Status 2024-02-14

Ordered Internet for dad, in his name. Talked to him first, of course, to let him know what to expect. He called me later and said that the ISP would need to visit him and install something, probably a media converter. Interesting. I thought he already had everything. Let's hope that it's installed by the time I get there. I'll prepare the AP/router I bought to just need to be connected.

Had a look through my stash to find an old laptop and started preparing it to become the Dad Computer.

Then #3's iPad broke down. We investigated solutions. One solution was to buy a used iPad, and we did, but the iPad we got turned out to just have 32 gigs of flash and the world of Genshin Impact wouldn't fit! Dammit! That makes it unusable, of course.

In the end #3 got a fancier iPad instead, even equipped with a keyboard case. Very happy #3!

So… The idea about a new Dad Computer changed into an idea of a Dad iPad! I bought a keyboard and a mouse and tried to set it up to be able to be used without touch as much as possible.

A few positive thing about this:

• More people can give support on an iPad than an old hacker Thinkpad with Linux, even if I would choose a vanilla distribution.
• Accessability stuff seems much better. Even hearing aid support! I didn't know! Of course, there's a lot I don't know about Apple products.

After having hooked up a Satechi Slim X1 keyboard to the iPad and using it for a while I was quite surprised when I by accident hit Ctrl-A and… it worked!? Ctrl-E, P, N, et cetera also work. Turns out iPadOS text fields has Emacs shortcuts!

I set up e-mail for dad. Found a strange behaviour. Choose a message. Hit Backspace on the attached keyboard. The message disappears. Haven't found any way of getting it back!

Logged in temporarily with my own Apple account and installed several XMPP clients to test. I tried Siskin and Monal. Interestingly both work with push and can receive messages even when the iPad is asleep. However, only Monal can handle push for audio/video. Unfortunately neither of them has a Swedish UI so I'll guess I have to stay with Signal for dad.

Still left to do is to set up an Apple account, set up iCloud backup, install Signal and perhaps some more things from the App Store. Then I have to register Signal to a new number, I guess.

My much loved CST L-TracX trackball broke down! It doesn't light up and isn't even visible with lsusb anymore. I havent yet opened it up, so I don't really know what's wrong.

I bought this thing in 2011 (unboxing in Swedish) so even if it's really broken it had a good run…

The L-TracX has been next to my black HHKB since then. Suddenly I was at a loss what to do. I tried with a mouse for a while but that wasn't very nice. Instead I tried to use the new Thinkpad Trackpoint II we usually use with the living room media computer. That was kind of nice but using a trackpoint on a big screen perhaps isn't the optimal solution. It looks good, though:

It also makes me think even more about using a more low-profile keyboard all the time. Perhaps I should also investigate using a low profile trackball? Opinions on the Kensington Slimblade, anyone? Any other options?

My ex wife and very good friend Helena visited last weekend. We had a wonderful time with #1 and his SO who also came by.

We watched Poor Things at Spegeln, the wonderful cinema that lets you eat real meals and drink wine and beer inside the actual auditorium. A really good film and no, not just because of a nude Emma Stone, but for wonderful storytelling of a modern, beautiful, and very liberated Frankenstein's monster.

P and I saw Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Very, very good. At a later event we attended MSO playing Debussy and Stravinsky. Critics wrote that the faun in Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune wasn't supposed to be drinking coffee! Haha. Yes, well, I admit that the Stravinsky part was better.

Both times we had dinner at the wonderful BISe restaurant. They, again, made an off-menu vegan thing for me. Thank you!

Terrible floods in the area where we have our cottage. Went there to check that nothing threatened the cottage. Everything looked fine around and under the cottage, but there were floods closer to the lake and a lot of houses seemed to have problems. We couldn't even get far on the road to have a look because of all the water.