GUIDE: Convert SWFs to PDFs, preserving text as text, with gfx2gfx-pdftext

Introducing gfx2gfx-pdftext, a fork of gfx2gfx designed to convert SWF files to PDF files, while preserving text! I am not aware of any other freely-available tools that can do this.

The original gfx2gfx from SWFTools unfortunately converts text to paths. An improvement on… »

US Election 2016: What if the Electoral College was proportional?

The title says it all really. What would have happened in the 2016 American federal election if votes in the Electoral College were allocated proportionally, either within each state or nationwide? I was curious, so here's some number-crunching.

IB Physics Imaging option: Magnification of optical instruments

Take note of sign conventions!

Magnifying glasses

A single convex lens can be used as a magnifying glass.

If an object \(O\) is placed within the focal point \(F\) of a convex lens, a virtual image \(I\) will be formed.

The linear magnification \(m\) of… »

Thoughts on Black Mirror S03E04 ‘San Junipero’

‘San Junipero’ is, without a doubt, one of the most unique episodes of Black Mirror in all its three seasons. Unlike the other episodes, which are primarily straightforward one-sided criticisms of particular aspects of technology and society, ‘San Junipero’ deals with deeper, more thoughtful questions… »

Decentralised open-source self-hosted encrypted cloud services

A number of years ago, after reflecting on how dependent I was on Google's cloud services, I began to migrate to open-source self-hosted solutions, primarily through ownCloud. After a recent server outage left me without service for a substantial period, however, I began the search… »

FIX: Systemd services fail with code 228/SECCOMP

Symptoms

Services like systemd-journald and systemd-logind show a failed state with error code 228/SECCOMP, and return an error message when attempted to be started using systemctl. This also caused journald logs to not be created or updated for any services.

Problem

The problem on my… »