Safely shut down during OOBE in Windows, macOS, and Linux Mint

These out-of-box experiences (OOBE) offer no obvious shutdown option, but each can still be powered off gracefully:

Windows: Shift+F10 → shutdown /s /t 0
macOS: Cmd+Q → Shut Down
Linux Mint (first boot after an OEM install): Ctrl+Alt+F2 → quickly press and release the power button once the text console appears to shut down safely. GRUB may appear on the next boot; one complete startup clears recordfail and re-hides the menu.

❧ 2026-09-05

Wandering the well-worn sidepaths to nowhere

"In one particular the civilized man still is brother to the savage: His thoughts seldom rise above the dust of which he is made."

—Robert Quillen, "When Guests Saw Only the Parlor, There Was Trash in the Closets", The State, October 22, 1929, p. 4.

❧ 2026-08-19

Check provenance of AI-generated images

Verify OpenAI-generated content: "Check for signals that it was generated with OpenAI tools."
Verify AI-generated images, videos and audio: Gemini checks for SynthID or Content Credentials markers.
Inspect Content Credentials: "Content Credentials are still rolling out, so the content you choose to inspect may not have information to view."
SynthID Detector: "Detect invisible AI watermarks from ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Imagen. Works on text, images, and audio — results in under 3 seconds." One free check then signup required.
Detect AI-generated images: "The highest accuracy for AI-generated media detection"
Detect AI-Generated & Deepfake Content: "Upload images, video, or audio to detect AI-generated or deepfake content using best-in-class models."
How to Detect AI-Generated Images Using Metadata: ExifTool instructions and more.
Pangram: Check images or text. Sign up required. Four free AI checks a day.

❧ 2026-08-12

DaisyDisk free & open source alternatives

App	Archive size	Language	reddit
GrandPerspective 3.7.2	4.4MB	Objective-C	r/macapps
Neodisk 2.71.0	4.5MB	Swift	/r/MacOSApps/
OpenDisk 1.0.1	4.1MB	Swift	r/macapps
Radix 1.7.0	7.3MB	Swift	r/macapps

❧ 2026-08-12

Why plain text email, 2026 edition

Gareth Heyes, CSS: the bomb inside your inbox:

"It's quite common for webmail clients to render untrusted CSS in a trusted UI. They attempt to make this safe using CSS sanitization. In this paper I'm going to show you how to break out of trust boundaries, exfiltrate tokens, compromise 3rd party websites and even steal passwords."

Previously:

2001: Why HTML in E-Mail is a Bad Idea
2002: 7 reasons why HTML e-mail is EVIL
2004: HTML email considered harmful | use plain text email
2006: Force Apple Mail to Display Incoming Messages as Plain Text
2009: Just say no to HTML email and proprietary attachments
2011: Test your mail client's leakiness

❧ 2026-08-07

"If only there was some kind of..."

Besides Why, in my day..., the other Slashdot meme from yesteryear that never failed to amuse is "If only there was|were some kind of..."

However, Google, Kagi, and even Slashdot's own site search were all coming up empty. To satisfy nostalgia, cobbled together these stylized versions with Claude Opus 4.6:

If only there were some kind of enormous, interconnected network of computers, perhaps spanning the entire globe, upon which someone had built a system for indexing and retrieving information using simple keyword queries. Alas, we can but dream.
What we really need is some sort of "engine" if you will, specifically designed for "searching". We could type words into a box and it would locate relevant documents from across the world's collected knowledge in mere fractions of a second.

These were the platonic ideal of what memory served up, but the desire for pure, unadulterated, human-crafted wit remained. Went in search of a Slashdot archive and hit paydirt with Sketch the Cow's Slashdot Story Archive (HTML Format), which spans 1998 to 2019. Spelunked like so:

% du -sh stories.7z | awk '{print $1}'
8.6G
% time ugrep -z -E "if only there (was|were) some kind" stories.7z > results.txt
...6:35.92 total

Two gems from the diggings:

Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, 2007:

"[I]f only there was some kind of searching engine one could use, or some kind of encyclopedia in the form of a wiki where one could look up this information... Maybe some day."
gosand on Monday October 06, 2003:

"[I]f only there was some kind of searchable, massive collection of computers that were all hooked together somehow, and contained this kind of information."

❧ 2026-08-01

Site search migrated from Algolia to Pagefind

Site search on tinyapps.org has been powered by a number of services and scripts over the years:

After a quarter century in the wilderness, the caravan has gratefully pitched its tent beneath the shady palms of Pagefind. At last, everything is indexed and searchable.

The JavaScript dependency (like Algolia's) is unfortunate, but a small concession for search that's self-hosted, static, and complete. Pagefind is open source and a snap to set up and use.

❧ 2026-07-08

Hide junk-brand Amazon listings with a browser extension

Knockoff "filters the trademark-squat pseudo-brands (the SZHLUXes and HORUSDYs) out of your search results, so what's left is brands with a reputation to lose."

❧ 2026-07-08

iODD-like optical drive emulation with a Raspberry Pi

and USBODE (USB Optical Drive Emulator):

"Ever wanted a GoTek for CDs? If you have a Raspberry Pi Zero W or 2 W, USBODE turns it into a virtual optical drive. It allows you to store many disk images on a MicroSD card and mount them through a web interface."

Demo: Finally a cheap CD-ROM emulator for DOS and Windows 98!

Known-supported models: Raspberry Pi Zero (2015), Raspberry Pi Zero W (2017), Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W / WH (2021), Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ (2018), Raspberry Pi 4 (2019)/4B (2019).

❧ 2026-06-24