Tech-Journey on Dag's home

Automatically Clean Scanned Documents: Remove Borders and Noise with a Script

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:05:00 +0200

I have a Brother printer. Each time I scan a document, it produces this black and whitish pattern, that looks like a barcode.

However, this is really annoying if while compiling your Italian tax declaration you’d scan 60 documents and each of them has a very long area with this pattern.

I’ve asked to LLM to produce a script that given a reference pattern, it deletes for each image and clean the images.

First, we need to isolate the pattern, therefore we make a copy of any picture, isolate the pattern and save it with a name like pattern.png

Then, we install the required dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-opencv

We then save into a file named subtract_pattern.py this script:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
from pathlib import Path
import cv2
import numpy as np
import sys

EXTS = {".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".tif", ".tiff", ".bmp"}

def resize_to(img, shape):
 return cv2.resize(img, (shape[1], shape[0]), interpolation=cv2.INTER_AREA)

def find_crop_from_pattern(img, pattern, diff_thr=18, min_run=8):
 if img.shape != pattern.shape:
 pattern = resize_to(pattern, img.shape)

 diff = cv2.absdiff(img, pattern)
 diff = cv2.GaussianBlur(diff, (5, 5), 0)

 # Collassa in valori per riga/colonna
 row_score = diff.mean(axis=1)
 col_score = diff.mean(axis=0)

 # Cerca la zona "diversa dal pattern"
 row_mask = row_score > diff_thr
 col_mask = col_score > diff_thr

 def interval_from_mask(mask):
 idx = np.where(mask)[0]
 if len(idx) == 0:
 return None
 # unisci regioni vicine
 runs = []
 s = idx[0]
 prev = idx[0]
 for i in idx[1:]:
 if i - prev > 1:
 runs.append((s, prev))
 s = i
 prev = i
 runs.append((s, prev))
 # scegli intervallo principale
 runs = [r for r in runs if (r[1] - r[0] + 1) >= min_run]
 if not runs:
 return None
 return max(runs, key=lambda t: t[1] - t[0])

 y_int = interval_from_mask(row_mask)
 x_int = interval_from_mask(col_mask)

 if y_int is None or x_int is None:
 return None

 y1, y2 = y_int[0], y_int[1] + 1
 x1, x2 = x_int[0], x_int[1] + 1
 return x1, y1, x2, y2

def main():
 if len(sys.argv) < 3:
 print("Uso: python3 crop_by_pattern.py <pattern_ref> <input_dir>")
 sys.exit(1)

 pattern_path = Path(sys.argv[1])
 input_dir = Path(sys.argv[2])
 out_dir = Path("output_crop")
 out_dir.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

 pattern = cv2.imread(str(pattern_path), cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)
 if pattern is None:
 print("Impossibile leggere il pattern.")
 sys.exit(1)

 files = sorted([p for p in input_dir.iterdir() if p.suffix.lower() in EXTS])
 if not files:
 print("Nessuna immagine trovata.")
 sys.exit(1)

 for p in files:
 img = cv2.imread(str(p), cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)
 if img is None:
 continue

 bbox = find_crop_from_pattern(img, pattern)
 if bbox is None:
 print(f"{p.name}: crop non trovato, salto")
 continue

 x1, y1, x2, y2 = bbox
 cropped = img[y1:y2, x1:x2]
 cv2.imwrite(str(out_dir / p.name), cropped)
 print(f"{p.name}: crop {x1},{y1} -> {x2},{y2}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
 main()

Finally we can run it:

python3 subtract_pattern.py pattern.png .
# assuming that script is in the same directory and pattern is named pattern.png

And… voilà! In the output_crop folder we have all of our documents without the ugly area!~

Here’s what a document looks like:

Decap CMS Test

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 23:56:00 +0200

Proprio qualche giorno fa mi sono imbattuto nella necessità di dover scrivere un articolo per il mio blog. E mi è totalmente passata la voglia di farlo!

Abbraccio moltissimo la filosofia open source di avere i file in markdown, hostati da qualche parte, essendo il mio un piccolo spazio statico ci sta che sia una cosa piccola.

Ma a volte la semplicità si scontra con la troppa semplicità: non avere un’interfaccia bella e piena di feature (come ad esempio quella di Wordpress) limita tantissimo il processo creativo. Da una parte non hai il problema di un editor e sei indipendente da tutte le tecnologie. Dall’altra però, anche l’occhio vuole la sua parte. Soprattutto per le immagini, è davvero una faticaccia scrivere i post in formato markdown, metterci un’immagine carina ecc.

Sarebbe tutto più semplice se esistesse un software in grado di gestire questa situazione.

Oggi ho scoperto https://decapcms.org/ che per chi non lo conoscesse è un software che fa esattamente la cosa che stavo cercando.

Non è perfetto: non è comunque bellissima l’interfaccia, e mi piacerebbe che in futuro la situazione migliorasse, però facciamo notevoli passi da gigante.

Ecco uno screenshot di cosa vedo io quando vado a scrivere un nuovo articolo:

Che dire? Sarà la soluzione finale o dovrò (sigh) migrare da qualche altra parte su Wordpress?

The rabbit hole of being curious

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Starting a new academic year

A new academic year has started. Well, not today, but a month ago.

Geez, time flies.

It is strange how every academic year feels like the first one but with the knowledge of the previous ones. It is like a new game plus, but with the same character and more skills: scared of the unknown, but with the knowledge of the past.

Anyway, here’s the story: I’ve started some brand new courses. I always have been curious about the world, especially for the things that are related in my field of study.

Informatics is divided into many branches, but I think the major ones are:

Backend programming: the part of the software that is not visible to the user, you know, “the magic under the hood”
Frontend programming: the part of the software that is visible to the user, the “part that the user sees”
DevOps: the part of the software that is related to the deployment and the maintenance of the software, fundamental skill for a developer, but also for a system administrator
Security: the part of the software that is related to the security of the software, the “part that keeps the software safe”

During the years, I’ve explored many of these branches, I’m currently working as a backend developer and DevOps, but I’ve always been interested in the security part. It is fascinating how a software can be secure or not, and how a software can be exploited by a malicious user.

Because, after all, user is the most unpredictable part of the software.

Knowing how to write a good and a bad software is a fundamental skill. Knowing how to break it, it is even more important because you can understand how to protect it and how to write a more secure software.

The rabbit hole

Yesterday I got up in the morning, and started to study like a fool. I was highly demotivated: this is related to the fact that I’ve attempted a couple of exams in the past, and I’ve failed them. I’ve studied a lot, but I’ve failed them.

I was demotivated, but I’ve decided to try again.

This time is different: I’ve started to study two courses, one about the security of the software and the other one is about malware analysis.

It is impossible to explain how much I’m enjoying them: the stuff is exactly what I was looking for years, but I never dared to study by myself, because I was scared of its complexity.

Well, they are not easy: they are definitely not easy, but I don’t think they are impossible, and being in an universitarian environment, I can ask for help if I need it or if I’m stuck, while alone at home, I cannot ask for help, and I’m stuck with my thoughts.

So, until now, I’ve been studying a lot, and I’ve learned a lot of things.

Everytime I’ve finished a lesson, I had a dopamine rush, and I wanted to know more about it, in particular by consuming videos and articles.

It would be a good idea:

to write some articles about security and malware analysis, what I’m learning, to not forget them
update my notes with the new things I’m learning

On Curiosity

I will never understand why I get in love with things I don’t know. When I grasp a new concept, I feel like I’m in love with it, and I want to know more about it, but this is applied to every unknown field and leads me to a rabbit hole of curiosity.

Unfortunately the time is limited, and I cannot explore everything I want with the depth I want.

I’m a curious person, and I will always be.

xoxo, Damiano

p.s. very soon I will start in reading “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, and I’m curious to know more about it. I will write an article about it, for sure.

p.p.s. I’m so happy that I’ve finally have found some time to write an article: it makes me feel good.

ZW24 Milano

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 12:33:01 +0200

Milan has been the last Zona Warpa Tour, I took part and here it is a small blog post to share my experience.

The story

Everything has started in 2023, when the first Zona Warpa Tour was announced.

Zona Warpa is a self-managed videogame festival, mainly focused on indie and small productions. They are organized in different cities, and the last one in 2024 was in Milan.

As attendee, I had the chance to play some games, meet some developers and also take part in some talks and they were about a lot of different topics, from accesibility to translation.

I also had the chance to meet some people and have a good time with them.

The first time I took part, was in Rome in June 2023.

But this was an important event for me, also because I have the possibility to finally show my composition on stage. I have been working on this for a long time, and I was very happy to have the chance to show it to the public, in collaboration with a friend of mine. We performed together under the pseudonym of “cyrix86mpu”.

I’ve also been able to code a little cracktro, thanks to the awesome LOVJ that helped me with visuals while performing.

What about now? I’m looking forward to the next Zona Warpa Tour, and if I will have more tracks ready, I will be happy to perform again.

Stay tuned for more updates!

xoxo

Live video

The full video is available here: https://video.zonawarpa.it/w/v6SJtA54A5LRm6ay86kJhZ

Photos

ZW Torino

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 13:36:03 +0200

È stato fighissimo il Gabrio, ed è stato bello suonare per le persone che c’erano al suo interno.

Awesome Retroconsoles

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:12:47 +0200

People have many hobbies, such as reading, playing sports, listening to music or gardening. Instead, one of my favorite pastimes is playing video games. For me, it has always been a genuine journey of discovery of new worlds and new characters, a bit like reading a book, but in a more interactive way.

I own many of the best-selling consoles of all time, but I was looking for a solution to my desire to dust off old glories.

The problems

Playing video games on the original consoles requires you to carry each console with you at all times, unless you own backup solutions or backward-compatible consoles, which may not always be able to run all the games from multiple consoles.

For example, if I wanted to play Game Boy Advance (GBA) and PlayStation Portable (PSP) games, I would have to carry two separate consoles with me.

In addition, the backup solutions available on the market for older consoles, although perhaps cheaper at the time, are not cheap. Try, for example, to take a look at the flashcarts for the Game Boy.

So, what to do?

One option is to use a newer, better console in terms of power and performance to play older games.

I am not considering the Nintendo Switch, which is a console that is still in production, but it is difficult to play old games on it, and the Steam Deck, which is a full-fledged computer that does many things in the area of emulation. Both solutions are not cheap even though they do the job they were designed and created for very well.

Nowadays, the cheapest consoles with a good stock of titles are:

New Nintendo 3DS
PSVita

They allow most of the games of previous consoles to be emulated, but they are hard to find at normal prices, especially the latter.

There are two major problems while playing a recent title:

“New” consoles do not always have the same aspect ratio and controls as the original version. For example, Nintendo DS games play on a 3DS but have black bands on the sides, while on a DSi (or DSi XL) they play perfectly.
When home consoles are emulated by a newer device, it is difficult to get used to the controls. The feel of a certain controller on original hardware is often different from that of the target console.

This comes purely from the convenience of using one controller over another.

I have always liked the idea of carrying my entire game library with me and being able to have one console that can play my entire collection instead of having to own many different consoles. However, there are also advantages to being able to have more than one console, such as being able to play games exclusive to each console and having access to different features and services offered by each platform. In general, the choice of owning one or more consoles depends on each gamer’s personal preferences and needs.

Not all Game Boys are perfect: the SP is the excellence of compactness. However, over the years, the controls became small for my gradually growing hands, making it a bit uncomfortable.

A good Game Boy in terms of size might be the very first gray (DMG). However, it has a not inconsiderable weight and is not very portable compared to other consoles, as it is heavy in the pocket.

An excellent alternative to both models is the Game Boy Pocket (GBP), which is an excellent compromise both in terms of size, which is much smaller and more compact than a DMG, and in terms of the size of the controls (d-pad and buttons), which maintain the size of the DMG.

The Game Boy family has always suffered from the non-backlit screen, a serious shortcoming that over the years has been a problem for all those who wanted to play at hours other than daylight, risking losing a few diopters.

Where then can I find a “powerful” Game Boy with a good screen and capable of running recent games?

The compromise

And this is how we arrive at a very good compromise: the discovery of non-emblazoned retro consoles.

In the past, consoles were sold with OpenDingux, which never really intrigued me. On the one hand it was very interesting to have a console with a free operating system that could play many dated games, on the other hand they always gave me the impression that they had problems of some sort (arising not only from overheating, but also and especially from the controls).

In recent years, however, several retroconsoles from brands such as Powkiddy, Miyoo, and Anbernic have emerged.

The peculiarity of these consoles is that they often mount Linux or Android, making them perfect for all the geeks who enjoy adding or removing emulators and testing games.

Around 2019 I used to follow, and still follow with great pleasure, the Dr. Game channel, where there are several reviews of handheld consoles, from Famiclones to Power Player Super Joy to these types of consoles.

Initially, I did not like them at all.

I set out to research the various solutions on the market, and the choice fell on two models in particular:

Miyoo Mini
RG35XX

I searched online what these consoles were capable of doing, and found that they can emulate games up to PS1, but not perfectly Dreamcast, PS1, and Game Cube

The Miyoo Mini is just too small and uncomfortable to hold. Compactness is important, but not being ergonomic it is uncomfortable to use. This is very reminiscent of the Game Boy Advance SP in 2023.

The wrong purchase

Initially I thought the RG35XX was a good choice, but then I found that the power left something to be desired and the stock kernel was not excellent.

In short, not really the best choice.

I honestly would have appreciated if the console had better support from the original manufacturer, although there are custom firmwares.

The right purchase

I realized that many of the things I wanted were not available, such as Android support, so I decided to spend more and opt for the Anbernic 353V.

Before making the purchase, I went to look at various reviews on Instagram and Youtube: needless to say, there wasn’t much. All of them complained about the buttons on the back being difficult to press and uncomfortable.

I must say that I was quite satisfied with its technical specifications. What surprised me most, however, were the controls and toggles themselves, which far exceeded my expectations.

It is able to emulate many systems, such as Dreamcast and PS1 with a stable framerate, but also PSP titles and they seem to work great. However, it is not perfect, there are some things it cannot do, such as emulating the Gamecube or having a stable Android system (crashes every few minutes of play).

Despite the problems, this console has become my favorite handheld and I use it almost every day, especially to play PS1 titles and something on Android: on the latter, apps crash often, especially games.

Another thing I love is the fact that I can use it as a controller for other things-it’s a priceless feature.

I was a bit skeptical about the feedback of the controls, but I must say that the console emulates the feel of the Game Boy Pocket perfectly. Surprisingly, even after some time, my hand doesn’t sweat like it does with some controllers, such as the one on the PS4 or the first Xbox One before they overhauled the controller and put a grip on it.

Final conclusions

If you are looking for a handheld console that is able to satisfy your need for retro gaming, the Anbernic 353V is a solution worth considering.

I’m not saying it’s perfect, because it obviously has its pros and cons, but I personally found it to be a good quality portable console that offers a wide choice of emulators at an affordable price.

If you want to know everything, but really everything about Anbernic consoles, I recommend you check out awesome-anbernic, where you can find information about the various consoles, custom firmware, and much more.

New Year New Blog

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone.

Hope you had a good time with your family or friends on New Year’s Eve.

The act of starting something means hard commitment and sacrifice in our lives.

Maybe not, if you like what you’re doing, but most of the time, if you are not following just one topic at time, you will have plenty of things to do.

Well, when I’ve started this blog, I planned to just have a personal space. Unfortunately this is no more possible: I have started a lot of projects , and I have less time for each of them.

Probably I need to move on some old projects, or just keep them and don’t take newer ones.

Anyway, here’s the thing: I will simply change this homepage. You can still reach these pages at dag7.it/blog but on the main page I will probably build a custom homepage to present myself in a semi-stylish way.

One more thing: not sure about the language. I like to write both in english and in italian, but sometimes I search things in italian, some other times in english.

I frankly don’t know what to keep and what I should throw away.

I can keep both of them, but it was hard to consistently post each month.

GARR Academy

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sat, 26 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0100

The beginning

It all started with a dear friend of mine who sent me this link regarding a never heard before ‘Garr Academy’.

Who’s Garr?

Well, I knew Garr because when I was a child I used to download Ubuntu from the closest mirror to me… which belonged (and still belongs) to Garr.

So, it is a very cute story to tell, but yes, I knew Garr for years.

By the way, Garr is a consortium that holds the entire Italian infrastructure. They have three main datacenters (Milan, Rome, and Bari) and a ton of nodes in Italy.

You can always visit their gins website and have fun while searching for your nearest node. You will be surprised how many nodes are in the network and how close are to you.

Garr Academy

Garr Academy is a training course aimed to train new people in the DevOps world.

I’ve been luckily selected among 9 participants, and here’s what we learned:

Ansible
Docker and containers
Kubernetes
Vagrant
Influx, Telegraf, and monitoring in general
some general knowledge about CI/CD
speaking in public and interpersonal skills (dealing correctly with other people, efficient communication…)

We were at the academy from 9am to 6pm, from the 15th of October till the 15th of November, and every day there was some new stuff to learn and to do: a completely different approach than the majority of training courses and university.

We, of course, have done a theoretical part, which was enough to understand what we were doing.

The approach was mainly “you practice this and right before I’ll explain what’s going on. Feel free to experiment.” rather than “I will explain the entire subject and then you will do some exercises”.

It was really fun, and it is my favourite approach while learning.

Final thoughts

It’s been one of my favorite experiences of all time, not only because I met some new awesome people (both colleagues and mentors), but I’ve learned new stuff which I ignored the existence before the course or didn’t know too much.

Until the academy, the DevOps field was unexplored to me, apart from the CI/CD part which I’ve always been a fan of since I discovered Github’s actions.

I feel enriched by this experience and I would recommend this to everyone who wants to become a devop or wants to try out to learn new things.

Contest

There’s been a social contest: the participants to get involved used to post something on social networks tagging “ReteGarr”; I was one of those participants, and I won the second prize.

Notes

All of my notes, where possible, are available at this address under the “Garr Academy” section.

They’re personal notes written in RST. I will update that website once I rewrite/convert some of my personal notes. Feel free to take a look!

RLJ #3

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 22:18:00 +0100

Did you miss me? Me too. Me neither. It depends.

This is another issue of your favorite Journal, full of links, things to see, things to watch, and… let’s go!

Introduction

Planning is the key. But I hate planning.

I wrote some months ago “I will have some spare time this summer. I’d like to plan some articles until the end of this year”.

Hehe, joking. When I started RLJ3 was in June, and I still had many things to do.

Health

First things first: how am I doing? I’m pretty good.

I used to be burned out, and I was like “see you in September” for everything, but I’ve been on holiday and I’ve almost done everything I wanted to do, I am pretty good!

To be honest, I am worried about the future. Things in the world are not going very well, there are wars, there still is censorship, too many climate changes…

Projects

Stufftrack: I am so excited about this one that I’d like to share the entire project with you and the web. Stay tuned!
HCI project: I love HCI. While in University, one of the best subjects was HCI, which I loved all by myself. Not only it was taught by a good professor, but it also was interesting. Anyway, the project for uni consisted in adding a feature to an already existing application. We tested our new feature among everyday people with my colleagues, it was really fun. I also have implemented our work into the final app: even if it won’t ever be released, it was really fun to work on it!
- In detail: we let the users leave ratings for courses and professors, so they don’t need to spam on Telegram and Whatsapp groups.
  - More on the source app: the only (un)official Sapienza app. If you’re a Sapienza student with an Android phone you can’t miss this one.
- The application extension has been developed in a marathon of about 20 hours on Ionic, in an already configured VM provided by the prof
  - I was unfamiliar with Ionic, and I got hung up on fiddling with CSS the only night I programmed the application (as well as figuring out how to do things right)
    - I’ve ended up in a total mess, talking about clean source code but “hey! if it works, it works!”
- No screenshot because we didn’t take them!

On life

Youtube: I haven’t used YouTube for an exceptional period of time (apr-august), except for funny videos. It is boring, and Youtube rarely suggests me something really interesting.
Hedgehog Dilemmat: a fascinating concept that I’ve discovered thanks to Evangelion
Plato’s Cave: a video is worth more than one hundred words. I am unable to clearly explain it, however, you can just watch this awesome video by TedEx.
- {{ youtube 1RWOpQXTltA }}
Pareto Principle: The Pareto Principle is a simple rule that could help us to reach our goals and don’t be stressed. The rule is simple:
- 80% output
- 20% input
  - The less you input, the more you should produce and this is so true
Richard Benson is dead: on 10th May, Richard Benson left this earth. This man has accompanied the afternoons of my adolescence. I like to remember him with a smile. Thank you, Richard, CIAO!
Dead phone, dead computer: call it a bad luck strike or whatever, but I don’t use to have access to both my phone and computer until some days ago. I mean, I still don’t have a computer of mine, I bought a new phone but I am still attached to the old one. On 2nd September I replaced its screen, and now it’s sluggish, the battery sucks, but it works great!

Development

Also known as “behind the scenes stuff”.

Feel free to read this part if you’re not technical and blame me in private, because you understand nothing.

Things I’ve found interesting:

Postman: a lifesaver when you need to test your own backend. It permits to explore cookies, change body requests and params, and much more… and it is so comfortable
Vue: I hate frontend. But when it comes to Vue, well… I hate “less” frontend. Vue is a powerful framework that allows you to build an amazing frontend in “not-so-much” time. Check it out! -wadda wadda, we hate javascript… read more-
No software like Picasa: I am unable to find a good Picasa alternative. Lightroom has too many things, Digikam is the same… Picasa’s like programs don’t exist!
JWT: from this awesome link on Hacker Noon, JWT is a token that can be verified online (because they respect an open source format) and with this, you can identify a logged user instead of saving its IP or other personal information.
The duck anecdote: IT people often keep a little rubber duck on their desk and while debugging line per line, they explain what are they doing. Beware of programmers! ![shrek beware](/img/shrek beware.jpg)

Photography

Just approach this world by “just spending some € and see if I’m lucky”.

A big scratch card, but I’m having a lot of fun!

Long short story: I’ve bought an old Polaroid in very good condition for a few € and… it works!

Polaroid film: b/w, i-type, 600, SX-70… there are several types of film, all of them are very expensive and there is nothing compatible with those old machines. Good job Polaroid, they can roll your own prices, because they’re the only film manufacturer ever of their own machines.
[Rise and fall of Polaroid]((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7z7BAZdt2M): Polaroid was a colossus back in time when Edwin Land was alive. This video explains everything in 5 minutes!
Photography in 10 minutes: this video really helped me in understanding the core concept of photography. Adorable!
ZINK: how beautiful Zink is? A lot. In case you’re new, Zink is a technology that allows you to “print” (not really) your photos, by heating some special crystals on the paper’s surface. Please, note that all Zink paper is compatible with all Zink products regardless of brand. You just need to check the paper’s dimensions.
- FFFF is anyway expensive!

Money

Do you remember last time we talked about Monefy? Well, my (and your) special solution is “MyExpenses”, available on F-Droid!

It is like Monefy but free and open source, you can pay for some special functionalities.

Can’t get enough of recommending it!

The End? Entertainment part 1

I was hungry like many people in the world of “things to see/play” and so on in these months.

I was ill in April, so I’ve decided to watch many tv shows and movies:

Disenchantment 3 and 4: the third one is cool, they go to Steamland. I’ve found the fourth so boring, that I am unable to remember any particular detail. Sorry, Matt!
Star wars iv
Star wars v
star wars vi
Scarface: one of the best films ever in my life about the mafia, with Al Pacino. I never felt a long film so short, everything is an action, and it caught me from the first moment. One of my favorite films ever.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: a sentimental Jim Carrey movie.
The number 23: a serious Jim Carrey movie. The main character becomes obsessed with the number 23.
The King’s Speech: didn’t finish it, monotonous and lacking in plot twists. It’s cute, but it always takes place even two hours apart in the same three locations.
- I was really enjoying it but I felt it was very heavy. It is the story of this prince who stutters when he has to make speeches, a defect he has had since he was a child.
The spotlight case: I was very passionate about the investigation of the police, priests, and testimonies. It is sort of a mystery/documentary film.
Shutter island: the choices regarding the setting are really beautiful: apart from the shots with the beautiful cliff, I particularly liked the choice of colors that the director made at almost the end of the film when you see the main character completely dressed in white standing out from the background, all colored the latter with different colors to the main character. The story is quite unique and attracted me from the beginning, two men landing on an island to solve the case of a missing patient. In a majestic performance by DiCaprio, we find him in different roles and situations, and in all cases, he has incredible acting.
Project Almanac: kids find a time machine by rummaging through an old basement. They have fun but mess with the timelines. Very cute as a “post-dinner late-night” movie, I appreciated that there was a live performance by Imagine Dragons. I wasn’t crazy about the ending.
Locke: a killer ball, I didn’t finish watching it, after 25 minutes of the movie I was bored to death. Brilliant idea to shoot the whole movie on the phone, but a bore and almost nothing happens. I didn’t mind at all not finishing it.
These Last Hours: 12 hours until the end of the earth, because of an asteroid. A man is on the run, helps a little girl find a home, and then leaves with his pregnant wife with a child who will never see the light of day. It reminded me a bit of The Walking Dead: S1 in which the protagonist takes after Maxine. Nice to pass the evening, I wouldn’t watch it again.
Arcane: the LoL series. You watch it mostly for the graphics, because it’s cool, and for the fights, which are exhilarating and never boring. There hasn’t been a single moment when I’ve been bored watching it, except for the concluding episodes, which are a tad “stretchy.”
Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol.2: a movie that had to be seen. The fights are cool, although I got a little bored at times (some scenes are too slow). Blood everywhere and surreal scenes, like people getting their heads chopped off and the fountain of blood start, made me kind of laugh as a thing. Watching this film made me realize how much the soundtrack influenced the years to come: not only did I know almost all of it, but you can still hear pieces of it today (like the famous meme siren). Impeccable framing and cutaways, nothing to say.
Private Justice: a memorable thriller, about a man who is killed by his mother and daughter. He then decides to take revenge as few do and sets up a plan that is absurd and devised to the smallest detail. It always confronts us with the question of choice: Is it right to kill? One way in which he dissects a body reminded me of Dexter.
In line with the killer: nothing is memorable, but it made me laugh a lot in the bits where she tells him to tell the truth and the main character doesn’t. As a film it is brilliant, in fact, it takes place practically in a phone booth. The killer wants to punish the protagonist for the lies he tells every day and to make him a better man. I would call the protagonist pathetic. We all lie every day, but that does not make us better people; in fact, often the opposite. We should not lie to ourselves (a concept also expressed in Evangelion, about happiness).

I don’t want to bore you, so I will stop here for now. Probably on another RLJ I will publish part two of the list, remind me by dropping an email and let me know if you have already watched one of those movies!

The end for sure!

This time I wasn’t joking. It’s true. Bye for now! I hope to write another article soon!

HP Envy Hackintosh

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:30:36 +0100

In the past years, I had an occasion to see (and have for a few days) on an HP Envy m6 running MacOS.

What’s not working in Hackintosh HP Envy m6?

- ethernet card with just RTL file: you will need a special kext, since it is slightly different than the official one
- keyboard and touchpad: you will need some kext in this folder
- audio: see the post-install guide.

- fingerprint sensor: not interested in fixing this
- wifi card: unless someone writes a driver it is unfixable
- DRM: it could be fixed according to post-install guide
- sleep: it could be fixed according to post-install guide
- battery: it could be fixed according to post-install guide

Fix Audio

The number that worked to me is alcid=13 for IDT IDT92HD91BXX it may be different for you.

Pc specs?

ProductName : Mac OS X ProductVersion: 10.15.6 BuildVersion: ---
Bootargs : keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 chunklist-security-epoch=0 -chunklist-no-rev2-dev
Kernel : Darwin Kernel Version 19.6.0: Thu Jun 18 20:49:00 PDT 2020
Model ID : MacBookAir5,2 KernelMode: x86_64
CPU TYPE : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz
CPU ID : ---
Cores : 2 Cores, 4 Threads @ 2600MHz Bus: 100MHz FSB: 400MHz
Caches : L1i:32Kb L1d:32Kb L2:256Kb L3:3072Kb
CPU Features : FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE TSCTMR AVX1.0 RDRAND F16C SYSCALL XD EM64T LAHF RDTSCP TSCI RDWRFSGS SMEP ERMS MDCLEAR IBRS STIBP L1DF SSBD
RAM : 8192Mb HibernateMode: 0
SwapUsage : total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M (encrypted)
User : ---

NOTE: --- means which that field has been edited since they used to contain private data.

List of kext used?

AHCIInternal.kext
AHCIPortInjector.kext
ATAPortInjector.kext
AppleAHCIPort.kext
AppleALC.kext
ApplePS2SmartTouchPad.kext
Lilu.kext
NVMeFix.kext
RealtekRTL8111.kext [!!]
SATA-100-series-unsupported.kext
SMCProcessor.kext
SMCSuperIO.kext
USBInjectAll.kext
VirtualSMC.kext

NOTE: [!!] means which they are a special patched version in order to work.

List of aml files?

SSDT-AWAC.aml
SSDT-EC-LAPTOP.aml
SSDT-HPET.aml
SSDT-IMEI-S.aml
SSDT-IMEI.aml
SSDT-PMC.aml
SSDT-PNLF.aml
SSDT-PNLFCFL.aml
SSDT-RHUB.aml
SSDT-XOSI.aml

boot-args arguments?

keepsyms=1 debug=0x100

On Hp-Envy-m6-1279el I noticed which mouse and keyboard didn’t worked and the internal HDD wasn’t recognized too, so, some special Kext have been used.

RLJ #2

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 18:01:40 +0100

Welcome back into another RLJ 2! It’s been a while since I did one of them, this time I’ve decided to structure it in a really different way: what I’ve done in the entire year couldn’t be summed up in an article. For this reason, I will leave a bag full of links, hoping to stimulate your curiosity.

On life

⁉️ Dunning-Kruger effect

The effect of a person believing themselves to be superior and putting themselves on the same level as an expert, even if they are not very experienced. The opposite also applies: people who are very knowledgeable about something find themselves underestimating themselves.

Yes, COVID is bad, and people taken from social or “the magic university of street” who thinks to know everything about COVID are bad as well.

🤔 Focus

Focus on something or someone, has become really difficult these days, due to having a world where everything is always connected.

I’ve attended a talk about it, but here it is some cool stuff I’ve encountered along 2021:

Focus mode vs. Diffuse mode: we have two different kind of working mode for our brains, “diffuse mode” and “focus mode”. “Diffuse mode” is our natural mode, and it comes when we analyze and make connections, while in “focus mode” we focus on details. The key is understand how to combine the information we acquired in both modes.
Sleep on it: sleep is related to rest, it means better productivity, especially on creative tasks. And by sleeping, we remember things.
Tips for studying at university, by Alessandro Concimi:
- monastery rule: talks about everything to everybody, but don’t talk about university, unless you want some anxiety.
- when we talk to someone about something, we do nothing more than amplifying the perception we have about that thing we are talking about
- study alone
Mark Manson - Guide for basic meditation: empty your mind and relax
- Honestly, I tried, didn’t enjoyed it so much. It’s not because it’s conceptually wrong, I think it’s related to how I spent my time. And those 10 minutes could be spent in another way.
- However, it’s been a key concept, because it helped me sometimes to “just relax” by not doing and thinking anything.

📔 Notes

I’ve tried to use PARA, I did it in a wrong way, so I have organized my notes again.

A clear example of Dunning: I thought I’ve understood PARA, but I didn’t.

In general: do whatever let you feel more comfortable.

This is my graph, updated to 2022.01.15:

💻 Technology

Obviously it couldn’t miss the section related to computer and technology. It would have been a shame!

An awesome video by Computerphile on How Blur Filters Work in Computer Graphics.
- This year I’ve done some Computer Graphics Homework and I needed to implement this. It was fun, and I’ve really appreciated that way of explaining things!
K&R: the best C Book on earth. After all, Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie created C Language, why not follow his official guidelines?
venv in Python: one of the most incredible things in Python
Django framework and the tutorial by DjangoGirls: Django is an awesome framework in Python to create backends. It is a little bit complicated at the beginning, but it is not hard
the rubber duck: IT people often keeps a little rubber duck on their desk and while debugging line per line, they explain her what are they doing.
TWRP can save your devices if you have a broken screen. Do yourself a favor and give it a try!

🔒 Backup and encryption

I’ve always been very reluctant to use encryption. All it takes is for the slightest thing to go wrong or for a file to get corrupted and there you go, goodbye files and documents.

Nevertheless, I decided to use Veracrypt, an open source encryption and decryption software.

The container file got corrupted, so I would have lost all my documents on Obsidian. I was able to recover my entire vault from Windows using ShadowCopies I will write a guide on it, promise! (even if it isn’t hard)

A backup is not a “deposit” where to put all your files. It is replicating your data in multiple drives, eventually by locking all your data with a password.

Always have a backup of important stuff!

🎵 Music

Harmonic V Melodic Scales: Harmonic: the notes are played at the same time (they are written on the same space) Melodic: the notes are played one in front of another one (they are written on the same direction)
Andrew Furmanczyk a music channel where you can learn music theory. Thanks Andrew, I’ve watched some of your videos (especially the one about firth of fifths) and they’re awesome
Fundamentals of Piano Practice: highly suggested if you’re trying to learn piano

📚 Books

Some of the books I’ve read, could be found in my last Random Learning Journal

📚 Revolution Rag: The story talks about Sandy, a journalist that was fired from the newspaper he founded. The co-founder hires him again because he wanted Sandy to write about a misterious unsolved case. It turns out that this case involved a band called Nazgul, that Sandy has interviewed many years ago, because the person was murdered with a damn loud music (Nazgul was playing in the background).
📚 Alice in Wonderland: I won’t write a word here. Believe it or not, I never have read this book until 2021.

💰 Money

I’ve talked about tracking things: Monefy is a wonderful app that helps you to track your incomes and expenses. Works great for a little budget and have ton of options.

Or maybe you want use a spreadsheet system: in this case take a look on reddit. That link contains a lot of tools and spreadsheet to use. I am more comfortable to use an application, but there is no a right or wrong method: feel free to use whatever you like more!

Tracking expenses it’s really important: I’ve surprisly found myself in spending a lot on eating outside.

📺 Movies and TV Shows

Queen’s Gambit: story of a prodigious girl who became a chess’s champion, by simply watching with her eyes when she was 9. Even if it is a little bit slow, I enjoyed so much the lights, the scenes and the main actress.
Soul: I think this movie is something really beautiful: not only the soundtrack is made up with jazz sounds, that makes me crazy, but it talks about the sense of life. It seems a movie for kids: the hard truth is that it is not for kids only, it is for adults, looking for a better life. It’s worth to link it to designing your life, because it talks about happiness and being happy in what you do in everyday life, and deals with death and God topics.

I’ve seen other movies and tv shows for sure, but these are the ones I remember more.

📐 Projects

PyDBHelper: a tool written in Python to find out 3NF in a relational schema and much more. I’ve written this to train myself in doing exercises in a correct way, but I haven’t spent time by writing high quality code. Then, the code could be really messy.
JSQuizee : an engine for your quiz, written in Javascript in two days (or so). I’d like to make a better version!
I attempted to modify a Game Boy by installing backlight and bivert modules, using some guides available on the internet. However, I’ve failed. I hope I will recover the main board a day…

All my other stuff is available on Github!

🎮 Videogames

I’ve played and (tried from friends) a lot of videogames. Because I started to track everything, I could safely say that 2021 has been the year where I played videogames more in my entire life, even if I have no memories of my precedent years (only a period).

I’ve played many titles, but the honorable mention goes to Shiren The Wanderer.

I love dungeon games like Shiren, they’re hard, with a pure exploration and strategy backgrond, and they have a story (more or less defined).

If you have some extra money, you could think about the Shiren for pc on steam I didn’t know they did a version for pc too.

🔗 Closing Links

When you are faced with two decisions, tosses a coin. Not because it will make the right choice for you, but because the exact moment when the coin is in the air, suddenly you’ll know what you’re hoping. - Bob Marley

Constant Renewal - The knowledge illusion
More To That - The Nothingness of money
More To That - The Many Worlds of enough
Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night: Great Art Explained
A Map of the Internet 2021: definitely one of the best incredible pieces I’ve ever seen
XKCD - Inheritance
InsaneInTheRain who quit from being a content creator this year. Carlos was one of the best cover maker on Youtube. Wish you the best!
A lot of videos from this italian youtuber, Nova Lectio - who talks about history and geography, about China, Thailand, Cuba and a lot of other interesting topics.

Hello World

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 22:04:35 +0200

Introduction

A star is reborn…guess what? I’ve changed my website, one more time.

And this time, since I don’t want to waste too much time choosing a layout, I’m going to focus on content and consistency instead of wasting time choosing a template (or even worse: not having a website).

Well, if you’re new, welcome, if you’re an old visitor, welcome back!

Purpose of this post

As I’ve told the internet a million times, this is a place for me to blog about me and my projects. It will be a showcase, but it’s meant to be semi-professional.

I don’t really know where this will go, but I’m sure this could be the way to go!

-Love, Dag

Arch DAG Powered

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 15:00:00 +0100

Photo by Isaac Li Shung Tan on Unsplash

What about having a fully working Arch Installation - on your machine? Well, it always has been my dream since the first Arch installation ever.

As I told you here, I installed Arch on a specific computer, so I have carefully chose my packages.

These packages are in addition to the packages I’ve already installed in that guide:

intel-ucode nvidia vlc firefox discord telegram-desktop alsa thunar gcc htop i3 lxappearance ntfs-3g wget picom powertop redshift git xdg-user-dirs xclip maim tree xorg neofetch base-devel

Close encounters of third kind

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Sun, 22 Aug 2021 10:00:00 +0100

Have you ever wondered about installing Arch in your system? I’ll give you the answer: yes! — that’s why you are here probably, but in case you are not here for installing Arch, keep reading, you are welcome!

Well, it’s not so complicated as many people could think, even if it may be frustrating, I am going to illustrate you my own way to install it among your primary operating system.

But first let me give a little bit of context: I am used to use Windows just for some tasks and use Linux for every other task that are not heavy on the RAM and CPU load (gaming, video editor and all these kind of stuff).

Many of you perfectly know that the perfect Linux version doesn’t exist: each of uses its own distro, usually novices go for Ubuntu.

Personally I really like to experience new things: for this reason I tend to change my main Linux distro every time I get bored of it.
Is it matter of WM? Is it matter of DE?

Well, this is another story I’d love to tell you another time, let’s start!

For short, my current configuration is the canonical “Windows in the first partition and Linux in the second one” even if I use Linux more than Windows, we will later discuss this point.

RLJ #1

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Fri, 14 May 2021 10:00:00 +0200

It’s always a mess to start something you never did before; you could start in the right way, or in the wrong way, but the point is: you must start if you really want to do that thing.

So here I am!

Welcome to my “Random Learning ~~super cool full of random stuff and things that barely could interest you but I will post them as well ah-ah it’s your problem now if you proceed reading~~ Journal” series!

But before spreading everything I learned this month, telling about what was on my mind and so on, I’d like to talk about what is a learning journal (and most importantly: why on earth I chose the word “random”).

A learning journal, in general, is a -wow, I am the king of being original- journal, where you could write about what have you learned about something, but it could be about your thoughts, your notes about an argument in particular, and so on. It is like a vegetable soup, but it tells about yourself, your vision, and most importantly what you have learned. Maybe it’s not the most beautiful comparison, but it should effectively work.

Usually, many people write this kind of stuff monthly, but it is up to a specific person when, how and what to write.

Now let’s find out why I chose the ‘random’ adjective: I am a little bit forgetful, I don’t remember a lot of stuff; furthermore, sometimes I don’t feel up to do things that are needed in order to produce stuff.

For this reason, I chose the ‘random’ adjective, it sums up exactly what I just wrote. In fact, sometimes, I could forget about writing a monthly journal, so, when I will feel up to write a new post, I will write it here.

It’s kinda a tricky reminder for my mind: I should monthly produce my journal, but I feel more relaxed telling myself “I will do whenever I want”.

After this long introduction…let’s start!

❓Lost in Google

Have you ever tried to search “Google” on “Google”?

This was the catchphrase of the series Lost In Google, a wonderful sci-fi show, in Italian, that tells about what could happen if you try to search “Google” on “Google”. During this show many things will come up: people get lost, famous people who pop out and help the main characters… if you’re Italian or are you trying to learn Italian THIS IS FOR YOU!

Anyway, I was literally “lost in Google”: I love to search and discover new things, but this time it was different. Nothing was more interesting than researching things.
Since I am still studying on my own things, not limited to academic purposes, I was trying to discover how to take notes in a better way; it’s been a long time since I began this kind of research, but at a certain point thanks to a friend of mine I discovered a new tool: “Roam”.

Programming on NES

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 11:00:00 +0200

It’s been a while since I have written here, the reasons because I haven’t been here are two:

I was really busy with life in this period
I have been busy with fun activities, like playing videogames for example

Retrogaming took me a lot of my time because there were some classic games that I needed to play.

Each of us at some point in our lives has got a console, handheld or not, who got the Game Boy, who got the Nintendo 64, or PSP, or Xbox…whatever. But you had fun!

Have you ever wondered about how old Game Boy games used to be so tiny that you used to carry them around in your pocket in cartridges?

Well, I did a lot of times when I was a child and I wasn’t a programmer: I was a stranger in that world; however bringing in that tiny cartridge a lot of worlds from Super Mario or Pokemon, it doesn’t matter which one, has always fascinated me.

The question wasn’t just about the Game Boy but it was also about the NES: both of them use cartridges, and you need them to play games.

I don’t know you, but I always dreamt about writing my own game or app, even if “simple” (no Pokemon :P) for Game Boy or NES…

Well, after a lot of hours digging Google I have finally found nesdoug’s blog here - take a look who explains how to create NES games using C language.

I was so enthusiastic that I wanted to start (and end), all the resources were in the blog so I tried to find out a way to organize everything in a simple and elegant way.

The result was… a book: there is nothing better than learn how to program step-by-step by using a good programming book that teaches you the basics.

Rust’s community (Rust is an interesting language, https://rust-lang.org) has made a book to learn Rust, the original author in this case has made everything from scratch by himself but he did it in a manner which nobody can explain in such an easy way.

I think it is one of the best guides on the internet about NES developing, it is simple and clear: judge by yourself

And finally, I understood what is “VBlank”, thing which it is not so simple to explain because you are going to read a looooot of explanations which you are not going to fully understand.

See ya!

TIM W-Cup Hackathon 2020

dag7+ifyourenotallmpleaseremovethis@protonmail.com (Dag) — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 22:22:40 +0200

If the code seems to be finished, then smile: you have not even started it

— Me¹

Finally, after many years I can participate in an important competition promoted by important associations and companies.

I wished for years to participate in the Global Game Jam, at least two years, finally I participated in an important competition.

This time the event was organized by Codemotion Team and Tim FIY: official event link.

The event took place from 2nd to 5th July, four days full of so much work and things to organize and to do but after all, each of us had fun.

Without my team I can’t even imagine being there: they were essentials for the competition, we had a lot of a great time together (in particular, the communication was so efficient between each of us) and despite moments of discouragement, we did it!

When you have a lot of ideas floating in your mind, not every idea is feasible: you should do your researches and make some analysis: we found ourselves in difficulty because we didn’t know what to present and, most importantly, HOW!

The real thing was after a while when our mentors encouraged us to do more and to produce something: they were right? They were wrong? It doesn’t matter: we everybody had a lot of fun and we worked as a REAL team.

Hope to have fun again!

Best of luck to me (and to us)!

myself ↩︎

Tech-Journey on Dag's home

Automatically Clean Scanned Documents: Remove Borders and Noise with a Script

Decap CMS Test

The rabbit hole of being curious

Starting a new academic year

The rabbit hole

On Curiosity

ZW24 Milano

The story

Live video

Photos

ZW Torino

Awesome Retroconsoles

The problems

The compromise

The wrong purchase

The right purchase

Final conclusions

New Year New Blog

GARR Academy

The beginning

Garr Academy

Final thoughts

Contest

Notes

RLJ #3

Introduction

Health

Projects

On life

Development

Photography

Money

Other links

The End? Entertainment part 1

The end for sure!

HP Envy Hackintosh

What’s not working in Hackintosh HP Envy m6?

Fix Audio

Pc specs?

List of kext used?

List of aml files?

boot-args arguments?

RLJ #2

On life

⁉️ Dunning-Kruger effect

🤔 Focus

📔 Notes

💻 Technology

🔒 Backup and encryption

🎵 Music

📚 Books

💰 Money

📺 Movies and TV Shows

📐 Projects

🎮 Videogames

🔗 Closing Links

Hello World

Introduction

Purpose of this post

Arch DAG Powered

Close encounters of third kind

RLJ #1

❓Lost in Google

Programming on NES

TIM W-Cup Hackathon 2020