The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘LifeHacker’ Category

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Easy adding loops to towels (or re-add to towels that had their loop broken)

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/30

By German manufacturer Prym; very easy: use a fine tooth pick or small but blunt needle to widen a hole in the corner fabric of a towel, then use the slightly thicker plastic plastic needle to widen the hole, and clip on the new hook:

The linen/leinen ones are slightly cheaper than the terry/frottee ones:

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Posted in DIY, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Chronotrains: maps where can you go by train in 8h (or less) from any European city (for instance from Amsterdam)

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/23

Cool site with suggestions and a heat map: [Wayback/Archive] Chronotrains Where can you go by train in 8 hours time?

Specify your location (or click any of the preselected locations like [Wayback/Archive] Amsterdam | Chronotrains) to view how far you can get within a day of travel.

It is a relatively young (2020-ish) site where the remarkably simple user-experience makes it so useful.

Via [Wayback/Archive] Benjamin Td on Twitter: “🚄 Where can you go by train in Europe – 8h edition! I made an update to chronotrains.com, with configurable travel times from 1-8h, and more frequent data updates.”.

--jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, Traffic | Leave a Comment »

SINOIDEAS Digital Alarm Clock, Digital Calendar, Dementia Clock for Seniors with Custom Reminders: Amazon.de: Home & Kitchen

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/19

For my mentally retarded brother, I bought this clock:

[Wayback/Archive] SINOIDEAS Digital Alarm Clock, Digital Calendar, Dementia Clock for Seniors with Custom Reminders: Amazon.de: Home & Kitchen

Compelling mandatory features:

  • Supports Dutch as a language
  • Allows alarms to be bound to specific dates, weekdays and more in a very detailed way (see diagram below) like using Google Calendar but on an off-line device
  • Does automatic summer/winter time changes (for Americans: that’s automatically turning on/off daylight saving time)
  • Programming through remote control (which can be stored in a locked place to prevent tampering)

Via this quest:

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Posted in Alzheimer's disease, Health, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Notities over verzenden van pakketten in Nederland

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/19

Ik vergelijk hier alleen PostNL en DHL omdat die het dichtst bij mij in de buurt zitten.

DHL heeft voorkeur voor pakketpunt en rekende op het moment van schrijven (zomer 2023) EUR 0,50 (envelop/brievenbuspakje) of EUR 1,00 (pakket) meer voor levering aan huis.

PostNL heeft voorkeur voor levering aan huis en geeft EUR 0,50 (onafhankelijk van soort zending) korting bij aflevering bij pakketpunt.

Voor levering aan huis was DHL in alle gevallen goedkoper dan PostNL:

Kosten voor levering aan huis
in EUR inclusief BTW
bij on-line bestellen/afrekenen
Wat DHL PostNL
Envelop <= 500g 3,45 4,15
Brievenbuspakje <= 2kg 3,95 4,15
Pakket <= 10kg 5,95 6,95
Pakket <= 20kg (DLH) <=23kg (PostNL) 9,95 13,20

Verder heeft DHL bij pakketten (dus niet envelop/brievenbuspakje) nog toeslagen voor “niet bij de buren” (EUR 0,95) en verzekeren (EUR 2,50).

PostNL kent toeslagen voor verzekeren (EUR 4,60 voor brievenbuspakje, EUR 1,95 voor pakket <= 10kg , EUR 2,00 voor pakket <= 23kg)

Bestellen kun je hier; DHL biedt Nederlands en Engels, PostNL naast Nederlands en Engels ook nog Frans:

Meer informatie via deze sites:

Queries:

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

🇺🇦 Anna Filina: “- How to close SendGrid account? – Contact support. 1 out of 31 found this helpful; LOL, deserved ratio.…” – PHP Community on Mastodon

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/07

[Wayback/Archive] 🇺🇦 Anna Filina: “- How to close SendGrid accoun…” – PHP Community on Mastodon

– How to close SendGrid account?
– Contact support.
1 out of 31 found this helpful
LOL, deserved ratio.

The thread continues with how bad SendGrid support is. Good reason to not use SendGrid at all.

--jeroen

Posted in eMail, LifeHacker, Power User, SocialMedia | Leave a Comment »

BJS 214 – Arnold-Schalter

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/10/02

This is interesting as it will help us combine the outside lights with one or more motion/light sensors: [Wayback/Archive] BJS 214 – Arnold-Schalter (this is the Busch-Jaeger® compatible version; for different installation systems like Gira and Jung, look at their site: [Wayback/Archive] Produktkategorien Privatkunden – Arnold-Schalter).

Basically it is a multi-function switch that to combine lights and separate motion sensors:

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Posted in DIY, ElectricPower, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Wat linkjes rond pectine/citroenzuur/suiker voor jam maken

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/09/25

Onze druiven hebben een sterk wisselend gehalte aan pectine, daarom onderstaand wat linkjes zodat een volgende badge jam hopelijk een consistenter resultaat aan dikte geeft.

Pectine lost niet makkelijk op en kan klontjes geven. Daarom is het vaak makkelijk om het met een heel klein beetje water tot een gelijkmatige pasta te roeren en dan pas aan je kokende fruitmengsel toe te voegen.

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Posted in Cooking, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Wie du eine vergilbte Klobrille ganz einfach wieder weiß bekommst! – YouTube

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/09/18

[Wayback/Archive] Wie du eine vergilbte Klobrille ganz einfach wieder weiß bekommst! – YouTube

…

Als Hausmittel eignet sich Backofenspray gut zum Saubermachen eines gelben Klodeckels oder Klobrille.

…

--jeroen

Posted in DIY, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Song: Your Ancestor | Nynke Laverman – “This is your ancestor speaking”

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/09/15

A song I am kind of ashamed how true especially the last phrase is: [Wayback/Archive] Your Ancestor – Nynke Laverman (Official Music Video) – YouTube.

I got referred to it exactly one year ago in a Mastodon comment on my blog post Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders. – Finding back the source.

[Wayback/Archive] boiert: “@wiert @kaasbaas Your Ancestor | Nynke Laverman…” – ieji.de

The song starts with this

Hello there
This is your ancestor speaking
Your predecessor from the 21st century
When you emerged repressing me
Remember? That was us
The Homo Economicus

But be sure to listen (or read the full text at [Wayback/Archive] Your Ancestor | Nynke Laverman) to the very end.

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Posted in Awareness, Climate change, LifeHacker, Music, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Happy 42nd birthday to the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy video game

Posted by jpluimers on 2026/09/14

H2G2 art box - from Wikipedia

H2G2 art box – from Wikipedia

Today, 42 years ago the famous Infocom game The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy got released.

There is a bit of confusion on that date, as the above Wikipedia page mentions November 1984 for the USA and January 1985 for the EU.

Those are the time frames the boxes reached the public, but the actual release on 1984-09-14 is documented in [Wayback/Archive] The Infocom Bugs List: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I got reminded last year by [Wayback/Archive] Charles Hawn on X: “Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy was released 41 years ago today on Sept 14, 1984. Written by Steve Meretzky and Douglas Adams. It was #Infocom’s 14th game. What a bad day! As the story begins a bulldozer is preparing to level your house. DON’T PANIC! #Commodore64 #Commodore #C64 …” who was lucky to have the original complete box including button, pocket fluff and fleet (see picture below).

I wasn’t so fortunate back in 1984: I had entered secondary education not long ago, my parents didn’t believe in computers at all, I hardly got any allowance and had no idea where you could by software locally.

An original copy of the game (either Apple II or IBM) is still on my wish list, as well as the InvisiClues hint book mentioned at [Wayback/Archive] Charles Hawn on X: “@odinisamu It took me days to finally figure out how to get the babel fish into my ear to translate Vogon to English. It was before the internet and walk through so you just had to keep trying different things or pay $14.95 for the hint book sold by Infocom. I got this a few years ago. …”

References:

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