Posted by jpluimers on 2021/12/10
It has been a while after my last post about me having cancer. No, I am not giving up. But I am having the regular fear of the upcoming checks: did the metastases return, or do I have the luck to outlive some 30% of my peer group.
The last metastases surgery has been slightly more than a year ago. A year from now, that percentage hopefully will be 50% and slowly increase over time until about 90% in some 9 years from now.
At year’s end, I will know for sure.
Below are some links on, mostly Dutch but with English abstract, articles about the mental side of having cancer, or having survived it for now.
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Posted in About, Cancer, LifeHacker, Personal, Power User, Rectum cancer | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/16
Yes, I know: Ring and controversy.
Still need to figure out how to replace their ecosystem without shelling out far above 1K of money though, so for now – as our main doorbell is showing deterioration and hoping there would be PoE powered ones – a comparison chart PDF:
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Posted in Hardware, IoT Internet of Things, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Ring Doorbell/Chime (Amazon) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/16
The easiest way to get rid of DRM from PDF files is to use the Calibre plugin DeDRM with the instructions at [Wayback/Archive] Exactly how to remove DRM · apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools Wiki
The reason that I promote this tool is that the user experience of is that the user experience of Adobe Digital Editions is mediocre at best: keyboard navigation usually does not work, viewing 2 pages next to each other is impossible and almost none of the Acrobat Reader functionality is available.
[Wayback/Archive] How to view 2 pages, side-by-side in PDF within Ad… – Adobe Support Community – 10666132
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Posted in Development, PDF, Power User, Python, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/15
[Wayback/Archive] Het gevecht om de ultieme VVD-scalp, de hypotheekrenteaftrek, is nog niet helemaal gestreden | de Volkskrant
…
Er is alleen een probleem: de Belastingdienst weet niet wie (aflossingsvrije) hypotheken heeft van dertig jaar of ouder. De hypotheekhouders zijn ook niet verplicht om dat zelf bij te houden. Het gevolg is dat iemand die in 2031 niet vrijwillig aangeeft dat zijn hypotheek de maximale looptijd heeft bereikt, nog tot 2043 kan blijven aftrekken (in dat jaar is het probleem opgelost, omdat er sinds 2013 alleen nog hypotheken zijn die moeten worden afgelost).
Ambtelijk wordt daar al lang voor gewaarschuwd. ‘De dertigjaarstermijn is vanaf 2031 niet goed uit te voeren en vraagt echt om een beleidsaanpassing’, staat er in een advies uit 2024. Ook de extra kosten voor de schatkist zijn in kaart gebracht: zo’n 976 miljoen euro per jaar. Een bedrag dat niet is opgenomen in de ramingen en dus ergens vandaan moet worden gehaald.
…
Toch valt rond Financiën te horen dat de kwestie waarschijnlijk op de lange baan wordt geschoven en uiteindelijk ‘verdwijnt in de techniek’. Door voorzichtig te draaien aan het tarief van de eerste belastingschijf, te ‘spelen met de heffingskortingen’ en andere fiscale regelingen kunnen de kosten van de hypotheekrenteaftrek alsnog worden getemperd voor de schatkist. Zo kunnen ook de extra kosten vanaf 2031 enigszins worden gecompenseerd. ‘Dat gebeurt vaker’, aldus een ingewijde. ‘Maar het valt niemand op. Veel te technisch.’
…
Link: [Wayback/Archive] Belastingen in maatschappelijk perspectief_Bouwstenen voor een beter belastingstelsel.pdf [Wayback PDF Preview/PDF Preview] (2024)
Via: [Wayback/Archive] Post by @mariekedoorman.bsky.social — Bluesky
--jeroen
Posted in LifeHacker, Politics, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/15
Trouw publiceerde dit prachtige ode aan het HomeComputerMuseum in Helmond wat een belangrijk document is aan de geschiedenis van computers, voornamelijk, maar niet niet alleen die thuis stonden:
[Wayback/Archive] Museum vol vintage computers toont het stenen tijdperk van ons schermleven | Trouw
Iets bijzonders in dit museum is dat:
Je mag overal aanzitten, ‘behalve aan het personeel’.
Maar ook dat de computers, spellen en andere elektronica in hun natuurlijke historische omgeving staan: meubels, behang, accessoires sluiten allemaal aan.
Mijn eigen verzameling aan historische computers wordt na mijn dood aan dit museum ter beschikking gesteld.
Via: [Wayback/Archive] Post by @homecomputermuseum.computermuseum.social.ap.brid.gy — Bluesky
--jeroen
Posted in History, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/14
Most shares of this [Wayback/Archive] Pie Comic by John McNamee is is with the attribution cut off, no alt-text and heavy recompression artefacts.
The first is unforgivable: cartoonists put a lot of effort in their work, so sharing their work should at least include the attribution on the picture itself, and preferably the name in text and link to their original work.
The second is not surprising: the comic is 7 years old and published at (now only) 500 pixels wide, so her it is again but with alt-text:
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Posted in Fun, Meme | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/13
On my list of tools to play around with: [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – glotlabs/gdrive: Google Drive CLI Client
With a warning though from the documentation (emphasis mine):
Gdrive saves your account credentials and tokens under $HOME/.config/gdrive3/. You don’t usually need to use these files directly, but if someone gets access to them, they will also be able to access your Google Drive. Keep them safe.
and from the gdrive2 prior version more elaborate documentation [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – prasmussen/gdrive: Google Drive CLI Client:
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Posted in Apple, Console (command prompt window), Google, GoogleDrive, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User, Terminal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/13
While researching early Intel 8087 documentation distributed via LISTSERV, the below blast from the past also turned up: back in 2002 computer dictionaries were also available as … books!
[Wayback/Archive] Microsoft® Computer Dictionary, Fifth Edition (Cpg-Other): 9780735614956: Computer Science Books @ Amazon.com
- Publisher : Microsoft Press; 5th ed. edition (June 1, 2002)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 637 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0735614954
- ISBN-13 : 978-0735614956
- Item Weight : 2.85 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.33 x 1.76 x 9.25 inches
It is available from various sources including [Wayback/Archive] Microsoft Computer Dictionary – Microsoft Press – Google Books and [Wayback/Archive] microsoft_computer_dictionary__fifth_edition1.pdf.
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Posted in 6502, 68k, 8086, 8087, 8087, 8088, Development, History, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/12
De SMS van dinsdag:
Beste klant, je bestelling of wijziging van KPN HotSpots is verwerkt. Ga naar MijnKPN (kpn.com/mijnkpn) voor meer informatie. Groet, KPN
Die SMS had nooit verzonden moeten worden, want KPN HotSpots zijn al jaren gratis voor iedereen toegankelijk, en de abonnee had zelf niets gewijzigd.
Zie: [Wayback/Archive] SMS gehad dat wijziging van KPN Hotspots is verwerkt | KPN Community
Woensdag kwamen er, ook per SMS, excuses. Twee keer zelfs.
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Posted in Internet, ISP, KPN, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/12
From quite a while back but still very relevant today, especially when debugging problems (most people would post them in the order integers, floats, but Julia did it in the opposite way):
- [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “had a great discussion of how floating point arithmetic can betray you on Mastodon yesterday, there are tons of good examples in the replies”
[Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans: “today I’m thinking about how floating point numbers can be treacherous — what are specific examples of when they’ve betrayed you?so far I have:…” – Mastodon
- [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “examples of problems with integers”
Usually I tend to explain integer versus floating point math as lossless versus lossy data compression (for instance WavPack and FLAC versus MP3 compression of PCM audio data, or BMP versus JPEG compression of 2D digital image data).
Either way: floating point and integer problems cause real harm. One interesting comment illustrating that was [Wayback/Archive] Ian Kirker on Twitter: “@b0rk I didn’t see this one in the list, which sticks in my memory: science.org – Fatal Error: How Patriot Overlooked a Scud”
[No wayback/Archive] Fatal Error: How Patriot Overlooked a Scud | Science
If you like listening instead of reading, then [Wayback/Archive] 452: Numbers on Computers Are Weird — Embedded is a great podcast episode where Julia gets interviewed by Christopher White, and Elecia White which I found via [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “was on the @embeddedfm podcast this week talking about our upcoming “How Integers and Floats Work” zine, plus some meta discussion about making zines”
Either way, be sure to read the other replies to b0rk’s posts too as many interesting tidbits did not make it in her underlying blog posts:
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Posted in Conferences, Event, Software Development, Development, Conference Topics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/11
This was the easiest tool to remove HTML from select tags while keeping line breaks: [Wayback/Archive] Online HTML Stripper. Remove HTML and formatting from text.
Especially the client-side on-line tools I tried failed that option:
This just does not work at all for me: [Wayback/Archive] HTML Cleaner (cannot paste HTML text: needs to paste formatted text which does not work with select elements).
Could I have done this on a command-line? Of course, but I don’t need it often enough to warrant investigating and remembering how to do that in an efficient manner.
Queries:
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Posted in Blogging, Development, HTML, JavaScript/ECMAScript, LifeHacker, PHP, Power User, Scripting, SocialMedia, Software Development, Web Development | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 