to be an Apple MacBook Air 11", the 2012 all-pimped-out variant (2.0 GHz dual-core i7 CPU, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) that I still use in 2025. Cor blimey, ’s reem, innit?

The dominant colors for the 2015 website design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked:

At the end of 2015, the total content on this website was:


Total words	3,636
Total articles	6

2017

No idea why I thought compressing the main website body in a 480 pixels-wide div, would be a great idea. It wasn’t. During 2016-2017 I’ve been writing still about Tizen, as well as more security-related articles.

For a while I had the _@sizeof.cat e-mail address and boy, even though it’s a valid e-mail address, it was impossible to use it for anything. So I got a Riseup invite from Micah and this is the e-mail I’m still using today. I think between 2018 and 2025 I gave more than 50 Riseup invites for free, to people who just asked. Just the way things should be, free.

The dominant colors for the 2017 website re-design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked:

At the end of 2017, the total content on this website was:


Total words	12,761
Total articles	30

2019

In 2019 a full website re-design was in order because I got bored of the old layout, which was way too simple for my taste. It’s this design that I still work with in 2025, improving it. I removed all the Webmention support because it was pointless to have people commenting with emojis to my content. Felt cheap and stupid.

The dominant colors for the 2019 website re-design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked:

2014 was the time I started working on Firefox OS and its development devices, Flame and GeeksPhone Peak, but content-wise I didn’t write on the website about this subject until 2018. In 2019 I started writing one of my most-beloved pages, “Favorite films”, that I’m still updating to this day. Also, 2019 saw the start of the “Life and death” series, which was a more serious way to tackle philosophical issues. At the end of 2019, the total content on this website was:


Total words	25,929
Total articles	63

2021

2021 was the year I decided I needed to have my very own social media microsite (initially called so.cl), and implementing that in a static website powered by Hugo was a feat. The search function was developed using a not-so-small JSON file which contained all the content of the website, and allowed a JavaScript function to search through it. Optimal for a small website, not OK for a large one with lots of content.

That year I decided on two colors that will represent my website “branding” for the future, which would be #5550ed and #ed1980 . ed is from “Ed, Edd n Eddy”, a cartoon from my childhood, 1980 represents an year (and an era) when the world was very different from today and 555 is a well-known integrated circuit that is used in “pulse” generation. Pulse is life.

At the end of 2021 I had to move web hosting from Exoscale to Njalla because Twitch (actually their parent company, Amazon) complained to Exoscale about a security audit I did on the 2021 Twitch Leaks, and for a Switzerland-based company, Exoscale sure was quick to give me the boot. Amazon complained to Njalla too, and threatened their ISP with a lawsuit over not cutting access to my website, but things calmed in the end.

The dominant colors for the 2021 website re-design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked:

During 2020-2021 I wrote the most music album reviews, also, in 2021 I wrote the best-known article on my website, “Web Browser telemetry - 2021 edition”, and it’s still quoted to this day even though in 2025 I wrote an updated version of it. In 2020 I started working on the largest article so far, with over 40k words now. At the end of 2021, the total content on this website was:


Total words	10,4671
Total articles	154

2024

In 2022 I built my first (and only) terrarium and started working with bonsai (I still do that). The South Korean Police asked me nicely to remove a torrent file of the Samsung leak of that year (2022), but I politely declined.

In 2024 I drastically altered the theme and while initially I was pretty happy with the result and the color scheme, it turned out not to be such a great idea. I heavily dislike dark color schemes (except terminal ones, where I use Monokai mostly) and the website was pretty rough on my eyes (and I’m sure some visitors complained about it too). The “old” so.cl section got renamed to notes because I felt like the name conflicted with the so.cl social media website created by Microsoft, long gone by 2024 anyway.

I replaced the original search functions with Pagefind, better suited to search in the powerhorse that turned out to be the notes section, with over 2.5k entries. And I removed all traces of IndieWeb tags because I didn’t want (and I still don’t) to be associated with them and their community.

This re-design featured the tab-favicon-changing shenanigans that so many people complained about. It’s still implemented but no longer features the FBI, NSA, FSB, SVR and Mossad favicons.

No other major functions were added to the website, but the re-design sure took its time to be completed. Almost forgot that I participated in the 2024 Old Computer Challenge with my Nokia Booklet 3G retrobook and had lots of fun with the people involved, on IRC. After OCC, I returned to using a 2012 MacBook Air 11" as my main machine, coupled with a Nokia 808 PureView camera phone.

The dominant colors for the 2024 website re-design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked (the logo pumpkin was there for Halloween):

From 2021 to 2024 I really moved into writing about security, privacy and related issues, but I did continue writing about retro hardware and ways to unlock proprietary devices. At the end of 2024, the total content on this website was:


Total words	226,515
Total articles	305

2025

2025 is the year my website returned to the original color scheme with small adjustments, while the layout of the website was more optimized for mobile browsing (yes, I know). I eveb removed some content from the website.

A simple guestbook written in PHP, which stores its data in a SQLite database, was added to the website, because I got so many e-mails over the years where people just wanted to say hi, and it felt like a guestbook is more suited for this kind of content.

Since I removed lots of content from the website, the word count dropped drastically and I was able to return to the initial website search, featuring Lunr and a simple JSON file. Simple is always good. I skipped the 2025 Old Computer Challenge due to spiritual differences with some of the “people” in the community, and it was for the best because it turned out to be such a politics/pronounfest that split and destroyed everything.

The dominant colors for the 2025 website re-design were:

And this is how the frontpage of the website looked:

In 2025 I replaced my trusty Nokia Booklet 3G retrobook with an Apple iBook G4, and obviously I wrote a lot of articles (actually, a series) about my new old toy. I also bought myself an used Apple iPod Classic 4th generation and an used Apple iMac G5 17", planning to switch my main machine to the aforementioned iMac. I think I mentioned elsewhere that I used to be a big fan of Apple hardware and software (OS 9 and X used to have soul), and currently I massively dislike the present Apple software (mainly macOS being crap) and I could totally live without their restricted hardware. Still using that 2012 MacBook Air 11" notebook until the iMac is ready. And I’m still using the Nokia 808 PureView camera phone that’s still taking exquisite photos.

As of now, the total content on this website is:


Total words	256,095
Total articles	340

Charts

The charts below are generated for the data over a period of one month, April 2025, obviously before the big fallout.


Total requests	753,146
Unique visitors	175,273
Requested files	199,195
Data transfer	103.72 GB

Visitors per day

Operating systems

Web browsers

See you for the 20 years anniversary in 2035!!

Retrobook

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 14:10:17 +0000

*Apple iBook G4 12" retrobook, iPod Classic 4th generation, wireless Mighty Mouse, photo taken with a Nokia 808 PureView camera phone.

My Apple iBook G4 - hardware upgrades

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 16:25:33 +0000

This is the sixth part of the “My Apple iBook G4” series of articles, and it’s all about the hardware upgrades you can do to your iBook G4 12".

As you probably know by now, I bought myself an Apple iBook G4 12" laptop (1.2GHz/256/30G/Combo/APX) at the beginning of the year, with the idea of transforming it into a retrobook and replace my trusty Nokia Booklet 3G. The device I have is A1054 from late 2004 (actually launched October 2004), and I’ve always wanted to replace the logic board with the one from the A1133 model number (launched in July 2005), which is powered by a 1.33GHz CPU, has 512MB of RAM built-in and a better GPU (ATI Radeon 9550 instead of ATI Radeon 9200). It’s the most powerful iBook except for the 14" 2005 model, which has a 1.42GHz CPU, but I’m not keen on lugging 2.7kg around, as opposed to 2.2kg for the 12" one.

An option would have been to just purchase the 2005 model and be done with it, but my 2004 unit is in pristine condition with absolutely no problems, a spotless screen and a <30 cycles battery. So, switching the boards it is.

I foolishly believed that replacing the logic boards would be very simple, considering the 2004 and 2005 laptops have the same looks, connectors, and after all, it’s just a year difference, right? Well, yes and no.

This is a very difficult mod of the iBook G4, requires a complete dissassembly of the laptop, including screen, cutting wires, griding the logic board and more fun stuff. Don’t attempt it unless you know what you are doing. It’s way simpler to just buy a 2005 iBook.

iFixit’s pages for the iBook G4 12" 1.2GHz and iBook G4 12" 1.33GHz will be your best friend.

I won’t be talking about the hardware updates I aready did, replacing the Fujitsu HDD with a SSD and replacing the Combo Drive with a DVD Super Drive, because those are basic stuff. Buy new components, open laptop, disconnect old components, replace with new components, done. Maxing the RAM capacity is something you should do, too, OS X Leopard will thrive with more RAM.

Preparation

Taking the iBook apart for the second time (I replaced the SSD and repasted the CPU in January 2025) was way simpler, since now I already had separators for all the screws (over 40 of them, screws I mean). You will have to remove everything from the chassis of the laptop, including storage (HDD/SSD), DVD unit, heat sink and pipe, cooler.

Make sure you have tools, screw separators, spudgers, thermal paste for the new logic board and a lot of cold water.

Problems

First thing I noticed was that the 2005 board doesn’t have the AirPort card positioned behind the keyboard, above the RAM slot, but somewhere under the display cable connector, meaning that accessing it requires opening up the whole laptop. And that the new card has two antenna cables, main and aux, while the old card had only one (actually, the single cable goes to the screen assembly and there is another board that splits the single antenna into the main and aux cables which go to each side of the screen).
The IDE connector on the 2004 board looks like a Slim ATAPI connector, while on the newer logic board there is a full mini-IDE connector, but that’s not a problem since IDE is IDE anyway.
The old antenna cable has to be removed from the screen assembly and replaced with new wire antennas and new connector (even the old antenna connector doesn’t fit).
The display inverter cable has 6 pins on the 2004 board, and 4 pins on the 2005 one, and this baffled me until I opened the screen. Turns out the inverter has 4 pins going in, and the other 2 pins are the suspend detection mechanism, which Apple in all its wisdom and glory, decided to “invert” between the two different models. How, you might ask: well, it’s simple, the 2004 iBook has a magnet on the right side, behind the keyboard and a “tube”-looking thingy on the right side of the screen behind the mask, and when those two components get close (you fold the laptop’s screen) the laptop goes into suspend mode. Sounds simple, right? No, because on the 2005 iBook, the magnet is behind the screen and the “tube” behind the keyboard! So, the two extra wires on the 2004 model were routed from the same inverter connector and cable, only they went to the “tube” (I need to stop calling it a tube and check out what it really is, I guess it’s some sort of vintage proximity sensor). Fixing this means clipping the wires, clipping two pins off the inverter logic board connector cable (so a 6 pin connector will physically fit a 4 pin connector) and switch the placement of magnet and sensor, while connecting the sensor on the new 2-pin socket that exists on the new logic board, just below the trackpad connector, where the Bluetooth module connector is on the 2004 board.
The trackpad on the 2004 model is using an ADB interface, while the 2005 model has a USB interface (and two-fingers scrolling). Since you can’t remove the trackpad from the top plate because it’s riveted in place, you will either need a new top plate with the new trackpad or convert the signal from ADB to USB.
The logic boards are identical is size, except they’re not. There is a small difference on the top of the boards, the 2005 one WILL NOT FIT the 2004 laptop chassis unless you’re willing to either grind about 1mm off board or the chassis.

Check out the red-squared zone on the images below, and also see the different size on the inverter connector (6-pin versus 4-pin), it’s the bottom yellow-squared connector.

Notice how the 2004 board has a straight bottom line, while the 2005 has an edge sticking out? That’s the problem, the chassis of the laptop is different and needs to be grinded down. Or, if you have a 2005 chassis, you can pop the new logic board in.

Logic board on the 2004 iBook 12 inch

Logic board on the 2005 iBook 12 inch

So, unless you want to grind down the 2004 chassis and/or the 2005 logic board, you will need the chassis of a 2005 model.

The inverter cable (and friends) issue is way simpler to fix, check out the picture below of a 2005 iBook model:

Inverter connector and cable on the 2005 iBook 12 inch

So, the cable coming from the screen has 4 pins (light green, yellow, orange, red) and connects to a 4-pin socket on the 2005 logic board. In my case, I kept the screen assembly from my 2004 iBook model, and that has a 6-pin cable (dark green, black, light green, yellow, orange, red), which needs to fit the 4-pin connector, so you will have to clip the first two wires (dark green and black) and connector plastic. Be careful not to clip too much of the connector because it’s not simple to fix it.

As explained before, the two wires (dark green and black) are the wires for the suspend sensor that used to be in the screen for the 2004 iBook, but it’s behind keyboard on the 2005 model. It’s the magnet that’s in the other place (screen on the 2004 iBook and behind keyboard on the 2005 model), I guess that Apple realised that that way you need two less wires routed through the hinge, into the screen assembly. Good thinking.

The 2005 iBook has a dedicated socket for the suspend sensor (the sensor itself sits on top of the DVD unit, to the right of the keyboard, under the metal screen), it’s below the trackpad connector on the logic board, squared in red in the photo below (where the socket for the Bluetooth module used to be on older iBook models).

Suspend sensor connector on the 2005 iBook 12 inch

And there I needed to connect the suspend sensor that I removed from the 2004 screen, with its black and dark green wires.

Conclusion

While this is a really complex mod, you gain several things out of it:

newer and faster CPU (1.33GHz, versus 1.2GHz on the 2004 model).
more RAM (512MB built in, versus 256MB, can go up to 1.5GB with a 1GB module).
faster RAM (333MHz PC2700, versus 266MHz PC2100 on the 2004 model).
newer and faster GPU (ATI Radeon 9550, versus ATI Radeon 9200).
the VREG and GPU/VRAM chip de-solder issues are no longer present.
integrated Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.

It was totally worth it.

Captain Blackbeard Radio #23

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 04:50:17 +0000

#23 | CaptainBlackbeard Radio | DreamWorld

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Slap yer knees along with number twenty three!

What is a third of yer life worth? We spend more time sleeping than any other activity. What happens when our sleeping life becomes better than our waking life? Who owns our dreams?

What would yer life be if ye were God of a third of it?

In this one of a kind psychedelic audio epic we follow the story of a young man at a dead end, struggling to find purpose and reason in their life. When they stumble into a new sleep invention, which allows the user to program their dreams…

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Ye won’t believe yer ears in this most stunning creation!

DreamWorld is a mindbending pirate radio audio epic comedy exploring the the realms of consciousness, cyberpunk and what it is to Dream…

CaptainBlackbeard Radio is a psychedelic audio thrill ride of interweaving stories, humor & music unlike anything ever created ye won’t hear anywhere else!

In this episode

#23 DreamWorld
George Washington vlogs like a Boss
The British Perspective on the Peasants’ Tax Revolt
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
…And so much more!

Cast

Joe Pesci
Christopher Walken
Louis Gossett Jr.
Gordon Ramsay
Martha Stewart
Julia Child
Sharon Stone
Jon Anik
Daniel Cormier
Joe Rogan
Donald Trump
Dana White
Samuel L. Jackson
Robert Stack
…And so many more!

Music

Steve Angello with Pusha T
Gunter Kallmann Choir
Automatic
The Heavy Heavy
Phil Collins
Metallica
Nightcrawler
Death Lens
The Tubes
The Vapors
Guns & Roses
Black River Motorcycle Club
The Siege
The North Korean National Army Choir
Kayo Guevarra & Quake Matthews
Gravediggaz
Spirit
…And so many more!

THANK YE

Dark Matter Market - The Most Powerful Market In The Galaxy. Find Dark Matter Market by visiting Daunt.Link
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Pitch - The Town Square of the Dark Seas
Endchan - The Most Freedom On Either Side of the Internet
Dread - The Mecca of the Dark Seas
Sizeof.cat - The Premiere Destination for all things CyberPunk
The XMR Monero Community - The Currency of the Counter Culture
DoingFedTime - The Tonight Show of the Dark Seas
Dominic Milion Trott - Yer tour guide to all things Enhanced Living

Wamus, Miner21, TyeDyeWaldo, Zreem, The Underwater Basket Weaving Community, HonkFM, The Shortwave Radio Community, CryptBB, 8Kun, 8chan, DankNation, CafeDread, The Body Art and Tattoo Industry, all of our wonderful listeners and well wishers.

If ye enjoyed this show, please pass it to others!

Thank ye so much for listening! Yer positive energy keeps us afloat and alive!

Links

https://endchan.org/.media/89c68936b0224ff4277d3bc453e08bc4-audiompeg.mp3

https://redcircle.com/shows/CaptainBlackbeard

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Magnet

The (currently) complete collection, contains EP 1-20 (MP3), all corresponding poster art and additional art, total download size 3.92GB.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:255bce06bc8740d62a2ac831053585c9e67b97ed&dn=Captain%20Blackbeard%20Radio%20EP%201%20-%2020&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.torrent.eu.org%3A451%2Fannounce&tr=https%3A%2F%2Ftracker.foreverpirates.co%3A443%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F9.rarbg.me%3A2710%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.bittor.pw%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.supertracker.net%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.internetwarriors.net%3A1337%2Fannounce

CaptainBlackbeard Radio is a universal pirate radio humor and music broadcast unlike anything ye have ever heard, for the lads and lasses of action across the Dark Seas.

Website updates

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 05:05:12 +0000

I know I specified in my last “website updates” article that I didn’t want a dark theme for the new website layout, but it occured to me “in a dream” (just kidding) that a dark color scheme can be easily implemented using a CSS invert filter, some hue rotation and localStorage to save the user preference for the color scheme.

All the magic can be performed using a few CSS rules:

html[data-theme='dark'] {
 filter: invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg) brightness(100%) contrast(100%);
}

You might not want the images and video content inverted because it will look strange and people will send you angry e-mails:

html[data-theme='dark'] img,
html[data-theme='dark'] video {
 filter: invert(1) hue-rotate(-180deg) brightness(100%) contrast(100%) !important;
}

Now for the real question(s), what is hue-rotate, why 180 degrees and even more important, what’s the point. Well, hue-rotate is a CSS filter function and the hue rotation is done for a simple reason: for the HTML anchor links color i use #5550ed , and inverted by the filter: invert(1) line, this yields #aaaf12 which is a really ugly color (is it mustard? or something). I really wanted to preserve the blue tint since it’s almost part of my “brand”, and to keep the blue color but altered a bit as to fit the dark background, I used the hue-rotate CSS function to apply a color rotation by 180 degrees, and that results in the anchor links using the #9B96FF color. A hue rotation of 170 degrees resulted in a blue I did not like , and rotating the color by 190 degrees resulted in lilac . 180 was the sweet spot, to be honest.

Yes, it sounds more complicated than it really is.

For images and videos I’m inverting them to the original colors, un-rotating the colors by -180deg so that the original colors are restored in all their glory. The brightness and contrast functions are there because I initially adjusted them a bit too. Feel free to remove if you’re not using them.

Add a few JavaScript lines in the mix (using HTML5 localStorage to save color scheme preference for each visitor, in browser’s storage) and it fits nicely into the layout of the website.

There might be better ways to achieve what I wanted, but that’s how I did it.

Next on the order of business, you probably saw that this website has a guestbook now (actually, since June 21st), and many of my website visitors (and friends) already signed it. Unexpectedly, I know, I didn’t have to delete a single message (except my tests, but that’s a given), and that means a lot to me. Thank you for the kind words and for keeping it civil but we all know this is going to change.

The “administration” part is really basic (written in PHP 8.4, data is in a SQLite database, and fully integrated into my Hugo layout), displaying all the messages and giving me various actions I can perform on them (approve/unapprove, flag/unflag, etc). Flagging is done automatically by parsing each message for specific words, and all messages are approved manually. If you’re curious about what that looks like, check out the image below (I merged the top and the bottom of the actual screenshot because the list is pretty long, try to spot the breaking point).

The whole “development” stage took about 6 hours, including testing (on live, as any true PHP programmer should do!). Not bad considering I haven’t written PHP code in ages, but I still remember about strip_tags(), htmlspecialchars() and prepared SQL statements. And hiding the “administration” part behind a htaccess file, a strict IP check, a special passphrase and only making it available during specific hours and days (ok, I’m joking about the last part).

No, the source code for the guestbook will not be released, neither for free nor paid.

I got a lot of e-mails during the past few days, mostly people asking me if it’s possible to restore one of their favorite articles (the name varied a bit but most people were keen on re-reading “The kind of tired sleep can’t fix”, so it’s available for reading again).

Take care, until the next time.

Getting old

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 06:56:05 +0000

People like to make it out that the West has done away with rites of adulthood and all that, but they are still there, just tweaked for the always-connected world.

This is how it is, you get to an age where youthful recklessness and idealisation can no longer carry you through life, you can continue with your half-assed childish ideals and live a miserable life, or you become an adult. You either throw yourself entirely into your ideals and give up the reckless way of your past or, do like most people and just focus on you and those people that are important to you; you spend a few hours every other year to cast your vote for a better world (and fail at it), you watch the 6 o’clock news, but your dedication is friends, family, and community.

While there is no ceremony, everyone around you will know you made the choice; if and when you decide to do so, you will feel different about the world and yourself, and you will be treated different, you will be an adult. You will coach that little league team even though you hate soccer and all kids who are not directly related to you, because you are the only one in the neighbourhood free on Wednesday nights. You will knock on 300 doors getting people to sign your petition about getting the pothole in front of your house fixed, that only you care about. You will lug radiators up 3 stories for a neighbour you barely know because you realised that while you can not change the world, you can make life for those around you better. You will become a pillar of the community in a community of pillars. You will grow old and bond with your grand-children over your shared tendency to wet the bed.

It’s not that bad, friend, the world is not ending, we’re just getting old.

StarFive VisionFive 2 with Debian 13 on NVME

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:39:27 +0000

Since StarFive hasn’t released a new Debian image for its VisionFive 2 SBC in a while, and the snapshot repo key expired, some people have picked up the pace and provided newer images with Debian 13 Trixie, as well as GPU driver support and bits of the StarFive’s custom kernel. Getting Debian 13 (Trixie) to work on a StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re trying to boot it from a NVME drive.

Download a compressed image and write it to a SD card bigger than 8GB (make sure the SD card is /dev/mmcblk1, else adjust accordingly).

$ zstdcat -d vf2-debian2409pro-20250418.img.zst | sudo dd of=/dev/mmcblk1 status=progress bs=4M

Insert the SD card in your StarFive VisionFive 2, make sure boot mode pins are set to SDIO3.0 (to boot from SD card) and boot the system. The password for the initial user is starfive, use that to login into the system, insert an USB stick that has the same vf2-debian2409pro-20250418.img.zst file on it and write it to the NVME storage this time.

$ zstdcat -d vf2-debian2409pro-20250418.img.zst | sudo dd of=/dev/nvme0n1 status=progress bs=4M

We’ll need to alter the path to root on the /extlinux/extlinux.conf file, so mount the third partition from the NVME drive somewhere and edit the file:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/test
$ sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt/test
$ sudo nano /mnt/test/extlinux/extlinux.conf

Change the 4 occurences of mmcblk1p4 to nvme0n1p4 inside the file, then save it (CTRL + O, then CTRL + X). Shutdown the SBC, pull out the SD card, change the boost mode pins to 1-bit QSPI Nor Flash (to boot from NVME) and power on the board. Root (and sudo) password is starfive as before.

Next we’ll need to resize the filesystem on the NVME drive

$ sudo fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

Delete partition number 4 and recreate it (d -> 4 followed by n -> 4). Press w to write the partition info, quit fdisk and now you can resize the filesystem of the partition number 4:

$ sudo resize2fs /dev/nvme0n1p4

Check with df if the partition 4 occupies the rest of the NVME drive, depending on the size of the drive.

Next you can do a dist-upgrade to get all your packages to the newest version (except some core packages that are on hold, for ex firefox119, vlc-3.0.18, mesa22, GPU driver). You don’t want to upgrade those, so don’t run apt-mark unhold.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

Don’t forget to remove the leftover packages after upgrading. You should know that the Debian Trixie image has modified update URIs, mirroring the data from mirrors.ustc.edu.cn, and if you don’t want to do that be sure to change /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources and replace that mirror with the official one, deb.debian.org.

$ sudo apt autoremove --purge

Enjoy Debian Trixie on your StarFive VisionFive 2 RISC-V board.

Playing Blu-Ray movies on PowerPC G4/G5

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:58:13 +0000

Well, this is more like a “How to play Blue-Ray movies on your iBook G4 notebook in theory”, because the G4 CPU is not suited for this kind of workload and a dual G5 machine will ~~probably~~ definitely do better. You will need OS X 10.5 Leopard (the UDF 2.5 driver was introduced in this version of OS X) and Macports installed.

Step 1

Download VLC 2.0.10 and install it on your machine.

Step 2

If you already have Macports, you will need to install the libaacs library, which provides AACS support for Blu-Ray playback.

$ sudo port install libaacs

If you don’t have Macports, install it.

Step 3

Download a keydb.cfg file from the FindVUK Online Database and extract the archive somewhere. Create an aacs directory inside ~/Library/Preferences/ and copy the keydb.cfg file inside.

$ mkdir ~/Library/Preferences/aacs
$ cp keydb.cfg ~/Library/Preferences/aacs/

Copy libaacs.dylib into /usr/local/lib (linking it might work too) so VLC can find the library.

$ cp /opt/local/lib/libaacs.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/libaacs.dylib

That’s about it, now you can open VLC and attempt to play a Blu-Ray disc on your laptop’s puny G4 CPU.