January 13

1:30 Done it. In a couple of weeks i figured how to wire all devices in the apartment and get rid of wi-fi, buying only cables, ethernet to USB adapters (for the laptop and PC that doesn't have an ethernet ports) and using two old routers. One of them is the Netgear cable modem/router wi-fi that i used for the current provider. The other is only a Fios wi-fi/router i wasn't using right now with 4 ethernet output ports and one input. With the first on the right i supply ethernet to the second which has 4 ethernet, 2 USB output ports and acts as only as a switch. I don't mind using them both now in winter cause all the heat adds up to the electric heaters i use right now.

It doesn't look pretty, it will after i hide them under some furniture and reroute the cables. I got 3 devices and 5 useful ports with two to spare.

System monitoring on the Fios router (192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) showing wi-fi disabled. On the other router there is a hardware switch. By clicking on the links you will open your own router page were you can change settings (disable wi-fi or radio etc..) like below. Factory password is either written on the router or is Password, password, pass, etc.. Can change it for better protection. If you changed it and forgot it, can reset the router to factory defaults by pressing the reset button which sometimes is hidden, for a number of seconds. Be careful not to mess with other settings or you will have to be on the... phone with customer service of your provider. Sometimes it takes a while for the cable router to scan channels after a reset.

I invite everybody to get rid of wi-fi (this is easy) and cell phones if possible. At home can use cell phones in a far corner of the room with bluetooth. Can use an app like google voice that comes with a free real phone number that can be called from any phone or fb messenger or anything you want on your wireless disabled laptop.

Most will shut down wi-fi (to save energy) by simply plugging in the ethernet cable or ethernet USB adapter but better check settings.

Switching to wired has an unexpected bonus. Notable speed increase.

Shut the phones down when you put them in your pocket or purse and do the same (use bluetooth) at work. Or at least make an experiment for a month. But full recovery from exposure takes a long time.

Get a landline (with a chorded set). They must be cheaper now.

2:18 Lloyd James Austin III (if  you have doubts look at the tip of the ears, also James - Yoshimitsu)

10:50 Yellen. Based on what. They didn't show us a spending report for the (fiscal) year 2022.

11:33 The bigger picture that includes the laptop with the ethernet/USB adapter (white in the picture) and the hub i used to turn the laptop into a PC with ports for mouse, keyboard and HDMI for the old PC monitor. The two routers and laptop used to be wi-fi emitters, not anymore. There's two more devices attached to the routers still left out of the picture, a 4K TV (with ethernet port) and a all in one PC also with ethernet/USB adapter identical with the one in the picture that also have been quieted down (a total of 5 emitters) and also the monitor. Two routers because the old Netgear cable/modem router only has 2 ethernet ports.

The speed and reliability have increased on all connections. Can attach anything to ethernet, such as tablets for kids using longer heavy duty flexible cables.

Plus the two phones that had both wi-fi and cellular (higher power needed to reach the towers) emitters. A total of 7 + 2 = 9 or a total of up to 5 watts of 2.4 GHz microwave emitters in the tiny apartment. I still take the phone with me everywhere I go for an emergency but is shut down. Plus the 1 watt leak at the "oven".

No there is no such thing as receiving only. The TV emits back continuously to keep a channel open for searches, buffering info etc.. I checked with the meter.

11:55 There is an electric box embedded in the water heater lid on top that gets filled with (possibly dirty) water every time i leave. Otherwise it stays dry for days. I tried to pour water in it and it doesn't go anywhere, there's only foam insulation under that sits pretty tight under the lid that has been poured in the space under the lid during assembly.

I think they figured ways to get in here after i leave. The two bottle sign, two empty bottles attached to the door with fishing line that fall into a different position every time i close the door can be beat. Two guys can do it. One in the back watching through the window and one opening and closing the door as many times as it takes to get them in the same position. It takes a few minutes i guess. Should look odd but who else is here to see but them.

Why would the ninja go through all the trouble to do this. For me to stink everywhere i go. To keep me sick and low key and looking and acting crazy.

1:45 As i was finishing here and getting ready for a walk, having a bit of halva, a desert snack popular in countries like Romania, made of sunflower seeds flour (usually leftovers after pressing out the oil) and sugar, rich in protein, fiber and minerals, very similar to protein bars), the tall blond guy that wasn't here in months, with a dog dressed with a jacket and with green boots came and walked like for 10 minutes around the yard, at one point getting real close to the door.

3:00 When i left i noticed the van had an orange sticker, like my truck used to have many times, though it was parked on a numbered spot. When i got back i felt the smell of heavy smoke from a few buildings away. I  think this time was cocaine, not kratom as usual. There were many holes around the building including one under the door. As i stepped outside, i saw one of the guys with the van in a rare apparition during daytime, possibly playing victim, threatening or both.

As i did my routine, like enlarging the holes a bit with a stick to add borax, there was this guy in an orange hoodie playing loud music and working on a car, giving "probably cause" to the management. Ran out of borax and went inside to get some more, i noticed a cart from the office again passing by in a rare move with two women talking aggressively.

Cart was passing when i got at the door and didn't see much except one of them was dressed in white, like i saw the other day (Monday?) (their uniform used to be black). Didn't have a chance to get some soil from other mounds and cover the slightly enlarged holes filled with borax yet, so the smoke is still around. (How come they didn't feel it?). Will get some more until they leave the area.

3:32 As i am a bit woozy from the smoke, i finished those and the smoke is only remnants that filters are slowly eliminating. Saw a guy passing and putting on the ground an aluminum tubular crotch, like to show me how it's done. I think over the years i have complained of smoke coming from the ground at least one hundred times.

4:00 But if you really really want to have a chance of understanding all my (miss)adventures into the wild wild west i recommend to first read Kafka's books. Kafka was born and his source of inspiration was the infinite Austro-Hungarian ethicless almost inhuman Asian style bureaucracy and attitude towards small and insignificant persons. Or the same, Clavell's Shogun with the infinite labyrinth-like narrative. A bonus of reading these books will be life will look to you so much more beautiful after.

6:30 Apropo de pozele de mai sus.

6:42 Pat Benatar effect or why i broke up with shy, sensitive, defenseless, vulnerable Maria. She said (early 1982): "Yesterday i met and had sex with my ex boyfriend, do you want to take his place?".

10:50 Cineva poate să-mi spună dacă tipul ăsta e Țiriac? Arată ca el, vorbește ca el, trebuie că e el.

11:20 Alte reacții subliminale la îndemnul meu de a trece pe cablu sau cine vă mai vrea binele.

11:42 See what i'm talking about? (alegoriile războiului).

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine.

11:46 Living is easy with eyes closed.

11:48 Ok mi-am făcut curaj să scriu (niște paragrafe mai lungi) despre ce am mai pățit în seara asta. În timp ce făceam mâncare am băut și am adormit și m-am trezit pe la zece. După ce m-am hidratat cu mult ceai (de frunze de afine pentru diabet) mi-a venit chef de o plimbare (aveam ceea ce eu numesc o mahmureală plăcută, sunt și dintr-astea).

Am deschis ușa iar în parcare a venit cu un viraj rapid și cu farurile de Xenon în ochii mei tipul de sus. Am închis ușa fiindcă nu vreau să dau față cu el, că mă tem să nu-i spun ceva ce voi regreta după, fiindcă mă înnebunește cu mersul pe tavan (noaptea trecută la 4). Am așteptat să-l aud pe scări și sus scârțâind ca să știu că a urcat, dar după zece minute, nimic. Am rugat-o pe Angela să deschidă ușa și a văzut că nu-i în mașină. Un scârțâit scurt a confirmat. Deci se poate și fără zgomot.

De ce m-a păcălit. Ca să aibă timp nebunii să se pregătească. Am pornit, două mașini m-au chiorât în parcare, cu faruri albe modificate (cu LED aftermarket) și/sau defecte, fază mare, etc.. Când am trecut de clădirea a doua, dintr-un balcon, un câine (părea un ogar cenușiu dar cu capul mai mare și mai rotund) a lătrat doar o dată. Atât de tare încât nu am auzit în viața mea un asemenea lătrat. Peste 100 dB. Ok, nu am făcut atac de inimă, dar aveam o senzație ciudată, în tot corpul care m-a ținut 5 minute după.

Când am ajuns în stradă (după 5 minute de mers în complex) deja se adunaseră. Un SUV uriaș cu faruri și roți cât butoaiele a demarat show-ul în zgomot de eșapament modificat. Nu știu dacă aveți prin România asemenea chestii, părea ca de la monster jam, cu eșapament modificat la motor de 7 litri și roți cât butoaiele care se bălăngăneau puțin ca niște baloane moi.

Jocul se numește enervați-l de moarte pe jidanul Dracula dictatorul galactic Xenu.

Și au mai venit după, cu zecile la ora aia pustie (10:30 seara) mașini mai de stradă dar au făcut cam la fel. Zgomot, fum și lumini orbitoare în ochi. M-am enervat normal, mi s-a inflamat mucoasa nazală și am început să respir greu, dar stimulat de nervi. Când am ajuns în casă și m-am calmat, am constatat că am o greutate în respirație și am deschis gura ca să respir pe gură, dar mi-a trebuit cam jumătate de oră să mă recuperez.

Cine sunt. De câte ori m-am căznit și am reușit să-i zăresc în asemenea situații, când de obicei au geamuri fumurii, tot ce am putut să deslușesc a fost fețe de hikikomori urâți din Japonia, uneori cu mustețe din alea ridicole cum nu le stă bine la japonezi, încercând să pară nu știu, poate mexicani. De aceea nici nu mai încerc să întorc capul, sunt greu de văzut dar știu cine sunt. Însă mașinile sunt aranjate să pară ca de americani mai de la țară așa.

12:34 Vreți să știți toate fazele cu Pat Benatar? Eram în anul II și plecam de la Câmpulung la Iași. Pe tren (acceleratul Iași Timișoara Iași) era de servici chiar nașul și vecinul meu (Jean Constantin) deci nu aveam bilet (cred că de aici a început expresia și poate din păcate obiceiul). Stăteam în compartiment față în față cu ea, era dintr-o gașcă ce veneau din Ardeal. Micuță și nu prea, "studentă la Farmacie" îmbrăcată într-un palton maro destul de ponosit, nu prea vorbea și părea cam supărată (de fapt așa pare ea de obicei nici în video-uri nu prea zâmbește).

La un moment dat s-au ridicat toți și au plecat la vagonul restaurant și au lăsat-o în compartiment ca un bagaj (bine acum știu de ce). La care eu, gentleman, am invitat-o la vagonul restaurant unde am cheltuit banii de bilet normal iar nașul a trecut și pe acolo, cu o privire dojenitoare.

Stăteam în gazdă în Păcurari 33, la demisol, în casa unui fost coleg de liceu (ce semăna cu Ron Lauder, dar mult mai tânăr, nu se putea). Eram în pat și ascultam cu ea muzică grecească (făcusem o pasiune pe atunci) și a venit Cătălin colegul meu de gazdă (un balerin din Pecs care semăna cu Paul McCartney) și a aprins lumina, nu a zis nimic, era încruntat, a luat ceva și a plecat. Ea s-a dus și a stins lumina înapoi dar eu mă enervasem deja. Pe atunci aveam într-adevăr minte de copil. După câteva zile s-a întâmplat faza cu fostul ei prieten.

Acu vreo lună două în Lincoln City. Eram cu Angela în parcare la Roads End și mâncam salată de cartofi (un fel de salată orientală cu puțin zahăr) cu salam italian (o tradiție) și beam vin, toate de la Grocery Outlet și admiram apusul în ocean. La radio începe să cânte o melodie cu ea (că altfel nu mă prindeam). Vine o tipă cu o bicicletă cu pantaloni mulați ca în video și chiar o geacă neon verde, se pune în fața mașinii noastre să vadă și ea apusul.

(Nu știu de ce aici am un deja vu, parcă am mai scris sau gândit sau văzut odată chestia asta, poate în urmă cu 40 de ani).

Era însă bicicletă ca de bărbați cu bară și la un moment dat și-a băgat bara între picioarele care încă arată de la distanță cam la fel ca în video (73 de ani reali). A apus soarele și a plecat. Faza s-a mai repetat și în altă ocazie. Cred că încerca să-mi amintească faza cu lumina stinsă și aprinsă din 82 de la Iași. Ceea ce m-a provocat să scriu acum.

Dar atunci în tren nu e prima dată când am dat nas în nas cu ea. Tot în tren, veneam în vacanță de la Iași, eram prin ultimul an de liceu cred. O tipă tot așa, mai micuță, serioasă, stătea pe culoar lâng mine și la moment dat m-a întrebat unde cobor. La Câmpulung. "Nu vrei să mă ajuți, am acasă o sobă cu motorină și nu știu s-o pornesc". Era o iarnă frumoasă cu multă zăpadă. Teoretic, puteam să-mi las bagajul cu rufe murdare la bagaje de mână și să merg. Însă părea puțin speriată, mai în vârstă (Maria Zempleni e cu 11 ani mai în vârstă decât mine), expresia de pe fața ei nu coincidea cu intenția declarată și arunca priviri ca pentru consultare către un alt tip mai încolo pe culoar. Am refuzat politicos și cu regret.

Azi am pomenit-o prima dată fiindcă scriam ceva și au pus o melodie de-a ei la radio ce avea legătură ciudată cu ce scriam și m-am enervat.

Dacă regret ceva de atunci. Promisiunile vieții din anii 70 în România și cum a devenit totul un coșmar după 83.

Știu acum. Trapped  by your love. Chained to your side. Zempleni. "Xenu also spelled Xemu". Zamolxes, Zymase etc.

Fedora 21 Before And After Installation

I know this looks scary for the novice. But is not difficult. It took me a lot of time (wouldn't dare to say how much) to figure all these. I also wrote this here because i need to save me some head scratching during the next installation.

This customization is described here is down to command level for Fedora 21 XFCE live installation (a few commands are good only for AMD64). That is you can paste and execute the commands provided here in a terminal, but for that you need first to paste this whole post in a text file in a partition unaffected by installation (unformatted). Or print it. XFCE because i don't need an animated desktop and all the inconveniences (processor load) that come with it.

This whole new custom Fedora 21 installation as described here should not take more than 3 hours. That time is the only expense for a free and extremely performant and secure OS complete with free multimedia, internet and office software.

If i did it, everybody could.

Without customization and manual partitioning, it should take less than an hour and that is for the complete IT ignorant.

Here it starts. Download and burn on a DVD as an ISO file the live version of the XFCE from this page (any burner on a Windows or Linux computer should have that option). The size is a bit less then 1 GB.

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/

Boot from live installation disk created as described above.  (You may first probably have to enter the BIOS by pressing repeatedly the delete key during normal boot-up and choose the DVD reader as the first booting device. Then, insert the DVD with the live image in the DVD player and restart the computer). If you don't want any of the customization described below, choose the default or common sense answers at each step, which BTW are similar to a Windows installation, and stop here.

But Fedora live DVD is much more than an installation kit. Once you boot from that DVD as described above, you get a functioning operating system with which you can even get online and browse the web. To start the installation process, you have to double click the Install icon on the desktop.

Any of the steps described below are optional and independent of each other.

Fedora (F) 21 installer has been modified since F20. There is an option to keep the old partitioning. There is an option for LVM. (There are other more options as partitioning.)

Don't know about LVM. I chose standard partitioning to keep the old partitioning from F20 which is similar to this in the link below.
 https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Installation_Guide/s2-diskpartrecommend-x86.html

So in the first screen there is a partitioning option (i always forget after i am done with, can't save that screen). Left lower icon. I write here for those familiar with manual partitioning. After choosing that icon, i choose standard partitioning at top and select the manual partitioning button. Then i hit the Done button, that for some strange reason in this installer for F21 is at the upper left corner. Then i get to see the old Fedora installation with all its partitions that is hidden behind a drop menu. To grab a partition in the new installation all i have to do is click on it and rewrite the mounting point (/, /home, /tmp, etc.) and choose to format it or not.

These are the most critical moments. On an installation i always choose to keep the old /home and /var partitions unformatted. That is i don't make the mistake to check the format box near each. If i do so i would wipe out all my recent data and many settings, including desktop, browser, the last file i've been editing and all the others.

By keeping /home partition unformatted and creating when asked an non-privileged user name identical to the one in the old installation, there is very little work to be done for settings and after a clean install of a new version (or the same version), by keeping the /home and /var partitions unformatted, the desktop and the browser will look similar, bookmarks included, so the rest of your computer.

The non-privileged user is needed for doing everything on the computer except maintenance, for security reasons - if a non-privileged account is hacked, there is less they can do without the root password, pretty much like in Windows.

However, all commands (mostly with yum) described here are given in privileged a root terminal, that is a terminal after the command su has been issued and the root password introduced. (You can open a terminal in any directory found with the File Manager by right clicking and choosing Open terminal here). For the privileged (root) File Manager session, after issuing the su command in that terminal and introducing the root password, can type the command #thunar (that invokes the file manager, named like this in XFCE) and get into a privileged session with File Manager, that in turn can open (by clicking) privileged files for editing.

First thing that i do is i get rid of the annoying log-in for the non-privileged user at every boot (and the need to enter a 16 characters password each time, that number being my choice) by going in etc/lightdm/ and modifying and uncommenting two lines towards the end of the file lightdm.conf. By getting rid of the log-in and not needing to enter the password each time at boot time you don't compromise security except if somebody you don't trust has physical access to your computer.

autologin-user=george
autologin-user-timeout=0

After this, a graphical local install from a /var location (by double clicking on the rpm package in the the File Manager) of the yum plugin remove-with-leaves (among others, yes that's why i kept /var unformatted). If you don't have it saved for this purpose from the previous install, you may briefly go online by activating the network from the icon in the taskbar then install it by privileged terminal command

#yum install yum-plugin-remove-with-leaves

(yum is the name of the installation and removing program of choice in Fedora 21. The other one is rpm but more difficult to work with. yum-plugin-remove-with-leaves is a plugin that insures the removal of any useless (and potentially unsafe) packages that are linked only to the main packages removed so the cleanup is more complete).

Then i do this:

#yum remove claws-mail pidgin libpurple spice-vdagent sendmail pragha remmina tigervnc-server-minimal transmission liferea midori samba* openssh* --remove-leaves

By doing these two last steps i get rid of about 100 packages that i don't use, of which many are trying to connect to the internet on their own will. That is about 10% of the whole OS. Some of the packages on the list above are present only in Fedora 20 but the command will still work for the rest.

Then i copy the files iptables and ip6tables in etc/sysonfig from a location in /home which i kept from the F20 installation for this purpose. Later i will disable firewalld and install and enable iptables.

Then there is still a weird setting i will never understand. In etc/yum.conf there is a line keepcache=0. I modify it to 1 so all the rpm packages i ever download and install remain on my hard drive. However, lately this proved less and less useful. It was so while i was still installing it many times and tried to do the updates locally. It is possible by forcing yum to update locally.

#yum install iptables-services

#systemctl stop firewalld

#systemctl disable firewalld

#systemctl enable iptables

#systemctl start iptables

#yum update

Reboot to make sure everything works. Check iptables with

#iptables -S

About hosts file i wrote here http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2013/04/hosts-file.html

About moving Chrome cache in RAM i wrote here https://www.facebook.com/george.ion.7505/posts/206431952892995

This is one setting that probably affects only my computer but i still write it

Go Chrome/Settings/Avanced and remove the check on Use hardware acceleration when available.

I create the files and paste in each

/etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

/etc/yum.repos.d/google-earth.repo

[google-earth]
name=google-earth
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

then

#yum install google-chrome-stable --nogpgcheck

#yum install google-earth-stable --nogpgcheck

For the more advanced user, here is the installation of the video drivers from Nvidia. This is critical as if you are not successful, your system will most like become useless and will need to be reinstalled and rely on the 30% slower, reverse engineered generic nouveau driver.

First, and the most important, you have to know exactly which of the drivers from nvidia you need, according to your video card. 340.xx, 304.xx, 173.14.xx, 96.43.xx or 71.86.xx This page will help you. http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_32667.html

To find out what video card you have you do

#lspci -v | less

Then you go to this page

http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

And install the free and non-free repos necessary to download the drivers, under the title

Graphical Setup via Firefox web browser

Then, after

#yum list *nvidia*

you will choose which driver you need, depending on the kernel version and video card found in the Nvidia web page above.

to find out which kernel version you have you do

#yum kernel list

Then installation of the driver. I think for my system the command was

#yum install kmod-nvidia-304xx-3.17.4-301.fc21.x86_64.x86_64

Then i install the optional programs like

#yum install gthumb (basic pictures management and adjusting).

#yum install audacity (audio recorder)

#yum install vlc (a complete media player)

#yum install stellarium (planetarium software)

#yum install libreoffice (Office equivalent for Linux

#yum install lmms (trackers, sequencers and synthesizers)

Last few times i had a problem with google earth. A conflict with a file, had to rebuild the rpm first by installing rpmrebuild

#yum install rpmrebuild

then

# rpmrebuild -ep /home/geek/Downloads/google-earth-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

Scroll down and remove line: %dir %attr(0755, root, root) "/usr/bin"

Save / exit the editor, with the command <ESC>:wq

After a while you will be asekd if to contine, should answer yes.

see rpmrebuild exiting saying something like: result: /root/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/google-earth-stable-7.1.2.2041-0.x86_64.rpm

Then go cd  /root/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/ and run #yum localinstall google-earth-stable-7.1.2.2041-0.x86_64.rpm
etc.

Here is a version of the text file iptables that is needed in /etc/sysconfig for the iptables to work

# Generated by iptables-save v1.4.21 on Sat Dec 27 23:21:37 2014
*filter
:INPUT DROP
:FORWARD DROP
:OUTPUT DROP
-A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 53 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 80 --dport 30000:65535 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 443 --dport 30000:65535 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 1935 --dport 30000:65535 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "[-P BLOCK] "
-A FORWARD -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
-A FORWARD -j LOG --log-prefix "[-P BLOCK] "
-A OUTPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 20000:65535 --dport 53 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 30000:65535 --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 30000:65535 --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 30000:65535 --dport 1935 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "[-P BLOCK] "
COMMIT
# Completed on Sat Dec 27 23:21:37 2014

October 13

1:30 Imagine this. Every evening in California summer where air outside  is so hot it feels a bit hard to breath and horizons are always orange (and grass gold yellow). Thunder Valley Casino which is the biggest in California, not far from Sacramento which is not far from San Francisco...

Eagles, the quintessential California band of which only one member is from California.. Glenn Frey, vocals, Don Henley at his left doing guitar and background vocals which is odd cause usually he did drums.... Just practicing to memorize their names... But i think this song has been a little inspired from Margaritaville... No it's the other way around cause Eagles released it in 1973. 

2:50 Animals. Never seen this in Ukraine or Israel...

8:40 Slept 4 to 8. Woke up with pains in the areas where i kept the laptop (on my lap of course) and hands. Checked the wi-fi (i check it several times a day). Google made some changes to this version of Chrome. Some of the settings are now one click away but not the wi-fi. Though ethermet was on, whem i went to settings i saw the wi-fi was on as well.

My microwave meter alarm speaker was turned off. The laptop froze when i started to do searches. A woman accopanied by a man came in front of the window and bent over to pick, showing the largest butt. Tried to open the sliding door to air the room but there's smoke outside though index is only 45. The squeaks started. Some sort of smoke that is trying to make me sneeze like roasted hot pepper came inside. My day started.

1:15 Dr.Kacem Zoughari, 9 years ago.

Unprocessing Photographs

While using automatic exposure, from my own experience with film i saw better quality (exposure, color realism) than with digital.

That's why i say film photography is much more forgiving to bad exposure than digital, maybe with several steps on the indicator. To get the same quality like when using automatic exposure on film, with digital you often have to offset the exposure a bit in the... lucky direction. Some will say automatically, like i did for years after i bought my first digital cameras: There's always Photoshop. Based on rather impressive achievements based on it saw here and there and everywhere.

But then, by pure luck i saw on occasions that photographs heavily processed can be easily outperformed by the... non-processed ones.

Silver grains on a film saturate harder. They will always carry more meaningful information after a sightly offset exposure (and anyone who had worked on film can agree on this).

The current cameras' sensors translate light (actually the three "fundamental" colors) into numbers at the (split in three colors) pixel level and put those numbers into computer type files that are written on some type of memory organized the same way as computer files, usually Windows FAT32.

Their capabilities rely mainly on how many bits of information or color depth each physical pixel on the sensor can generate. Usually 10-14 bits per pixel per color in RAW file and 8 in compressed JPEG.

But after jumping from film to digital you will soon be unsatisfied. Go and spend hours on Photoshop with a picture and still won't be satisfied. Here's why.

10, 12, or 14 bits per color is not that much of a range. (Compared to the (almost) continuous (infinite) range on analog). That's why you have to use it properly. But to make things worse, JPEG and this is what your computer (by means of browser and other types of software) can display reduced the color depth to 8 bits per color, that is a total of 24 bits per pixel. Starting with amateur photographers we all know that 24 bits per pixel is one of the earliest standard for graphic cards. Nowadays the better settings and capabilities start with 32 and go to 48 and more. Too bad, cause there is no picture we can see at that resolution, even if we have now the cameras to generate them. The bottleneck is now JPEG and nobody seems to care.

Although i did not thoroughly researched this area, my experience tells me digital pixels saturate pretty fast when exposed non-carefully. That means that they will be almost all 8 corresponding to one color either 0 or 1 and carry no meaningful information when exposed to too much or too little light. Those are what we call the burnt pixels (not to be confounded with the defective, dead pixels sometimes present on sensors or displays as "accepted" fabrication mishaps). The dreaded blinking areas on a picture you just took seen on the playback display of some of the more advanced cameras.

Usually on current cameras there are several type of exposure indicators; classical metering arrays borrowed from later SLR cameras for film photography tied to the classical "scale indicator" in the bottom of the optical viewfinder, dense arrays with histograms, for compact cameras using directly the main sensor or DSLR with an extra "live" sensor or mirrorless or finally the displaying of the saturated (burnt) pixels areas on top of the resulted image in the form of blinking are (i saw these only for already taken pictures on certain cameras on certain display modes).

Unfortunately some designs of the current metering systems are taken directly from film era and not sufficiently upgraded for the technological differences with digital photography. That's why, if you use a classical metering system (not a "live" one, through main or auxiliary sensor) and want to raise quality, it is a good idea to balance exposure manually in order to avoid those saturated areas and maximize your sensor's usage. One good way to do this, if you have time, is by trials, by eliminating, through compromise, as many as possible burnt pixels on both ends of the range and by doing this you will also have more meaningful information on the whole (rest of the) range. In fewer words, if you adjust your exposure towards the middle of sensor's range on a maximum of sensor's area, you will have increased dynamics (the use in a meaningful way) on the entire numerical range corresponding to color depth of the sensor by having, ideally, one and only one burnt pixel on white, that is 0 in the same time with having one and only on color, that is 1) and/or increased information density (higher pixel count or "thicker" histogram on all color intensities) on the same subject, relatively to pictures taken with different, less than ideal, exposures. But this can be done only by looking at the resulting picture on the back display. And this takes time.

Next way to predict the quality of a picture is through live histogram. In digital photography, the word histogram is used to define a graph that has as X axis the intensity (or the numerical value of the pixels from white to color) and on/as Y the count of pixels of that intensity. Histograms sometimes come on each color, sometimes, like the "live" or real time ones on camera's displays, cumulative.

There are not many explanation on how to use a histogram in the manufacturers' manuals.

I read on forums many different interpretations of what it is and how to use it (the histogram), i assume some manufacturer added it as a feature and others followed but with no much explanation of what it is and how to use it, letting photographers and teachers to figure it out maybe for them too. Below are a few examples.

And finally the scale indicator tied to the metering array. With experience, by categorizing type of scenes, you will learn which scenes require adjustment and in what direction. Lately i came to use this in most of situations because of speed and convenience. However, from time to time i take a look at the final picture too.

Compressing, by using mathematical algorithms based on eye perception in order to reduce the size of the output file is possible by taking advantage of lower information density (at least in some areas) when transforming or packing adjusted raw files. If there are not big variations of numerical representations from one pixel to another in the whole picture, that is, less dynamics, the file will be smaller.

A good way to measure information density, besides histogram, is by how big the output file is compared to different one taken in identical conditions, in fast succession (bracketing) . The better the exposure, the bigger the output file.

(This could be a good idea for an exposure optimization algorithm, even in real time on the cameras of the future. (Generate and measure the size of a temporary file while bracketing exposure around the value suggested a by a metering array, even at a lower resolution or selected areas, for speed)).

High dynamics (the histogram touches both the right and left limit of the graph), low information density (thin histogram), but due to the monotonous nature of the subject, burnt pixels on white on an insignificant area (the cloud on the upper left). Most of the pixels are in the thin high intensity area on the right. Not major exposure or WB mistakes. If i w

Usually on current cameras there are several type of exposure indicators; classical metering arrays borrowed from later SLR cameras for film photography tied to the classical "scale indicator" in the bottom of the optical viewfinder, dense arrays with histograms, for compact cameras using directly the main sensor or DSLR with an extra "live" sensor or mirrorless and finally the displaying of the saturated (burnt) pixels areas on top of the resulted image (i saw these only for already taken pictures on certain cameras on certain display modes).
ould have lowered exposure i would have had a more even histogram but unrealistic brightness colors and general look.

High dynamics, high information density, well balanced histogram. However, the trees look unrealistic due to extreme contrast of the subject, but still discernible details and colors. General realistic impression.

Pretty underexposed (with about on step) due to hurry to catch the subject and failure of the of the automatic exposure and lack of more manual compensation (it is only one step up) due to hurry - not so high dynamics (highest intensity pixels missing on the right side of the histogram). Under average information density (histogram thickness). Burnt pixels on white (histograms touches the upper limit on right only). Still useful to show for composition and dramatism. Still wouldn't get better through processing.

I used earlier the word dynamics related to digital photography. I would make here an analogy with digital recording of the sound, when (instead of finding the optimal volume for recording,) you record at a lower volume, not using all the range of the analog to digital converter and never reaching the highest volume available for sampling on your analog to digital converter but instead using lower numbers and leaving part of the range unused.

Similarly, if your volume is too high, you would have saturation thus no meaningful information on those samples above the maximum range of the converter that would be all of the same value of the total depth or number of bits available (that would be all 1).

If you have more then one type of exposure measuring on the same camera, as it so happens on later models they usually tend to "disagree", sometimes by several steps. Best idea is to try to make a compromise between those. Using the classical indicator as refference, with time, you will learn that some type of scene require always the same type of exposure compensation in order to comporomise with histogram and final result.

You don't even need to learn the basic principles of photography in order to balance exposure manually. All digital cameras, compacts and DSLRs have now a function called exposure compensation. So you can use that feature on any type of automatic exposure program like aperture priority or totally automatic and tell the camera you want more or less exposure if you don't like what you see on the display after the first trial. (I do not ever correct more than 2 steps in each direction of the indicator even if the histogram (if i have time for it) tells me otherwise. I call it the common sense rule.)

You can't burn pixels if you use the histogram, but so far i haven't seen DSLRs with live histogram on the optical viewfinder.

There are some with live (real time) histogram on the LCD on the back and but framing through a display is not the same as through the optical viewfinder due to ambiental light or even sun that can fall on it and also the level of details and even comfort of holding the camera. So when it is possible and also necessary you can actually go back and forth the optical viewfinder and back display for framing and for the histogram, that sometimes that can be inconvenient.

Best way to balance exposure (if you have time) is by looking at the result on camera's playback display set on histogram (without actually using it) and trying to make the best compromise between saturated white and saturated colored (burnt) pixels (both ends of range) represented on most cameras on two different blinking colors on the actual picture (blinking areas of different colors indicating burnt pixels on 0 or 1). (If i'm lucky and don't have any burnt pixels after the first shot, and again i have time, i still try and play around trying to go for the maximum contrast, histogram in the middle and as thick as possible.)

Trouble is... when there is plenty of light you can't see well the picture on the back display for evaluating contrast... Sometimes i think on getting some sort of cap like photographers had for early photography on glass plates...

About processing. There is no software algorithm capable of predicting how a pixel would look as generated by a different light than the original.

Correcting through processing on the computer is way more timely and cannot ensure by far the same result, recover dynamics and especially cannot recover the burnt pixels (except for isolated ones by borrowing or averaging the nearby ones) but generally information once lost (again, a burnt or saturated pixel does not record anything) cannot be recreated. And even in the case of useful pixels, correcting through use of the linear or monotone algorithms the processing software probably uses (according to processing time and use of computer processor seen or observed during processing) is not the same thing as photographing the subject with the right exposure achieved through optical means because, by example in the case of compensating underexposed images, those algorithms simply multiply the values of each pixels or the opposite for overexposed. The same for increasing contrast, when they multiply more the corresponding value of the more intense pixels etc.

When the analog to digital converters samples light (colors) at the pixel level and converts it to numerical values it always rounds the result for the last or least significant bit, rounding implying loosing some information. We all know that if you multiply a rounded value, you will multiply the inherent rounding error as well. What happens when two adjacent pixels have been rounded but each having a different rounding error (one up and one down)? By multiplying those digitized values you will not get the same result as you would have gotten if you multiplied those value before digitizing. By experience, i can tell that if you try to correct through software more than 1-2 steps, you will destroy the quality of the image gathered with great effort and using such sophisticated and expensive optics (in fact what you do is magnify errors, the loss has already occurred at exposure time).

A good way to prove this would be through taking a good picture, process it to simulate underexposure by lowering brightness, save the result, reload it and then try to bring it back to the initial brightness, reversing the process, then compare the results.

I also leave all the settings on the camera that imply real time "on camera" software processing like contrast, sharpness, vivid, dynamic range, etc to normal or zero to make sure no on camera processing occurs at all as well. The only thing that's on is noise reduction on low light and the stabilizer that on better cameras is actually moving the sensor mechanically when trying to compensate for the unwanted motion of the camera).

Color temperature in photography is not the same thing as in physics but it imitates it. It is a convention that allows an adjustment of the final compressed displayable JPEG picture generated from the RAW file picked directly from the sensor based on the light conditions during taking the picture.

We need that adjustment for the same reason our eyes adapt to different color temperatures between dawn and dusk and allow us to see the objects somehow of similar colors making the light source differences bearable for our perception.

We all know that a hotter light source puts out a bluer light and a colder a more red one from physics in school. It is the opposite of our perception or intuition of colder light as warm, like red and hotter lights as cold like blue. Maybe that's why is so confusing to many beginners. Probably because we associate (psychologically) the blue color of the sky with cold and the red color of the fire with warm.

The equivalent color temperatures of light sources in visual range are well beyond our thermal sensory capabilities. As an example, an incandescent bulb filament actually has a temperature of 2700 degrees K and a flash plasma 6800. The surface of the Sun is 5,778 K. What would those temperature be for our skin? Not much difference.

With Sun's actual surface temperature in mind, let's think about the equivalent color temperature of the light on the surface of Earth on an average sunny day at noon which is about 5500 K. Why? Because of the filtering of the atmosphere, that scatters some of the blue photons in all directions preventing them to reach surface directly thus its blue color and cooling the light reaching the surface a little making it a little redder. (As i said in the previous paragraph, the total opposite of our intuition). The effect is much stronger at dawn and sunset where light comes at a steeper angle and has to travel more through air.

There are also light sources that are not hot or barely warm like LEDs that put out equivalents of daylight color temperatures. So it's not really about temperature but the composition or mixture of different visible wavelengths of the light source, or how much of each color(wavelength) has a hot source of an equivalent temperature.

All the colors we see around come usually from the same "white" light that gets reflected in different ways on different objects that absorb some of the colors and reflect others. White light is actually a mixture of colors and not always the same (but we perceive a range of mixtures as white light due to eye adaptation). (We are too used to these things and do not think of them or never did). But if the light source is unbalanced and puts out more colors than others the camera has to know for reference what the eye or brain or whatever does automatically for us and that is the equivalent temperature of the light source in order to transform a RAW file into a JPEG or directly generate a JPEG that would be compatible with our perception of the real image in that light, perception given by the automatic adjustment of our eyes.

There is an automatic function which directs the camera to detect the average color composition of the light on the sensor. In fact the only option most photographers use. But what if the chosen composition of the image is unbalanced like when taking a picture of a red tree in the fall that occupies most of the area of the sensor? The camera will average the framed image "thinking", as programmed, that the average should be white while that red tree is occupying most of the frame, or sensor, will over-correct and the result would be a cold, bluer looking red tree.

There are ways to measure the color temperature of the light source. A notorious one that i've tried until i learned enough is the camera's main sensor and a gray card. A gray card is an A4 piece of cardboard with some gray paint on it. You can calibrate the camera with by taking a picture of the card placed in the vicinity of the subject using camera's specialized function to measure color temperature just before taking the picture in the same light. But after a little experimentation that lasted several months i learned to do without.

Most of the situations between sunrise and sunset come in the range between 5500 and 5700. Then it goes quickly all the way to 7500 within a half hour after sunset then when we are starting to loose color perception into the light condition we perceive as dark but not completely night quickly all the way up to the limit of the setting of the camera.

Flash is 6800 but if the camera is on automatic it will know you used it.

There are cameras with settings like daylight (5500), clouds (5700), incandescent (2700), flash (6800) etc. So you don't have to set the color temperature but just to recognize the type of light and set it on the camera.

For color temperature, any manual approximate setting is better than automatic.

During daytime is better if you leave it on daylight or cloudy all day long then on automatic. You can have at most 100 or 200 degrees difference when shooting outside in different conditions which is less than if the camera picks automatically the wrong correction and it does so too often. A little effort to learn how to set it and you will have dramatically improved pictures with less or no necessary correction through processing (if you still want to do processing after reading this).

If you have degrees settings for white balance on your camera if you set at 5500 you are covered in 99% of daylight situations. Unless if i'm in the middle of a field with no clouds and the sun is above me when i use 5500. Or in a forest on a cloudy day when i use 5600 or 5700 towards the evening. Or... you can start playing around and make subjective photographs, over-correcting 100 degrees in one way or another. + for a warmer impression or - for a colder one according to everything i tried to say before. And you will want to give a colder impression in a forest so you better live it on 5600!. If you don't have degrees settings the best setting is on daylight or cloudy, depending on the situation, camera and results. (some cameras work better on cloudy even if there's sunlight). But not on automatic!

I set the camera for output both RAW and JPEG. But i never use the RAW files, i just keep them for reference just in case. The camera manufacturers are very interested in giving you the best possible JPEG directly out of the camera because there are many people that don't use RAWs so i just use those. I used for a while the converting software that came with the camera to generate JPEGs out of RAWs on the computer. But it had a very slight tendency of turning the pictures towards green. I like better the JPEGs that come directly from the camera. But just in case you don't like the colors on the final JPEG or simply didn't have time to set the color temperature on the camera at the time you took the picture, you can always generate a new JPEG out of the RAW on the computer adjusting the color temperature. And this is not processing but merely imitating the generation of the JPEG file on the camera.

In the RAW file color temperature information is not contained within pixels as is in JPEG but is just a parameter in the file's header. The information in each pixel in the RAW file comes directly from the sensor's physical pixels as it was when you took the photograph. After converting to JPEG the correction is taken from there and included in each pixel. Reprocessing a JPEG file just for adjusting colors or for any reason is the worst possible idea. You should always use RAWs as source for processing, if possible. However there are softwares that allow this for the reason that many photographers are not aware of the options and choices given by using RAW files or simply because they use cameras that do not have that output option or they must correct an older JPEG photograph.

Now that i write this i remember a conversation i had with someone a few days ago. I agree now that by using optical filters towards sunset you may level the color balance and increase the amount of useful information or dynamics in the RAW file on the colors that are less intense due to imbalance of the source and decrease the more saturated ones by purely optical means. Doing this, you should limit the amount of correction by adjusting the color temperature parameter when generating the jpeg file. But i also believe this is necessary in the areas where correction exceeds +/- 1500 K. When close to 5500 there are no major differences in dynamics on different color information coming straight from the sensor with no filters and i like the freedom of not needing to fiddle with filters while on a photography trip.

 http://cdn.cambridgeincolour.com/images/tutorials/wb_bbdiagram.png

And for taking pictures without flash with fluorescent lamps as source the problem is more than color temperature which by the way is around 4500. You will need a filter to correct the holes in spectrum that fluorescent lamps have.

Here are a few examples about what i was talking above. Can click on each picture for better view.

5600 - Mixed light: Sun, and clouds.

Lake Oswego, OR, street intersection. Click to enlarge

6000 - Mixed light: daylight, fluorescent, flash, done by trials.

My place, 2012-10-20 09:26:18, click to enlarge

9900, 7+ Magenta, almost night, by trials (LOL had to be quick), beyond the camera capabilities. Everything is too blue.

January 29, 2012 at 9.54PM PST, Cannon Beach, OR. Click to enlarge.

Since on current processing software adjusting focus is an option (is more like an imitation or simulation of focus adjustement), true focusing adjustment can only be achieved through optics, a few words on that too.

Many current cameras won't let you shoot unless they achieved focus that is detected through various means. But the big problems is the angular motion or angular speed of the optical axis of the camera in the moment that button clicks. Most cameras have a shutting button based on a two step switch. It's a switch that has one or two flat slightly spherically shaped springs that deform when pushed then pop, delivering a high switching speed but also a tiny, non neglectable mechanical momentum in the moment of popping. By pressing half it pops once and the camera measures light and focuses. By fully pressing it pops again and sometimes slightly shakes the camera. That mechanical momentum tends to give the camera an angular motion enough to blure the image. Everything is ruined because of that.

My experience tell me that most of blurred shots are because of that. There is no remedy to it except holding the camera, squeezing as opposed to pushing the button, and praying not to move. Lately i discovered a new trick. If you bypass the first step that implies focusing and metering, and push it quickly to the end and keeping it like that, most cameras will have a slight delay due to focusing and metering time that can go up from several tenth to a full second, enough time to mechanically stabilize the camera.

Short of using a mono-pod, a tripod or other mechanical fixture that holds the camera in place. The smaller and lighter the camera is, the more likely to get blurred images because of angular motion of the camera while pressing the button.

Fedora Customizations

Finally crossed my mind i could use a script for customizing Fedora 27 XFCE. After finishing manual partitioning with preserving home directory with all data and settings including for Chrome (i choose manual partitioning at installation and i have a scheme like 256 MB for /boot, 6 GB for / and /var, 2 for /temp and swap and 32 for /home which i don't reformat, have more NTFS partitions with old pictures and music, up to 500 GB).

First thing i do i go to /etc/lighdm and edit the file lightdm.conf in order to enable automatic login to user george2 by uncommenting two lines and specifying user name.

autologin-user=george2
autologin-user-timeout=0

And since i keep the home directory, i keep there the script too.

Here it is.

#removing unwanted apps, list can be completed
dnf remove claws-mail pidgin libpurple spice-vdagent sendmail pragha remmina tigervnc-server-minimal transmission liferea midori samba* openssh*
#could not prove to myself firewalld is really working so i remove it
systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl disable firewalld
dnf remove firewalld
#copy the two customs iptables files with rules for iptables
\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/iptables /etc/sysconfig
\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/ip6tables /etc/sysconfig
#installing iptables-services from Fedora repo (installed by default)
dnf install iptables-services
systemctl enable iptables
systemctl start iptables
systemctl enable ip6tables
systemctl start ip6tables
#updating (should be more than 600 packages)
dnf update
#installing repos for video drivers, others
rpm -ivhh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-27.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivhh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-27.noarch.rpm
dnf update
#installing video drivers for my old nvidia GeForce 6 series from rpmfusion repos

dnf install kmod-nvidia-304
#copying modified fstab files to etc directory

\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/fstab /etc
#downloading and copying hosts file to /etc directory. This command line is similar to installing an ad blocker in Windows and speeds up your browser 2-3 times
wget http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt --output-document=/etc/hosts
#creating a directory in tmp for myramdisk
mkdir /tmp/myramdisk
#installing Stellarium, just to prove how easy is to install an app in Fedora, provided you already have the repo installed, and that is another line, like for rpmfusion above.
dnf install stellarium
#installing google chrome
dnf install fedora-workstation-repositories
dnf config-manager --set-enabled google-chrome

dnf install googe-chrome-stable

Custom iptables files, modified fstab and hosts files in the same Before and After directory. The way i built iptables and ip6tables. Started with blocking everything then adding rules for only what i need.

Here is a minimalist example (For obvious reasons, i cannot publicize my whole iptables files)

# Generated by iptables-save v1.4.21 on Sat Dec 27 23:21:37 2014
*filter
:INPUT DROP
:FORWARD DROP
:OUTPUT DROP
-A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 53 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 5353 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 123 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 80 --dport 30000:65535 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --sport 443 --dport 30000:65535 -j ACCEPT

Here is the modified fstab

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Fri Jun 21 20:50:06 2019
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
UUID=f15194a9-ef11-48c4-9cd4-bbd99de246d8 /                       ext4    defaults        1 1
UUID=25219d3d-0056-4a86-bf6a-070dd502a992 /boot                   ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=83232fe0-b51f-4700-bc1a-fc3ea433b87f /home                   ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=4cf0a374-6e0e-4001-b78d-aec1f4eca944 /tmp                    ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=02d1d512-ef45-4d41-9662-250b67202f80 /var                    ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=91a2065a-7131-4b8c-a7b3-c26af37c179e swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

tmpfs /tmp/myramdisk tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777,nosuid,size=640M 0 0

With an added last line for creating RAM temp directory for Chrome

Hosts file is for blocking ads.

Modify Chrome command line to

/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --disk-cache-dir=/tmp/myramdisk %U
For that you have to right click on Chrome launch button, properties, than again right click on Google Chrome and edit the command line.

Then i go to chrome://settings/ and disable hardware acceleration (gives me wavy scrolling which made me lose half more day today because i forgot how i've done it last time).

But will i ever reinstall Fedora again on this computer? Hopefully not, cause they got to version 30 while i cannot install more than 27 because they don't support anymore video drivers for my card.

But this is what i said last time.

Yeah i know. fstab, dracut, anaconda, python, ncurses, bash, name of files and packages in Fedora.

https://www.google.com/search?q=torvalds+linus+swearing

06-26. Guess what. Got drunk yesterday (my birthday) more than usually and crashed it again. Tried the procedure above and didn't quite work though i got quite sober by 4 AM. Today after many tries which involved about ... 10 reinstalls, i found the reason. By moving fstab file in the working directory then back in /etc something happens though i still don't know what, so i just figured how to add the line for the ramdisk in fstab without moving the file, with command echo, and got to two (proved working) bash scripts. One is run with command yes|./ which involves automatic yes answer to all questions. But i had to brake it up because for some reason would give an error at downloading gpg keys. So the rest of it is run and answered manually.

before.sh
echo "tmpfs /tmp/myramdisk tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777,nosuid,size=640M 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/lightdm.conf /etc/lightdm
\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/iptables /etc/sysconfig
\cp /home/george2/"Before and After"/ip6tables /etc/sysconfig
dnf remove claws-mail pidgin libpurple spice-vdagent pragha tigervnc-server-minimal transmission samba* openssh*
systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl disable firewalld
dnf remove firewalld
sudo ip link set wlp1s9 up
nmcli dev wifi connect FiOS-Frontier password *************
dnf install iptables-services
systemctl enable iptables
systemctl start iptables
systemctl enable ip6tables
systemctl start ip6tables
dnf update
wget http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt --output-document=/etc/hosts

after.sh
rpm -ivhh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-27.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivhh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-27.noarch.rpm
dnf update
dnf install kmod-nvidia-304*
dnf install fedora-workstation-repositories
dnf config-manager --set-enabled google-chrome
dnf install google-chrome-stable

So it's installing with live installation then login as root and run these two. Provided you have the necessary files in the running directory, in my case /home/george2/"Before and After"/. I would assume the scripts can be tailored for any needs. Summarize 7 years of installing and customizing Fedora experiences. Lines in red are usable on any existing Linux system as commands in root prompt with immediate, visible results in improving speed (needs rebooting or restarting Chrome).

Here in this screenshot you can see with the file manager myramdisk created using one line in a script which can be also done via terminal command.

As for removing ads with hosts file in Windows using one command line. You can go to Start and type cmd.exe and choose to run as an administrative account (will be prompted for the password) or follow the instructions here. Then go to the terminal window (the black one) and paste the command below as one line next to a prompt and hit enter. Your browser's speed is going to improve dramatically since it won't open any of the sites listed here http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt and you won't see the adds from those sites embedded in normal sites anymore but also will not be able to open the sites marked in google searches as adds anymore, pretty much similar with using an add blocker but without the overhead of installing an app. It is reversible, you can go and delete everything in the hosts file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Here is the command

bitsadmin /transfer myDownloadJob /download /priority normal http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

(I built this line by the sample from here but can't make it won't work on Angela's computer as some vibrations in my ears from a carpet cleaner do not allow me to think right now or all i can think is... Windows! Will try later).

June 8

1:05 This woman is not Romanian, she is Japanese.

11:13 About the guy at Apt.1 i wrote before. He looks like a dead Japanese opera singer. He tormented me for years by idling a Dodge pickup with a V8 engine and broken exhaust, with no purpose, for up to half hour a day. One day i confronted him and since that didn't work (he said he doesn't have the money to fix the truck) i went to the office and he stopped doing that.

Then i saw him having some guys loading/unloading sacks of rice in his van. I saw him with his van on the hospital alley and thought he was reselling the rice to the hospital but later i saw in his van huge barrels labeled "disinfectant". I think i went and complained at the office about that one too. But yesterday when i went to pick the last leaves that were thrown off the east garages (relative to the building) i saw a trail of tiny pellets of fertilizer going to his apartment.

I the last few days i bought and used at "Angela's garden" and for the plants in the balcony 2 pounds of organic fertilizer made mainly of bird droppings and talked aloud about it.

2:10 A cup of suction for your head.

9:10 Impresia generală și a mea până acum când am deschis această pagină din Wikipedia a fost că guvernul Ciucă este majoritar PNL. PNL deține ministerele cheie în acest moment, ca cel de externe, dar PSD sunt majoritari ca număr în acest guvern. Deci pică argumentul că guvernul nu respectă proporția rezultată din alegeri.

Mai cred că sunt pe blat cu liderii sindicali care au ales momentul grevelor atunci când trebuiau să se rotească guvernele (adică PNL să cedeze aceste ministere importante către PSD?). Astfel mai au un motiv să nu se rotească, ca să-și poată termina treaba.

Mai cred că acest fals Klaus Iohannis, un scriitor ungur pe nume Imre Babics, împreună cu ministrul său de externe, un scriitor ungur pe nume Zorán Ardamica vor să ne ducă în prăpastie, alegând să fie tot mai agresiv cu rușii. Iohannis și-a bătut joc de România ca nimeni altul, numind până acum nu mai puțin de 11 prim miniștri în 14 guverne, începând cu Gabriel Oprea, din 22 iunie 2015.

Cum au ajuns aceștia să conducă țara? Cum au fost și toți ceilalți, dinainte de Ceaușescu, până în 89 și apoi toți primi miniștrii și toate guvernele. România este în secret o colonie ungurească care s-a numit până recent Ungrovlahia. Ungurii s-au retras însă oficial din Ardeal pentru că aveau nevoile de toate forțele pentru o misiune mult mai importantă. Să controleze împreună cu japonezii toată lumea.

De data asta ei vor să ne aducă într-un conflict cu Rusia, ca să dezmembreze țara fără nici un efort din partea lor.

Pentru toate astea au format, în principal la universitatea Loránd Eötvös o armată de peste 10 000 de actori care sunt în viață acum, plasați în conducerea tuturor țărilor.

Bineînțeles că un ministru de externe PSD după "rotație" ar fi tot unul de-al lor însă nu ar putea face în numele PSD ce fac ei acum în numele PNL, ar bate la ochi.

11:05 Woke up really sick, hands are cold and have chest discomfort. I believe the woman at 4 did it again. Dried a dog blanket in the drier without washing it when i was gone, Sunday or Monday. Though her apartment is upstairs, the drier's vent is at basement level. The wall next to kitchen smells now both from outside and inside like a dog toilet, especially when the fridge starts. Waves of smoke are also coming from outside.

What happens is the parasite (T Gondii) or something else in dog pee and poo is increasing dopamine, adrenaline and other hormones. Your body works in high gear and heart pumps harder on low oxygen with the nose congested. You don't feel a thing or even incredibly high (like drunk) and sexually aroused until it brings you to heart failure. Nothing magic.

3:00 Very suspicious the Canadian fires, now at the beginning of June. So far affecting only NE states. What will it be in September then? Reason? Taking your mind off some other things, weird associations.

5:30 Angela went to bed, they came in the back and started yelling.

Got my wi-fi dongle i ordered to move the wi-fi away from laptop, at the end of a longer USB cable (to use in a hotel room with no wired (ethernet) connection). However could not make it work even if plug it directly. It starts, according to the meter. But is not visible in settings, even after i restart the laptop. Drawback of Chromebook, it doesn't have drivers for all stuff sold on the market. Also the settings are kinda minimalist.

In the process i briefly turned the internal wi-fi on and exposed myself to a minute or two worth of radiation now from two sources, the dongle and the internal. The reason i turned wi-fi off and use the laptop on ethernet since the beggining of this year.

Pain followed promptly in the nearby areas (from knees to belly) which shows i'm not healed from previous massive doses from keeping the laptop on my lap for 10 hours a day and probably never will. It looks like i became radio sensitive that is i cannot take no more doses of microwave radiation. I read online that radiation dosage is cumulative, that is the effects of new exposure add on top to the old one and in and there maybe a limit in a lifetime.

Also i was thinking. In the past i could go to brick and mortar stores like Fry's in Wilvonville that is now closed and talk to the sells-people about what i need before i buy something. This is a one of a kind never been done project and i feel like i need to talk to someone about. I googled but can't find any pre-sell advisers at Amazon.