zedas

Un petit tour des outils que j’utilise régulièrement et apprécie / A round-up of tools and devices I mainly use and like. Dernière mise à jour / Last update : 17 janvier 2021. ## 📝 PC bureau principal / Main Desktop computer Custom-build small desktop tower. - Motherboard MSI B450M MORTAR MAX (MS-7B89) - AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor - 16GB RAM - GPU Nvidia GT 1030 - Storage : 256GB SSD + 1TB SSD - Screen : Acer Nitro XV340CKPbmiipphzx (31.5" ultra wide screen monitor, 3440x1440px, IPS) * I think this model number has been written by a cat taking a nap on a keyboard - OS : Manjaro Linux ## 🎮 PC de jeux / Gaming Computer Custom-build Desktop tower, made by materiel.net. - CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5800X - 16GB RAM - GPU Nvidia RTX 3070 - Storage : 2TB Nvme SSD - Screen : Asus ROG Swift PG348Q (34" ultra wide screen monitor, 3440x1440px, IPS) - OS : Windows 10 Pro ## 💻💼 PC Professionnel / Working Computer Customized Tuxedo Computers Aura 15 Gen-1 - AMD Ryzen 7 4700U 8-Cores - 16GB RAM - Storage : 512GB SSD - Display 15" FHD IPS - OS : Manjaro Linux ## 💻🌍 PC Voyage / Travel Computer ASUSPRO Zenbook Pro UX550VD-BO098RB, that’s my former work computer. - CPU Intel i7 7700 - 16GB RAM - Storage : 512GB SSD - GPU : Nvidia GTX 1050 Mobile - Display 15" FHD, mattified glossy screen - OS : Manjaro Linux ## 📷 Photographie / Photography - Nikon Z5 Hybrid * Nikkor 24-70mm f4 - Nikon D5600 Reflex * Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G VR Lens * Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5-6.3G VR Lens * Nikkor 35mm 1:1.8G Lens ## 📱 Mobile devices - Nokia G60 5G (a crap) ## Pine64 devices - PinePhone with Keyboard case - Pinebook Pro - PineTime ## 🎧 Accessoires / Accessories - Audio headset : * For Desktop : Corsair Void Elite RGB wireless * For mobility : Boze noise canceler wireless - E-book reader : Kobo Sage ## 📀 Logiciels / Softwares - Vivaldi - VSCodium - KeepassXC - Zettlr - Darktable - Terminator ## 🌐 Hosting provider - Infomaniak - OVH ## 3D Printer - Creality Ender 3 v2 - Filaments : mainly Chromatik brand, and some Polymaker (Polyflex and Polywood)

Before the summer, I’ve bought a new NAS, a Synology model to replace the old HP Microserver who served well for years. If you want to go directly to the setup, you may skip cutscene. With this new toy, I wanted to experiment the Plex Media Server, a popular solution for home media server. It took me almost two months, mistreated two AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs, but I’ve ripped my entire DVD and Blu-ray library to fill this media server. One thing that was missing was the few Youtube video makers I enjoy. I’ve been a long time user of an Invidious instance, but the instability and the slowness were pissing me. And recently, Youtube and other Big Tech compagnies blocked FDN’s network. So their Invidious instance doesn’t work anymore… My choice to do my own simple setup wasn’t a bad one. So here is the idea : by using yt-dlp, a Youtube video downloader tool, and very powerful for various streaming services, and a custom basic Python script, I pool the RSS feeds of the various channel I follow and locally download the content. Note You may think it's illegal, but so far, not in France. An exception exists in the Author's right allowing people to make copies for private usage in exchange of a tax on various digital storage support, such as smartphones, external hard drives, raw DVD, etc., collected by a dedicated organisation that use the money to compensate the authors. As long as you don't break any DRM, which is forbidden by the LCEN law and keep the private usage… private, there's no reason for this method to be illegal. Other European countries have the same kind of law, check in yours. > But you won’t support the artists like this ! 1. If the French Youtubers are not payed by the private copy commission, they just ask to change the law and extend the perimeter. Copie France is greedy, they won’t dislike the idea I suppose. 2. I send money to the one I enjoy. ## Subscribe to channel’s RSS At the beginning, I used Invidious’ ability to generate RSS feeds for a Youtube channel. But after the FDN’s instance being unavailable, I’ve remembered that, surprisingly, Youtube still have RSS feeds. So, I’ve saved the feeds in a file named channels.txt. The URL construction is quite simple, it’s the same base URL with the channel’s ID. ## Use a script to pool videos I won’t put this script on GitHub, I don’t want a stupid bot to take it down. So here is the Python code : python import feedparser import subprocess import os # Read a list of RSS feeds for Youtube and download the video to a dedicated folder # using a naming convention # Released under MIT license # Copyright 2024 Seb - https://zedas.fr # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: # The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. files_path = '/path/to/plex/youtube/folder' channels_file = 'channels.txt' if not os.path.exists(channels_file): print("channels.txt is missing. Please create a file named channels.txt at the same place and put the feeds URL inside") exit() # Read the already downloaded videos file and put them into a variable urls_file = 'urls.txt' downloaded_urls = set() if os.path.exists(urls_file): with open(urls_file, 'r') as f: downloaded_urls = set(line.strip() for line in f) # Read the channels file and generated a list urls_rss_feed = [] with open(channels_file, 'r') as f: for line in f: url = line.strip() urls_rss_feed.append(url) # Loop over the channels for rss_feed_url in urls_rss_feed: print(f"Processing RSS feed : {rss_feed_url}") rss_feed = feedparser.parse(rss_feed_url) entries = rss_feed.entries # Read each RSS entry in the feed for entry in entries: title = entry.title url = entry.link author = entry.author date = entry.published url_youtube = url # Check if the video haas already been downloaded if url in downloaded_urls: print(f"Video '{title}' already downloaded.") continue # print(url) # Download the video in a dedicated path and naming it like this : # Youtuber/youtuber - title - video_id command = f'yt-dlp -o "{files_path}/%(uploader)s/%(uploader)s - %(title)s - %(id)s.%(ext)s" --sponsorblock-mark all --embed-metadata --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" "{url_youtube}"' result = subprocess.run(command, shell=True) # Add the URL to the history file if result.returncode == 0: with open(urls_file, 'a') as f: f.write(url + '\n') else: print("error,cannot register url to history") In a requirements.txt file, you should put : yt-dlp feedparser And to run it, I use a good old bash script : bash #!/usr/bin/env bash # Proposed under MIT license # Copyright 2024 Seb - https://zedas.fr # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: # The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. if [ -d venv ]; then rm -rf venv fi virtualenv venv source venv/bin/activate pip install -r requirements.txt python /path/to/plex-ytdlp.py It’s quite basic, so you can enhance it if you want. And I’ve crontabed it every hour. bash 00 * * * * bash /path/to/plex-ytdlp.sh ## Organize the Plex library While learning to use Plex, I’ve learned it’s also a pain in the ass for the libraries. That’s a reason I’ve always hated media servers software, they never works the way I expect. Anyway, I’ve finally found a way that was suitable for me. So, first, I’ve created a Plex Library judiciously named “Youtube”, using the “Other videos” kind. And set the “youtube” root folder from my NAS. But, the videos will be a mess, you may think. Yes, they are, everything in the same library, a mess ! But I didn’t want to create a library per Youtuber. So I’ve used a nice Plex feature : Smart Collections. That’s why I’ve used a naming convention for the videos, the Smart Collection uses filters to populate itself. In the Youtube library, on the right, click on “Create a Smart collection” Select the “Title” criteria, “begins with” and type the name of the Youtuber, followed by a space and a dash. Such as : Somebody - . As every videos are named like this, the collection will populate itself. Save it and do the same for each subscription. If you add a feed, the good news is yt-dlp will create the folder automatically. However, you’ll still have to create the collection manually. I suppose it’s possible using Plex’s API, but I haven’t check this side, I don’t have this requirement. Et voilà ! In a next article, I’ll explain how I’ve made a Discord bot to add a specific video on the Plex server.

Way Station, or Au carrefour des étoiles in French, is an American science fiction novel written in 1963 by Clifford D. Simak. --- Enoch Wallace, veteran who fought during the American Civil War, was born in 1840. His life changed when he got suddenly recruited by an alien he named Ulysses (after the Ulysses S. Grant) - since the extraterrestrial life form himself has no actual name - to maintain and manage the Earth Station for the interstellar travellers of the Galactic Central. All of his life changed. His childhood house inherited from his parents became the basement of the machinery that materializes the travellers in transit. Moreover, Enoch does not age as fast as any human anymore. Despite his secrecy, his neighbours are aware of his longevity. Almost a hundred years later, Enoch is now under the surveillance of the CIA and agent Claude Lewis is sent to investigate on him. --- This book was a recommendation I was told to read from a community member of a writers forum. Mostly because its basis was similar to a story I’ve written there. And I must say I wasn’t disappointed ! At the beginning we have the CIA debriefing telling the whereabouts of Enoch and the oddness of his life according the gathered intelligence. But the story quickly shifts to following Enoch himself and his daily life as the only human aware and witness of extraterrestrial life. Enoch discovered during this century a lot of different things. The story tells about his discussions with alien entities, his encounter with numerous different civilisations. He made friends with the most regular ones, and became in a good relationship with the entity he named Ulysses. He also collect various gifts the traveller offer him to thank him for his job. A big part of the story is about the loneliness of this life Enoch must live despite the various alien people he encounters. Because of the secret, he has no relationship aside the mailman delivering him the various magazines he subscribed and the deaf daughter of a neighbour he met regularly. Enoch is also aware of the CIA observing him, but he ignores them as they just watch. Until they made a terrible move that could jeopardise the whole Earth Station existence and the whole human species. Especially because the humanity was a the dawn of the World War II. A nice mirror effect in the story is the upcoming crisis on Earth is itself put in balance with another big galactic crisis. The galaxy itself was on the verge of imploding because of the loss of an important symbol that put together the numerous species across it. And Enoch had to take this heavy weight on his shoulder in the name of the humanity, as the sole representative of the species for the rest of the galaxy. So, Way Station is a story I’ve really enjoyed. Not very long, it’s a nice story about the discovering of the unknown, some tolerance, and the point of view of various different cultures.

Moving to a new home is always the time when you found out some old crap you’ve stored a long time ago. Let me introduce you one of them : the Motorola M3588. My first mobile phone I’ve had in high school. > Why bragging about a having phone in high school ? We all have one ! Well, that was exactly 22 years ago. Fuck. Anyway. Back in these old days, we had public phones. Like this one : In my oldest memories, there was usable with coins, but at the end of the 90’s, this payment has been replaced by unit cards. Such as this : Actually it was, and still is I think, a big collection material, as much as postal stamps are too because these cards had several illustrated and special editions. In high school, there was one. And when I needed to call my parents for whatever reasons (finished class early, snow alert, being sick, etc), I could use it. So I’ve had a card with me. But during my first year, they dismantled it. So I needed something… And also because other people in my classroom had a mobile phone and I wanted to be cool too. Never been, all kids had the almighty Nokia 3210 or 3310 for the most fortunate ones, with the snake game. So that was how I ended-up with this awesome Motorola M3588 mobile phone. It was an Itinéris offer, something that doesn’t exist anymore. Itinéris was the mobile brand of the former French telecommunication public company, France Télécom. Something that doesn’t exist anymore too (it became privatised and took the name Orange) unless you would work for them today because they still have a big legacy IT still branded after the former name. Allow me to take a small derivation. When I’ve subscribed to the home 4G offer while waiting for my new apartment to be connected to the optical fibre network, I’ve took an offer at Orange. While looking at the seller’s computer (I love doing that, you always find fun details), I’ve noticed their internal website was still served by somethingIdontremember.francetelecom.fr. Honestly, I’m not even sure the guy ever knew this era this he looked quite young to me. Funny. For the short story, France Télécom became to disappear in early 2000, branding more product as Orange, for definitely being erased in 2013 after a vote at the company’s assembly acting the group renaming, dropping France Télécom in the name. The back cover had some paint on it, because I’ve found this phone in a box with some modelling paint. Don’t ask why it was there, I don’t even know myself. ## Specifications So, this Motorola M3588 was released in 1999. It weights 170g and measures 140 x 50 x 25 millimetres. Its monochromatic non-touch screen had the awesome resolution of 96 x 32 pixels and could display 4 x 12 characters. It was only compatible with GSM 900/1800 band. No Wi-Fi, no Internet. Basically, you could only use it for phone calls and text messages. Which cost a fortune back on this time. The offer I’ve had was pre-paid minutes quota. No subscription, it was too highly priced. Size comparison with a Samsung Galaxy A34 According to some informations I’ve found on the Web about, it’s powerful Nickel-metal hybrid 700 mAh battery (removable, yep) allowed it to stay alive for 110 hours in stand by. And 230 minutes in conversation. Fun fact : these kind of battery required an initial loading to be able to correctly work. Almost 14 hours for this one, then it could be able to be recharged in 4 hours. No vibration capabilities and only some builtin ringtones. It was running on… Whatever OS it was, maybe stored inside a ROM with a few kilobits capacity. Basically this system could just handle the phone history, the contact stored on the SIM card you would be able to copy on the internal memory, the SMS, and some settings such as ringtones. ## Under the hood (⚠️ electronics porn) I was curious about what was the specs of the processor running this mobile. To compare it with the Samsung Galaxy A34 I have and its 2.21GHz system. But after dismantling the mobile, I couldn’t find it. I think it was under the electromagnetic shield plates and I didn’t want to destroy the phone. Since it’s a Motorola, it’s very possible the processor to be a Motorola one too, as they manufactured microprocessors too. I’ve tried to identity the visible components, but keep in mind I have just some basic electronics knowledge. Motherboard view from the back side. Motherboard view from the front side, with the digital display and the keys without the rubber pad. With the soft plastic keyboard. Below the keys is the battery connector port. A proprietary one, which was the norm back on this time. For a long period, every phone had their own charging port and plug. Until in EU a rule pushed the mini/micro USB as a standard. You see, Apple’s whining about the recent USB-C regulation in EU is based on an old story too. I remember a Samsung dumbphone I’ve had, using an extra flat connector. I was so afraid to break it ! An Intel flash memory, I think it’s a 32 or 64Mbit capacity according to my research. Probably for the local data such as phone call history, SMS, etc. A Samsung RAM chip, I think it’s a 1Kbit capacity. I suspect the main processor to be below, under the electronic shield. This ST Microelectronics chip is a 64 Kbit EEPROM according to my research, it must be the one storing the firmware. According the datasheet I’ve found, it could store the data for 40 years ! Below this chip, it’s the SIM connector. On the right side, it’s a headset connector for the hands free usage. --- So, here is some tech from the past. It’s fun to see how much memories a basic item like this can brought back. I wonder what kind of other old crap I way find one day in my boxes.

Who Goes There ? is a 1938 science fiction horror book written by John W. Campbell. This novella got movies adaptation such as the famous John Carpenter’s The Thing in 1982. In French, the novel is entitled La Chose, which is the translation for “The Thing”. The actual title may translated by “Qui va là ?” in French. --- A group of Americans researchers are living in a scientific station in Antartica, near the end of the Winter. They discovered an alien spaceship buried in the ice crashed twenty millions years ago. While trying to excavate the ship using thermite explosive, they accidentally ignited the magnesium-based ship hull and destroyed it. However, they managed to recover a creature which was on board, an alien entity whose appearance is hideous and makes the crew uncomfortable. In front of this historical discovery, the scientists try to unfroze the creature. But they’ll discover it’s still alive. --- I think I’ve seen Carpenter’s movie once. But it’s been a while and I barely remember it. So I was curious to discover the original story behind it anyway. Who Goes There ? is a short story of less than 90 pages. It’s a closed-doors story in which the characters already had few intimacy in this scientific station, and following the discovery and the escape of The Thing, they have less. We encounter there some classics of horror : closed doors and characters becoming paranoid because of the shape-shifting and telepathic abilities of The Thing. It’s a story that goes pretty fast actually, with several time jump and sometimes I’ve had some difficulties to follow the line. Actually, this novella was the shortened version of a longer book never published by Campbell. The manuscript has been discovered and thanks to a kickstarter campaign, released in 2019. It doesn’t seem to have been translated in French. Despite it’s short length, I’ve enjoyed the growing suspicious atmosphere and the final plot twist. In fact, this novella was a very influent one because you find here some very common places seen in horror stories. A nice reading.