External boot no longer working after wiping internal drive

Booted a Dell OptiPlex 7090 Micro from Windows 10 and 11 ISOs via an iodd Mini PRO without issue. Changed SATA Operation from RAID / Intel RST to AHCI to expose the internal NVMe SSD; external boot still worked. Copied data off the internal drive, then wiped it with diskpart's clean command.

Post-wipe, external boot attempts failed: selecting the device in the Dell boot menu and pressing a key at the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." prompt led to a Dell SupportAssist "No bootable devices found" screen, with just a Continue button which rebooted the machine.

Fix: Disabling Secure Boot restored external booting. Re-enabled Secure Boot after installing Windows without issue.

See also Can only install an OS with Secure Boot disabled.

❧ 2026-06-07

Database of AI hallucinations in legal filings

Damien Charlotin maintains a searchable, actively updated database (1,545 legal cases so far) tracking instances where generative AI produced hallucinated content in court filings worldwide. The full database is freely available in CSV format.

Damien also offers Pelaikan, an automated reference checker designed to catch hallucinations before they hit a docket (free tier includes 3 documents per month; paid plans available but pricing link is currently broken).

❧ 2026-06-04

Disk activity LED for macOS

Legendary Windows dev Dave Plummer (whom we have to thank for Windows XP activation) just released BlinkenDisk for macOS, a "tiny macOS utility that puts a red LED in your menu bar and lights it up whenever there's I/O activity on the local drives you choose to monitor." H/T

Swift source is provided, but the license is unusually restrictive for a vibe-coded app; it reads in part (emphases added):

To the extent this code works, it was written by Dave Plummer (davepl), and to the extent it doesn't, please blame Claude and Codex. I've still never written a line of Swift in my life, but here we are.

Permission is granted to any individual person to download, install, run, copy, and modify this software for personal, non-commercial use, subject to the terms below.

Commercial use is not permitted without prior written permission from the copyright holder. Commercial use includes, without limitation, use by or for a business, company, government agency, nonprofit organization, educational institution, or other organization; redistribution as part of a paid product or service; use to support paid work; internal business use; or use that is primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.

You may share unmodified copies of this software with other individual persons for their personal, non-commercial use, provided that this license file and all copyright notices remain included. You may not sell, sublicense, rent, lease, host as a service, or commercially redistribute this software without prior written permission.

Modified versions may be created for personal, non-commercial use. Modified versions may not be distributed without prior written permission from the copyright holder.

Related

• Stats: "macOS system monitor in your menu bar"

• Tiny HDD activity monitors features similar Windows apps that are much smaller (e.g., 8k vs. 250k), more featureful, and, with one exception, open source with no apparent restrictions.

• Art created autonomously by AI cannot be copyrighted, federal appeals court rules: "A federal appeals court ruled that art created autonomously by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted, saying that at least initial human authorship is required for a copyright."

  • US Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material

❧ 2026-05-27

Virtual OS Museum: boot hundreds of legacy OSes from a single VM

Andrew Warkentin has built a "virtual museum of operating systems (and standalone applications) running under emulation, implemented as a Linux VM for QEMU, VirtualBox, or UTM".

• README

• HN: I’ve built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of

• YouTube: I've built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of...

• Boing Boing: A virtual museum runs 570 operating systems in your browser

• heise: Virtual OS Museum: Over 1700 old operating systems in a VM

  "[T]he Virtual OS Museum provides over 250 platforms on which over 600 different operating systems and a total of over 1700 versions and configurations can be launched. Andrew reportedly still has material for over 1000 more installations."

• Archive.org:

  • Full (120GB)
  • Lite (13.5GB)

❧ 2026-05-22

FOSS alternatives to iMazing & iExplorer

• OpenExtract: "A free, open-source desktop application for extracting text messages, photos, voicemails, call history, contacts, and notes from iPhone/iPad backups. No cloud. No subscriptions. Your data stays on your computer." OpenExtract vs iMazing

• Phosphor: "Free and open-source iOS device manager for macOS. Browse backups, export messages, extract photos, manage apps - no subscriptions, no iCloud lock-in." Phosphor vs iMazing & Finder

• iDescriptor: "A free, open-source, and cross-platform iDevice management tool."

• iTunes Backup Explorer: "A graphical tool that can extract and replace files from encrypted and non-encrypted iOS backups."

❧ 2026-05-18

Thought is the builder

• "Stand porter at the door of thought." —Mary Baker Eddy

• "From now on my mind is the material with which I have to work, as the carpenter has his timbers, the shoemaker his hides; my business is to make the right use of my impressions." —Epictetus

• "It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain." —A Course in Miracles

• "As a man thinks, so he becomes." —Ashtavakra gita

❧ 2026-05-14

Gmail account tied to unwanted Google Workspace account

A user found their existing, long-held Gmail account (e.g., example@gmail.com) inexplicably and seemingly inextricably linked to an unwanted Google Workspace account (e.g., user@example.com), the MX records for which had never even been set up.

Appears to be a common lament:

• Google personal gmail got linked with workspace account. How to remove it?

• How to detach work gmail from personal gmail, so I can toggle between them?

• My private Gmail got embedded in a Workspace account - can I seperate my private and the Workspace?

• Accidentally merged my personal Gmail with a new business domain account in workspace

• Do NOT convert your personal account to Workspace (Business Starter)

Google support forums contain misleading and confusing advice. A Gold Product Expert claims that:

"A Google Workspace account is a free standing account that uses a business domain name for its email address. It has to be created independently from any gmail.com account."

Meanwhile, a Product Expert Alumni asserts that:

"If you used your gmail account to sign up for a Google workspace Individual Account and if you cancel it then you will lose your gmail account as the gmail account will be permanent link to Google workspace Individual Account"

Google's own documentation says otherwise. From Cancel Google Workspace for Gmail accounts - Cancel a Google Workspace subscription that you signed up for with a Gmail address:

"You have two cancellation options:

• Cancel just your Google Workspace subscription.

• Cancel all your subscriptions and subscription data.

"With either cancellation option, you lose access to premium Google Workspace services, your Admin console, and any billing records right away. You still have access to some Google Workspace services, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Meet, as well as other Google services, such as YouTube, Google Photos, and Google Ads, through your personal Gmail address. Personal data associated with these services is retained."

A number of users (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) report success with cancelling the Google Workspace subscription: Google Admin → ☰ menu → Billing → Subscriptions → click your subscription → More → Cancel Subscription.

The aforementioned user contacted Google Support for guidance. Rather than directing them to cancel the subscription, support walked them through a more circuitous route:

1. Create a new user (admin@example.com) and assign it the super admin role.
2. Remove the super admin role from the original account (user@example.com), then delete that user.
3. When prompted during deletion, transfer data to admin@example.com.
4. Data migration (~100 GB) took about 45 minutes; upon completion, a popup window entitled "YOUR TASKS" displayed "Removed example@gmail.com."
5. Signing in to example@gmail.com showed a message which read in part: "Your account has been removed from an organization: Your admin has converted your managed Google Account to a consumer account."
6. Email, contacts, and photos were intact in example@gmail.com. Google Drive files were not - they'd been transferred to admin@example.com; Google Takeout on that account was used to recover them.

Google Support should have instructed the user to back up via Google Takeout before beginning the migration, and perhaps should have skipped it entirely in favor of simply cancelling the Workspace subscription.

How is this happening?

Apparently via nag banners promoting Google Workspace on the Gmail website, as described in Remove specific google ad at top of email (to "Try Google Workspace") and Workspace is Spamming Me Constantly — Please Help.

See also

• About Gmail-based Google Workspace accounts

• Learn about Google Workspace Individual

• Cancel your Google Workspace Individual subscription

❧ 2026-05-13

Full-length screen capture in Safari

When File → "Export as PDF…" is not enough:

1. Enable Develop menu: Settings… → Advanced → check "Show features for web developers"

2. Press Cmd+Opt+I

3. Click "Elements" → right-click <html> tag → click "Capture Screenshot"

The feature is present as of Safari 11.1.2 in OS X 10.11.6 (missing in Safari 10.1.2/OS X 10.10.5): Preferences… → Advanced → enable "Show Develop menu in menu bar".

❧ 2026-05-09

Automatically play daily MP3s on an iPad every morning

Given a folder containing 365 MP3s in the Files app with names like:

2001-04-30...mp3

play the one matching today's month/day (ignoring the year) each morning at 9:00.

Create the shortcut

1. Open the Shortcuts app
2. Tap + in the top-right corner
3. Tap the name field at the top (it says New Shortcut)
4. Tap Rename
5. Enter "Daily MP3"
6. Tap the blue Return key

Action 1: Current Date

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Date
3. Leave it set to Current Date

Action 2: Format Date

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Format Date
3. Leave the input set to Date
4. Tap the dropdown arrow to the right of Date
5. Tap Short to the right of Date Format
6. Tap Custom
7. Change Format String to -MM-dd
8. Tap the blue Return key

Action 3: Get Contents of Folder

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Get Contents of Folder
3. To the right of Get contents of, tap Formatted Date → Clear Variable → Folder
4. Browse to and select your MP3 directory

Action 4: Filter Files

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Filter Files
3. Tap Add Filter
4. Change File Size to Name
5. Change is to contains
6. Change anything to Formatted Date
7. Tap the blue Return key

Action 5: Set Volume

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Set Volume
3. Tap 50% and change to desired playback volume

Action 6: Play Sound

1. Tap Search Actions
2. Search for and tap Play Sound
3. Tap the dropdown arrow to the right of Play sound
4. Tap Choose Variable
5. Select Files (which is the output of the Filter Files action; Shortcuts labels it by output type, not by action name)

The shortcut should now look like this. Happily, the Play Sound action works even when the device is locked (perhaps the Apple dev who generously and sagaciously decided that can fix another issue).

Create the 9 AM automation

1. Tap the back arrow at the top left
2. Tap the Sidebar button at the top left if the sidebar is hidden
3. Tap Automation
4. Tap + in the top-right corner
5. Tap Time of Day
6. Set the time to 9:00 AM
7. Make sure Repeat is set to Daily
8. Change Run After Confirmation to Run Immediately
9. Tap Next
10. Under My Shortcuts, tap Daily MP3

❧ 2026-04-30

I have all I need

Rengetsu echoing Epictetus:

The world's dust  swept aside   here in my hermitage  I have all I need— the wind in the pines.

Notes

• The above appears to be an abridged rendering of John Stevens' translation in Rengetsu: Life and Poetry of Lotus Moon (Echo Point Books & Media, 2014, p.154):

  The world's dust
  Swept aside
  No care for the future—
  In my hermitage I have all I need:
  The wind in the pines.

• Two scrolls (1, 2) attributed to Rengetsu have the original as:

  世のちりを
  よそにはらひて
  ゆく末の
  ちよをしめたる
  やとの枩風

• In modern Japanese:

  世よの塵ちりを
  余所よそに払はらいて
  行ゆく末すえの
  千代ちよを占しめたる
  宿やどの松風まつかぜ

• The elided line, ゆく末のちよをしめたる (literally "go end <possessive particle> thousand ages <direct object marker> secure <classical past/perfect ending>"), resists idiomatic translation. It conveys the sense of securing prosperity or continuity for "a thousand ages"/forever.

• Artwork: Detail from Rengetsu's Mountain Village in Autumn

See also

• Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) Antique poem carved pottery teabowl#4843

• ŌTAGAKI RENGETSU 大田垣蓮月 (1791-1875): Pair of Hanging Scrolls with Spring and Autumn Fan Paintings and Poems

• Otagaki Rengetsu – Lotus Moon

• Black Robe, White Mist: Art of the Japanese Buddhist nun Rengetsu

• Remembering John Stevens (1947-2025)

❧ 2026-04-27