*Memory Matrix

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile256GB bs=1024 count=268435456 status=progress
chmod 0600 /swapfile256GB
/usr/sbin/mkswap /swapfile256GB
/usr/sbin/swapon /swapfile256GB
echo "/swapfile256GB     none   swap    sw     0     0" | tee -a /etc/fstab

Document z260205wa, last modified 21 May, 2026
See z260205f (an earlier note related to swap file creation).

It is possible to configure the behavior of Linux with regards to the use of swap memory. The default setting is a swappiness of 60, which means the kernel begins using swap memory once processes use 40% of the system memory.

To view the current swappiness setting, use the command
cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep swappiness or use the command
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness or the command
/sbin/sysctl vm.swappiness

To immediately change swappiness, use the command
sysctl vm.swappiness=1 or another number other than 1. In the case of 65536MB of RAM, a swappiness setting of 1 means that once 655MB of memory remains, the kernel will start swapping data to the disk.

To make the change permanent, add vm.swapiness=1 to /etc/sysctl.conf. It is also possible to achieve the same effect by adding the sysctl vm.swapiness=1 command to a crontab that takes effect upon reboot using @reboot /sbin/sysctl vm.swappiness=1 in the crontab editor.

Document z260521wa, last modified 21 May, 2026
See z260205f (earlier referece note on configuring swappiness)

This page contains details on the numbering conventions for my zettelkasten.

For purposes of organization, these are case insensitive. Sometimes I write them in all capitals and sometimes in lower case. All notes identifiers start with the letter z. That is because Joplin requires a character rather than a number in order to search. Then comes the date code. After the date code, a letter identifier specifiying the medium of the note. It is preferred to use lowercase for the letter portions of the names.

z260519w – web document
z260519l – loose/large page, archived in three-ring binders
z260519j – Joplin
z260519p – pocket notebook
z260519m – main notebook
z260519z – Zettlr document

Each one then has a letter, a-z, following the intial portion. z260519ja is the first note of the day in Joplin. z260519jb is the second. Zettlr documents consist of MarkDown (.md) files. These files may be created in Apostrophe or another markdown editor and saved in the Zettlr vault or be created within Zettlr itself. The Pandoc User’s Guide contains a guide to Pandoc’s Markdown.

This web document is z260519wa. The Joplin note related to this is z260519ja.  For example, I just created z260519za-ark-ascended-notes.md in my Zettlr vault with some cheat codes for Ark Ascended.

This allows me to track thoughts and records across time and media.

Linvega contains excellent information on historical computation devices such as calculators and slide rule mechanical calculators.

Scientist Sees Squirrel convers the importance of writing from the perspective of an evolutionary ecologist and entomologist in Canada.

The Mathematical Reason Most People Never “Make It” is an article that details why it is necessary to create, even when it seems that the payoff is lower than it should be.

Price’s Law states that the square root of the number of people in a domain does 50% of the work.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• In a company with 100 employees, 10 people produce half the output
• In a field with 10,000 scientists, 100 produce half the meaningful research
• On a team of 25, 5 people carry the entire operation

…The formula is simple: √n = your high performers, where n is the total population.

Oh, and it wasn’t exclusive to research papers—this pattern showed up everywhere he looked.

This applies to many different things.  This article was a good read.

Document no. z260525wa, last updated 25 May, 2026

[+] = Added
[*] = Changed
[^] = Moved
[=] = No Changes
[x] = Deleted
[!] = Bugs
[_] = To Do
[>] = Migrated
[<] = Migrated

Who?
When?
Where?
Why?
Way?
Worth?
What?
How?
Cui Bono?

Linux Operating System Notes:
[_] Increasing watch handles on Linux
[_] Adding external local disk storage to Nextcloud
[_] Manually set the time zones and sync time on Linux
[_] Configure Boot on Devuan Excalibur (ref. z260205a)
[_] Window resize script for X11 (ref. z260205b)
[_] Creating SSH keys and using them on multiple machines (ref. z260205c, z260307a, z260309a)
[_] Excellent backup and restoration scheme using lrzip (cf. z2605919zb)
[_] Monitoring network activity on Linux (ref. z260205d)
[_] Disabling IPv6 in Debian and ending errors appearing in Journalctl related to it (ref. z260205e)
[z260205wa] Creating a Swapfile
[z260521wa] Configuring swappiness levels

Linux IRC paste bins:
Debian pastebin | OpenSUSE pastebin | #Linux chat pastebin | Pasteboard Image Uploads

Bash Shell Functions:
[_] Bash shell function webarchive (ref. z260305a)

Quick memos:
Use apt-get install ./x rather than dpkgi -i x when installing third party debs.

nano -c -i -q --guidestripe=79

Software Articles:
[_] Disable Updates in Thunderbird
[_] Disable DNS over HTTPs in Mozilla browsers
[_] Remove OneDrive from Explorer via Group Policy on Windows

Redshift was not installed on Debian 12, yet color temperature kept changing without manually doing it.  xsct 6500 restored default color temperature.  Switching to a Gnome session and disabling night shift worked.  After logging back into xfce the temperature issue returned.

dconf reset -f /

brought back the normal color temperature.

Disabling Microsoft 365 Copilot from Startup on Windows 10 is a bit of a challenge for those familiar with Windows from the old days. It does not appear in Autoruns anywhere, nor does it appear in MSCONFIG. It only appears in the task manager startup section.^[1] I have done this to run H & R Block tax software, which is the last program tying me to Windows. I have succesfully migrated to Linux otherwise. That covers Steam gaming, document scanning with Brother scanners

Apple requires British customers to provide a physical identification card or they will face content restrictions on their mobile devices.^[2] The measures are not required under the U.K. Regulation.^[3] Apple apparently chose to pursue a maximilist identification verification strategy on their mobile devices. The U.K. Regulation requires websites to verify rather than operating systems. The approach by Apple removes no liability from the services. They must continue to verify.^[4] That makes this a data gathering expedition for Apple to obtain identity documents associated with devices on pain of restricted website browsing. In addition to web browsing controls, the lock down activates monitoring of photos and video calls for nudity. That means that every single device from Apple will default to monitored photos and video calls. “The British government does not require Apple and other OS providers to institute device-level age checks”.^[5] Apple recently sought to allow iPhones to serve stand-ins for passports^[6] and this is the beginnings of their thrust for a complete identification device.

An excellent essay appeared in February. That author titled that essay “Hold on to your computer hardware”.^[7] ”HP, on the other hand, seems to have already prepared for the hardware shortage by launching a laptop subscription service where you pay a monthly fee to use a laptop but never own it, no matter how long you subscribe. While HP frames this as a convenience, the timing, right in the middle of a hardware affordability crisis, makes it feel a lot more like a preview of a rented compute future.”^[8]. It might be useful to learn how to map around memory failures if one will keep the old hardware.^[9]

One unfortunate feature of AI is that it will erase a great deal of the historical record. Dee Mclaughing recorded an instance of attempting to profeed historical quotes in ChatGPT wherein the service refused to profeed certain quotes.^[10] Many authors will simply remove the quotes that the mechanisms refuse to analyze. Some of history’s greatest written works allowed us to know of other works by quoting them. Now such works will fail to contain all possibilities. The relevant quote was related to the war in Iraq, from back in 2007. This relates to one of the Sem-descendant nations targeted for destruction, and the major English speaking AI companies are controlled by adjacent interests. It is sad that the young may not care for old books. Old books are the only way they will know the truth in the future.

A court ordered Meta to pay $375 Million in damages for failing to protect children.^[11] This is one of the reasons for the coordinated efforts to push identification to the device. They want to remove liability from the services provider. Apple naturally aligns with that since they want the smart phone to be a global universal digital identification device.

Fighting for freedom, privacy, and digital sovereignty is not a lost cause. The EU Parliament abandoned mass observation of Chats. The Apple monitoriting mentioned earlier will now contain greater levels of monitoring than the EU.^[12]. It is important to celebrate the wins.

The 2026-03-24 Tiny Takeover Java Edition, 26.1, requires an upgrade to Java 25. The previous release, 1.21.11, used version 21.

The Castle is a book by Franz Kafka.  It entered the Public Domain the United States.  It is a wonderful book. I picked one up at a Friends of the Library book sale. That is one of those sales where American libraries sell their old books.  Most American Libraries keep no old books.   When Ceasar burned the Library of Alexandria, it was a tragedy because of the ancient knowledge that was lost.  If Caesar burned an American Library it would make the morning paper and they would simply order replacement copies of the literature since they rarely span cultural eras.  For some reason, our communities dislike the idea of people communing with their forerunners.

Most everything written in America will be long forgotten due to the 95 years of copyright protection on it if a business created it and the 70 years after an authors death.  They have gauranteed the vanishing of most great stories into the sands of time by locking anyone out of republishing them for a century.  Most stories will simply never be told against since only the stories sought and purchased by the rich will be republished.  The old books that Google scanned had only 28 years of copy protection and that is why they survived for hundreds of years in reprints.  Back then, anyone could repriting someting that was thirty years old, and many did.  Now one has to identify rights-holders and pay a license fee, assuming that one could even locate a licensor.

The term of copyright for a particular work depends on several factors, including whether it has been published, and, if so, the date of first publication. As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. For works first published prior to 1978, the term will vary depending on several factors.  [1]

I was going to compare some aspects of society to the castle, but am posting this now and may get back to the castle comparison later.

1. How Long Does Copyright Protection Last?, U.S. Copyright Office, accessed 6 March 2026 at https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.htm.

More links have disappeared from the blog roll.  They were links to blogs with callous hunger for death and thirst for human tragedy. Time is too valuable to waste it reading the mantras of the scrofulous.

This article details how to customize the user interface on Debian using IceWM and picom, and includes a useful font. This applies to Debian 12 at present and applies to any installation of IceWM and Picom as of this date. The version of IceWM used is 3.31, which is copyright 1992-2012 Markko Macke, and 2001 Mathias Hasselman. The Picom version is 9.1, which is from 2022. These are the versions in the Debian repositories for Debian 12 as of this writing.

Download themes.tar, which contains 155 themes for IceWM including BlueSteel. This theme set is larger than the default extra-themes archive that one finds in Arch Linux or older version of other distributions. Download ubuntu-font-family-0.83 for the complete set of Ubuntu fonts.  One font that I enjoy is AG57, Akzidenze Grotesk, some details of which can be found online.  That font is the precursor of Helvetica, which is also a wonderful font to use .

Extract the individual themes to ~/.icewm/themes.

Then, to modify that size of the text in the title bars regardless of theme, create a prefoverride file.  This is needed in the case of high resolution displays where the standard scaling settings do not modify the size of the window title bar text in IceWM.

Filename: ~/.icewm/prefoverride

# TitleFontNameXft="Impact, Condensed:size=10"
TitleFontNameXft="ubuntu:size=12"

In this example, the font that I enjoyed called Impact is commented out, and Ubuntu is set to active. I used Impact, but choose to change it to Ubuntu. I left the comment there so that I could remember that one in the future.

By default, with this version, there is a sample config file in /usr/share/doc/picom/examples/picom.sample.conf.  Copy this file to ~/.config/picom/picom.conf and modify to to suit your preferences.

In my case, I changed the shadow widths on the windows and their starting locations.  I also disabled transparency because I dislike the effect of partially transparent windows.

Here is my config file (~/.config/picom/picom.conf):

#################################
#             Shadows           #
#################################

# Enabled client-side shadows on windows. Note desktop windows
# (windows with '_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP') never get shadow,
# unless explicitly requested using the wintypes option.
#
# shadow = false
shadow = true;

# The blur radius for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to 12)
# shadow-radius = 12
shadow-radius = 12;

# The opacity of shadows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.75)
shadow-opacity = .60

# The left offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-x = -15
shadow-offset-x = -10;

# The top offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-y = -15
shadow-offset-y = -10;

# Red color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-red = 0

# Green color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-green = 0

# Blue color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-blue = 0

# Hex string color value of shadow (#000000 - #FFFFFF, defaults to #000000). This option will override options set shadow-(red/green/blue)
# shadow-color = "#000000"

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow.
#
# examples:
#   shadow-exclude = "n:e:Notification";
#
# shadow-exclude = []
shadow-exclude = [
  "name = 'Notification'",
  "class_g = 'Conky'",
  "class_g ?= 'Notify-osd'",
  "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'",
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
];

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow painted over, such as a dock window.
# clip-shadow-above = []

# Specify a X geometry that describes the region in which shadow should not
# be painted in, such as a dock window region. Use
#    shadow-exclude-reg = "x10+0+0"
# for example, if the 10 pixels on the bottom of the screen should not have shadows painted on.
#
# shadow-exclude-reg = ""

# Crop shadow of a window fully on a particular Xinerama screen to the screen.
# xinerama-shadow-crop = false

#################################
#           Fading              #
#################################

# Fade windows in/out when opening/closing and when opacity changes,
#  unless no-fading-openclose is used.
# fading = false
fading = true;

# Opacity change between steps while fading in. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.028)
# fade-in-step = 0.028
fade-in-step = 0.03;

# Opacity change between steps while fading out. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.03)
# fade-out-step = 0.03
fade-out-step = 0.03;

# The time between steps in fade step, in milliseconds. (> 0, defaults to 10)
# fade-delta = 10

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should not be faded.
# fade-exclude = []

# Do not fade on window open/close.
# no-fading-openclose = false

# Do not fade destroyed ARGB windows with WM frame. Workaround of bugs in Openbox, Fluxbox, etc.
# no-fading-destroyed-argb = false

#################################
#   Transparency / Opacity      #
#################################

# Opacity of inactive windows. (0.1 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
# inactive-opacity = 1
#inactive-opacity = 0.8;

# Opacity of window titlebars and borders. (0.1 - 1.0, disabled by default)
# frame-opacity = 1.0
#frame-opacity = 0.7;

# Let inactive opacity set by -i override the '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' values of windows.
# inactive-opacity-override = true
#inactive-opacity-override = false;

# Default opacity for active windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
active-opacity = 1.0

# Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.0)
# inactive-dim = 0.0

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should never be considered focused.
# focus-exclude = []
#focus-exclude = [ "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'" ];

# Use fixed inactive dim value, instead of adjusting according to window opacity.
# inactive-dim-fixed = 1.0

# Specify a list of opacity rules, in the format `PERCENT:PATTERN`,
# like `50:name *= "Firefox"`. picom-trans is recommended over this.
# Note we don't make any guarantee about possible conflicts with other
# programs that set '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on frame or client windows.
# example:
#    opacity-rule = [ "80:class_g = 'URxvt'" ];
#
#opacity-rule = []

#################################
#           Corners             #
#################################

# Sets the radius of rounded window corners. When > 0, the compositor will
# round the corners of windows. Does not interact well with
# `transparent-clipping`.
corner-radius = 0

# Exclude conditions for rounded corners.
rounded-corners-exclude = [
  "window_type = 'dock'",
  "window_type = 'desktop'"
];

#################################
#     Background-Blurring       #
#################################

# Parameters for background blurring, see the *BLUR* section for more information.
# blur-method =
# blur-size = 12
#
# blur-deviation = false
#
# blur-strength = 5

# Blur background of semi-transparent / ARGB windows.
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior.
# The name of the switch may change without prior notifications.
#
# blur-background = false

# Blur background of windows when the window frame is not opaque.
# Implies:
#    blur-background
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior. The name may change.
#
# blur-background-frame = false

# Use fixed blur strength rather than adjusting according to window opacity.
# blur-background-fixed = false

# Specify the blur convolution kernel, with the following format:
# example:
#   blur-kern = "5,5,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1";
#
# blur-kern = ""
blur-kern = "3x3box";

# Exclude conditions for background blur.
# blur-background-exclude = []
blur-background-exclude = [
  "window_type = 'dock'",
  "window_type = 'desktop'",
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
];

#################################
#       General Settings        #
#################################

# Daemonize process. Fork to background after initialization. Causes issues with certain (badly-written) drivers.
# daemon = false

# Specify the backend to use: `xrender`, `glx`, or `xr_glx_hybrid`.
# `xrender` is the default one.
#
# backend = "glx"
backend = "xrender";

# Enable/disable VSync.
# vsync = false
vsync = true;

# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the *D-BUS API* section below for more details.
# dbus = false

# Try to detect WM windows (a non-override-redirect window with no
# child that has 'WM_STATE') and mark them as active.
#
# mark-wmwin-focused = false
mark-wmwin-focused = true;

# Mark override-redirect windows that doesn't have a child window with 'WM_STATE' focused.
# mark-ovredir-focused = false
mark-ovredir-focused = true;

# Try to detect windows with rounded corners and don't consider them
# shaped windows. The accuracy is not very high, unfortunately.
#
# detect-rounded-corners = false
detect-rounded-corners = true;

# Detect '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on client windows, useful for window managers
# not passing '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' of client windows to frame windows.
#
# detect-client-opacity = false
# detect-client-opacity = true;

# Use EWMH '_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW' to determine currently focused window,
# rather than listening to 'FocusIn'/'FocusOut' event. Might have more accuracy,
# provided that the WM supports it.
#
# use-ewmh-active-win = false

# Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is detected,
# to maximize performance for full-screen windows. Known to cause flickering
# when redirecting/unredirecting windows.
#
# unredir-if-possible = false

# Delay before unredirecting the window, in milliseconds. Defaults to 0.
# unredir-if-possible-delay = 0

# Conditions of windows that shouldn't be considered full-screen for unredirecting screen.
# unredir-if-possible-exclude = []

# Use 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' to group windows, and consider windows
# in the same group focused at the same time.
#
# detect-transient = false
detect-transient = true;

# Use 'WM_CLIENT_LEADER' to group windows, and consider windows in the same
# group focused at the same time. This usually means windows from the same application
# will be considered focused or unfocused at the same time.
# 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' has higher priority if detect-transient is enabled, too.
#
# detect-client-leader = false

# Resize damaged region by a specific number of pixels.
# A positive value enlarges it while a negative one shrinks it.
# If the value is positive, those additional pixels will not be actually painted
# to screen, only used in blur calculation, and such. (Due to technical limitations,
# with use-damage, those pixels will still be incorrectly painted to screen.)
# Primarily used to fix the line corruption issues of blur,
# in which case you should use the blur radius value here
# (e.g. with a 3x3 kernel, you should use `--resize-damage 1`,
# with a 5x5 one you use `--resize-damage 2`, and so on).
# May or may not work with *--glx-no-stencil*. Shrinking doesn't function correctly.
#
# resize-damage = 1

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should be painted with inverted color.
# Resource-hogging, and is not well tested.
#
# invert-color-include = []

# GLX backend: Avoid using stencil buffer, useful if you don't have a stencil buffer.
# Might cause incorrect opacity when rendering transparent content (but never
# practically happened) and may not work with blur-background.
# My tests show a 15% performance boost. Recommended.
#
# glx-no-stencil = false

# GLX backend: Avoid rebinding pixmap on window damage.
# Probably could improve performance on rapid window content changes,
# but is known to break things on some drivers (LLVMpipe, xf86-video-intel, etc.).
# Recommended if it works.
#
# glx-no-rebind-pixmap = false

# Disable the use of damage information.
# This cause the whole screen to be redrawn everytime, instead of the part of the screen
# has actually changed. Potentially degrades the performance, but might fix some artifacts.
# The opposing option is use-damage
#
# no-use-damage = false
use-damage = true;

# Use X Sync fence to sync clients' draw calls, to make sure all draw
# calls are finished before picom starts drawing. Needed on nvidia-drivers
# with GLX backend for some users.
#
# xrender-sync-fence = false

# GLX backend: Use specified GLSL fragment shader for rendering window contents.
# See `compton-default-fshader-win.glsl` and `compton-fake-transparency-fshader-win.glsl`
# in the source tree for examples.
#
# glx-fshader-win = ""

# Force all windows to be painted with blending. Useful if you
# have a glx-fshader-win that could turn opaque pixels transparent.
#
# force-win-blend = false

# Do not use EWMH to detect fullscreen windows.
# Reverts to checking if a window is fullscreen based only on its size and coordinates.
#
# no-ewmh-fullscreen = false

# Dimming bright windows so their brightness doesn't exceed this set value.
# Brightness of a window is estimated by averaging all pixels in the window,
# so this could comes with a performance hit.
# Setting this to 1.0 disables this behaviour. Requires --use-damage to be disabled. (default: 1.0)
#
# max-brightness = 1.0

# Make transparent windows clip other windows like non-transparent windows do,
# instead of blending on top of them.
#
# transparent-clipping = false

# Set the log level. Possible values are:
#  "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error"
# in increasing level of importance. Case doesn't matter.
# If using the "TRACE" log level, it's better to log into a file
# using *--log-file*, since it can generate a huge stream of logs.
#
# log-level = "debug"
log-level = "warn";

# Set the log file.
# If *--log-file* is never specified, logs will be written to stderr.
# Otherwise, logs will to written to the given file, though some of the early
# logs might still be written to the stderr.
# When setting this option from the config file, it is recommended to use an absolute path.
#
# log-file = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Show all X errors (for debugging)
# show-all-xerrors = false

# Write process ID to a file.
# write-pid-path = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Window type settings
#
# 'WINDOW_TYPE' is one of the 15 window types defined in EWMH standard:
#     "unknown", "desktop", "dock", "toolbar", "menu", "utility",
#     "splash", "dialog", "normal", "dropdown_menu", "popup_menu",
#     "tooltip", "notification", "combo", and "dnd".
#
# Following per window-type options are available: ::
#
#   fade, shadow:::
#     Controls window-type-specific shadow and fade settings.
#
#   opacity:::
#     Controls default opacity of the window type.
#
#   focus:::
#     Controls whether the window of this type is to be always considered focused.
#     (By default, all window types except "normal" and "dialog" has this on.)
#
#   full-shadow:::
#     Controls whether shadow is drawn under the parts of the window that you
#     normally won't be able to see. Useful when the window has parts of it
#     transparent, and you want shadows in those areas.
#
#   clip-shadow-above:::
#     Controls wether shadows that would have been drawn above the window should
#     be clipped. Useful for dock windows that should have no shadow painted on top.
#
#   redir-ignore:::
#     Controls whether this type of windows should cause screen to become
#     redirected again after been unredirected. If you have unredir-if-possible
#     set, and doesn't want certain window to cause unnecessary screen redirection,
#     you can set this to `true`.
#
wintypes:
{
  tooltip = { fade = true; shadow = true; opacity = 0.75; focus = true; full-shadow = false; };
  dock = { shadow = false; clip-shadow-above = true; }
  dnd = { shadow = false; }
  popup_menu = { opacity = 0.95; }
  dropdown_menu = { opacity = 0.95; }
};

To use picom effectively, add “picom -b” to the session manager for startup options.  Steam does not like picom, so use “pkill picom” before launching games that rely on Steam.  In my particular case I have a session that uses the KDE destkop and I switch into that for steam gaming and then back to my LXQT session with IceWM and Picom for everything else.