today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 04, 2025

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • The Ask Noah Show ☛ Ask Noah Show: Ask Noah Show | 469

    This week Steve takes us through his journey with Enty and Immich. Plex makes their users pay a monthly fee, and Steam releases a new SteamBox console.

• Games

  • Fabian Sanglard ☛ Why WinQuake exists and how it works

    When I took a look at the history of Quake binaries, they all made sense to me. quake.exe was the original release, able to run on DOS and Windows 95. Then came vquake.exe to support the hardware accelerated chip Vérité 1000. Later, glquake.exe generalized hardware acceleration to any vendor providing OpenGL drivers. And to revolutionize Internet deathmatch, id Software released QuakeWorld server and client (qwsv.exe and qwcl.exe).

    However, I could not figure out the point of winquake.exe. Until now. Here is what I understood and a little bit of a dive into how it works.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Devices/Embedded

    • [Old] Stefan Gloor ☛ Patching Pulse Oximeter Firmware

      Recently, I came across relatively cheap medical devices: consumer-grade pulse oximeters. These devices clip onto your finger and shine a light through it. By analyzing the light transmitted through your finger, the device can infer your pulse and blood oxygen saturation.

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • Arduino ☛ More ways to prototype faster: four new Arduino Modulino are now available

      If you’ve ever wanted to go from idea to prototype in minutes – without fiddling with wiring diagrams or debugging connections – then you probably already know (and love!) Modulino®. These compact, plug-and-play nodes have made it easier than ever to prototype, learn, and build with Arduino. And now the ecosystem is getting even bigger.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Michael Gale ☛ Switching from LineageOS to GrapheneOS

      What I want long term is for tech oligarchs to feel the burden of all of us, collectively, choosing to opt-out. Which requires different work. But I digress.

      In this article I'll be answering some of my burning curiosity about flashing yet another android alternative, GrapheneOS.

• Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • SusamPal ☛ Emacs Info Expression

    The person who receives this info expression can visit the corresponding section of the manual simply by evaluating it. For example, after copying the expression in Emacs, they could type C-y C-x C-e to paste the expression into a buffer and evaluate it immediately. Alternatively, they might want to type M-: C-y RET to bring the eval-expression minibuffer, paste the expression there and evaluate it.

  • Education

    • Zimbabwe ☛ Free Code Africa Brings Digital Skills to Rural Zimbabwe

      The October launch drew a decent mix of community support. The Minister of ICT, Tatenda Mavetera, attended, which is good to see. Groups like Nduna Girls Organisation, Josephine Chinake, WeCodeZW, and UNDP Zimbabwe partnered for the day’s activities.

      Rural schools don’t lack interest. They lack equipment, exposure, and continuity. Once those three things show up, the curiosity is immediate. So, it’s good to see this kind of support.

    • EmacsConf ☛ EmacsConf - 2025

      December 6 and 7, 2025 (Sat-Sun)

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Access/Content

      • Omicron Limited ☛ Open-access platform explores epigenetic regulation of plant long non-coding RNAs

        In a study published in The Plant Journal, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences constructed comprehensive epigenetic regulatory landscapes for lncRNAs across diverse plant species and developed a novel, specialized, open-access platform named Plant Epigenetic Regulation of lncRNAs Database (PERlncDB).