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I received my Pinephone Keyboard and replacement motherboard. Like many, I tore the SIM pins while trying to use the included tray to insert a SIM card.
Customer service was reasonably responsive and issued me an RMA after I sent them photos. Disassembling the phone was fascinating and also nerve-racking.
It took over a month for the replacement to arrive, and the packaging was questionable, but it works!
The best part: the motherboard was already flashed with Tow-Boot, which simplifies booting off of the SD Card
This allows me to try more operating systems without the headache of popping the back cover off and pushing a small stick into the RE button hole.
There are only a handful of Operating Systems that support the Pinephone keyboard out of the box, and Arch+SXMO is one of them.
SXMO is a delight - it's very much in the spirit of suckless, and thus is delightfully minimal.
The keyboard itself is pretty good and has a massive battery built into it. However, three caveats:
Fix for Pinephone Keyboard top row
I finally built my BatteryBot - this solves the problem of charging thresholds for OpenBSD.
Background: it's believed that keeping a laptop plugged in most of the time will degrade the battery. The solution is to unplug/replug the battery so it stays within a range of 60-80%, or 40-50% if you're really worried. On Linux and Windows, there is software that handles this for you.
My solution consists of four pieces:
On OpenBSD, I run a script that will `curl` one of two endpoints on a Python web server, running on a Raspberry Pi.
The two endpoints `/power/on` and `/power/off` will toggle a power outlet on/off, respectively.
It's remarkably simple and doesn't suffer from the sudden drop-offs that happen when using battery thresholds.
Python module to switch relay on/off
Erratic battery levels when using thresholds
I've started reading "Ultralearning" by Scott Young
As an educator, it confirms my hunches that I could never implement in the bootcamp setting - the kind of personal tailoring prescribed by ultralearning just isn't possible in a group setting.
I just finished the chapter on Focus, and the author mentions arousal/excitation of the nervous system as a factor. For example, being sleepy is low arousal. You won't be able to ramp up to the level of focus necessary; you'll fall back asleep. Being overly caffeinated is high arousal. Your attention is a little too sharp and quick. You're likely to put too much importance on a tangent (or "supporting activity") instead of staying on task.
I finished "Rabbits" by Terry Miles
It's the first book I've read all the way through in about 6 years.
I'm not a focused reader, and it's likely due to decades of over-caffeination.
Examples:
A month ago, I gave up caffeine (and alcohol a month prior). I also took up semi-regular mediation. The quality of my attention is different in a subtle, but substantial way.