Misc

After around 10-12 years of using just MacOS and the occasional Linux, I finally got a Windows machine again, to use for some light gaming on Steam.

One of the things you get used from the world of Mac, for good or for bad, is the “natural” scrolling for the mouse. Unfortunately, in Windows 10, if you don’t have a touchpad, you don’t have the option in Settings.

I found this solution, using Windows Registry:

Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.

Type regedit, and click OK to open the Registry.

Browse the following path: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID Quick tip: On Windows 10, you can now copy and paste the path in the Registry’s address bar to quickly jump to the key destination.

Expand the key (folder) that matches the VID ID of your mouse — for example, VID_0E0F&PID_0003&MI_01.

from WindowsCentral.com

There’s a little bit more than the steps above, so go to WindowsCentral for the full list of steps, in case you have this issue.

Later edit: Now Visual Code is part of Raspberry Pi OS, here is how to install it.

From here:

Open a new terminal. If you need super-user rights (you probably do), then you can enter sudo -s and press return to enter a super-user session. Run the installer for your current distribution:

APT instructions

(including Debian, Raspbian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint)

. <( wget -O - https://code.headmelted.com/installers/apt.sh )

Press the return key. Once the installer has completed, you should have a “Code – OSS” entry in your desktop program list.

Headmelted

If you want to use Visual Studio Code on Raspberry Pi, this is the easiest solution I’ve found.

I’ve been watching The Crown in the last week or so. Yesterday I got to episode 9 of the first season, called Assassins (light spoiler ahead).

The context is this: Winston Churchill sits for a portrait with a famous painter – Graham Sutherland. It’s the Prime Minister’s 80th birthday and he was given the opportunity as a present.

There’s a short scene when the character (Churchill, played by John Lithgow)) realizes that he painted a pond 20 times or more because it reminded him of his dead daughter.

The painter says this to him, before the scene (which starts at 35:30 in the episode, by the way):

I was thinking especially of the Goldfish pond here at Chartwell. It’s very much more than that. As borne out by the fact that you’ve returned to it again and again. More than 20 times.
[…]
I think all our work is unintentionally revealing and I find it especially so with your pond.

Beneath the tranquility and the elegance and the light playing on the surface, I saw honesty and pain, terrible pain. The framing itself indicated to me that you wanted us to see something beneath all the muted colors, deep down in the water.

Terrible despair. Hiding like a Leviathan. Like a sea monster.

Then you can see on Churchill’s face the agony, the pain, the longing, the missing. Everything a human being can feel, you could see in those 30-40 seconds. No sounds, no words. Just his face. And you could feel how much pain there was inside him.

It’s the best acting I’ve seen. Ever.

I wish I was able to be that good at something in my life as John Lithgow is good at acting.

Later update: after writing this, I’ve started to read about the portrait. And I’ve found out that John Lithgow won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for this exact episode.

First time I ever heard Avicii was in 2011, when I was listening to Levels and a little bit of Fade into Darkness.

But the moment I became a fan was when I heard “Wake me up“. The song has special meaning for me because it’s the song I connect the most to the US. Both because of the sound and mostly because I was listening to it on my daily commute between San Jose and San Francisco when I was looking for investment for MavenHut.

That’s when I started to listen to everything he was launching. Hey Brother, Addicted to You, The Nights, they were all among my most played songs. I have Heaven, the latest song released, in heavy rotation right now.

I also watched the documentary he released shortly before his death and I liked the guy even more. You could see how dedicated he was to his music, fighting through debilitating pain every day. The film is also a premonition, since at some point in the show this happens:

“He’s a shell of what he used to be,” says a friend in the film, while another describes him as “a ticking timebomb”.

It all builds to the point where, late in the documentary, Avicii flatly says of touring: “It will kill me.”

The Guardian

If you didn’t see Avicii: True Stories, it might be available on Netflix in your country.

On December 5th there was a live tribute for him in Stockholm, in order to raise awareness for mental health. It’s his music and the people he played it with. You can watch/listen to it on YouTube:

I have a weird obsession with libraries and book stores. I really enjoy visiting them, no matter how old or modern they are.

One of the buildings that intrigued me when I was first starting to visit Europe by car was Melk Abbey. You could see it from the highway while driving from Romania to Germany. It took me about 7 or 8 years before I could stop and visit one the oldest libraries in Europe, which is hosted in the Melk Abbey, but I’ve done it! And then, I got crazy by visiting two other abbey libraries around Europe in the same trip: Admont, St. Gallen. I visited one more on that trip, but I can’t really remember which, I need to take a look at the photos.

Of course, since I lived in Ireland for several months, I visited Trinity College’s library and, being in Portugal right now, I’ve seen the “Harry Potter Bookstore”, at Livraria Lello in Porto. This is actually a list of the other places I’m gonna write about in the upcoming weeks. Or months.

After all these old libraries, you would be right to believe that Carturesti Carusel Bookstore is another abbey library. Well, you would be wrong. Carusel is really modern and new, actually. And, even better for me, it’s in Bucharest, the city I lived in for more than 20 years.

When Cristina was still involved with The CEO Library, one of the places where we would often meet was Carusel’s top floor bistro. I mean, what better place to talk about books other than a bookstore or a library, right?

It was a really inspirational and motivational place for us. It also helped that we could sit at a table and have some tea or a Coca-Cola. You could see people walking around the floors, looking at the books, picking them to read, there or at home. We would stay there for hours, just talking and enjoying the atmosphere.

I really like the airy structure of the building as well. It has a huge interior space and the books are all around the walls, with warm colors all around. The big windows and the thought-out lighting makes it a desirable place to stay and spend some hours there.

The history of the building is quite interesting, as well. It used to be a bank since the beginning of last century, then it was confiscated by the communists after the second World War and used as a general store for a long time. It fell into decay at the end of the millennium and it was rehabilitated by 2015 and opened as a bookstore (source: Wikipedia).

Anyway, if you ever get to Bucharest, take the time to visit the Carturesti Carusel. It really is worth it spending an hour or two in the building. You can find a short video of a tour below or, if you prefer, some really good photos.

These photos aren’t mine, I got them from Dreamstime. I’m not a good photographer, so I prefer to use better photos than the ones I take, if possible.

You can see how open and cozy the library is, right? You understand why it was our preferred place of meeting, right? :)

This is one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a while. It shows what you can do if some newsletter doesn’t unsubscribe you when you ask for it.

As a bonus, you can also watch the following video on how to talk with email scammers. It’s the same person (James Veitch) and it’s as funny as the previous one.

Image from Canva

Starting with January 24th, 2020, we’re gonna see the first new episodes of a Star Trek series with Jean-Luc Picard.

Like many people my age (I’m 41 now), the first Star Trek I’ve ever watched was The Next Generation. Picard, Data, Riker, Worf, Troi, Geordi, they were all names we grew up with and vastly enjoyed watching. For me, in particular, it might be the thing that made me love SF in all its forms: movies, TV series and, most of all, books.

While the new series is not around those characters (with the exception of Picard, of course), some of them will appear in the new series. I’ve seen glimpses of Data, Riker and Troi in the trailer. You can also see Seven of Nine, from Voyager, who seems to be playing a much larger role than the other ones.

I’m crazy about Christmas. The thing is, I wasn’t as crazy about Christmas when I was a kid as I’m now, at forty-something.

What happened in between?

Well, as an adult, the holidays season (including Christmas, of course, and New Year’s) is the most quiet period of the year. Nobody sends you emails, nobody wants something urgent from you. Except family, but hopefully you manage/like that part of your life.

Once I understood why I loved the quiet period, I started to associate things with it: Christmas carols, the Christmas tree, Christmas lights… This means that once the summer is over, I want the Christmas feeling as early as possible. So right now I’m negotiating with my fiancée having a Christmas tree starting with October…

I’m also listening to Christmas songs right now. Just because I can.