3 days ago I was writing about a laptop I bought for 100 Euros that impressed me. How well it was design making it so easy to upgrade and repair. This post https://social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc44-1163-5943-3cb0-731309094804

Well now I have an exact opposite example. A few years ago we bought a very cheap laptop for my father. 2 core processor (intel), 4GB of RAM, some 500 GB HDD. 200 Euros or so. And the build quality is awful. Plus the way you open it up….

For example you have to open the entire back plastic panel to access anything. The screws are black on a black panel, the plastic quality is terrible, and then you have to somehow know that this:

is not just a rubber thingy to make your laptop stand better on a desk…no no, it hides screws inside of it. So you have to unglue that.

What a terrible design. I remember some 2 years ago when I first opened it up to change the HDD with an SSD, I almost broke the plastic panel trying to take it apart because I was unaware there are screws underneath those. Terrible design!

Then how do I put those rubber legs back? Glue them back? Awful!

After you struggle to open it, you find this:

It is easy to change the drive and the RAMs. However only 1 slot for the RAM. WTF! I’ve never seen a laptop with only 1 slot for the RAM. This is terrible. I had another RAM stick of 4GB around and wanted to upgrade it to 8GB but guess what, there is nowhere to add another stick…

Actually this was the reason I opened it again tonight, to only find out about this stupid thing.

The worst part is that the hinges are metal screwed into the plastic case and because it is so difficult to open, I broke both hinges….the plastic they were screwed into broke completely. And trust me I opened many laptops this never happened to me before. But this build quality is complete shit.

This happened 2 years ago when I first opened it. And made it so difficult when I reopened it again because I was afraid I will completely destroy it….I tried to glue them but in vain. Basically you can still close the lid, but it is a shitstorm and it will break completely sooner than later.

All in all, it is a complete fuckery this laptop. Poorly made out of shitty plastic. Difficult to open up to the point where you will break it. You only have 1 RAM slot. Not worth it.

I found a newer version of the same Fujitsu laptop, same model. Double the hardware power. Core i5, 8GB of RAM, 180 GB SSD. Same ebay seller. 200 Euros with 1 year warranty. I will tell my parents to perhaps buy that one. And this laptop we can sell for 16 Euros or give it to someone who won’t be able to do much with it…

Will see but this is the exact opposite example of my previous one.

A better made laptop for 100 Euros

A relative of ours who does not have much money, had an old computer. Then she had no more. It went kaboom. We thought to do a good deed an buy a laptop for …

^{social.trom.tf}

A relative of ours who does not have much money, had an old computer. Then she had no more. It went kaboom. We thought to do a good deed an buy a laptop for her. A cheap one. So I found one on ebay, for 100 Euros. Second hand. Yeah, 100 Euros. Fujitsu Lifebook E734 i3-4a. 4GB of RAM, 320GB HDD. Intel Graphics card. From 2014.

It is a bit scratched on the top lid, but other than that looks really good. Top lid made out of some metal, same as the top part where the keyboard is:

So I want to say a few things. First, the build aspect of it impressed me!

It is meant to be repaired and upgraded, at least mostly. From the bottom you can easily access the Drive, RAM, and the DVDroom (whoever still uses those). Just 1 screw holding them in place. So easy to deal with those.

The best part:

You can take the dust filter out, no screws needed, from the back of the laptop. In a second. Clean it, and put it back. This is the best feature (hardware) wise that I’ve seen for a laptop so far. I need to open up my entire laptop to clean it once a month, else it starts to overheat and does not work well at all. Imagine if I could simply take the filter out and clean! How in the world are not all laptops equipped with this!?

I love that thing so much!

Now, when it came, only had 1 issue. When the fan kicked in, it made a very loud noise and made the laptop vibrate….was quite bad. The best part is that I managed to open it up in a few minutes by unscrewing just some 10 screws. It was very easy to open this laptop up and that I loved. I quickly accessed the fan and cleaned it inside. I had to add some special oil to make it run smoothly. This is a very old fan so this may happen. That fixed it.

I of course nuked Windows and installed TROMjaro. Everything worked!

Bluetooth, wifi, keyboard keys, function keys….all! Runs so smooth and fast. The processor is more than enough for most uses for most people. The RAM is fine, depends how many websites you have opened in tabbed windows, but you can cheaply and easily upgrade that.

Overall for 100 Euros you can get a great laptop second hand. Well built, not that bulky at all, and useful for most people.

I also love how easily I could switch the TROMjaro layout into a Windows-like, something this person may be more familiar with. Lovely!

Point is, we should re-use. Second, I have seen several laptops over these past decade and this one is the best designed so far in terms of how easy they made it to repair and upgrade. All laptops should be like that. This is 8 years old but looks 20 years ahead in terms of the thinking that went into designing it for repair and upgrade.

In short, I need and want to finish the TROM II documentary before our TROM Meeting in May next year. And I need 0 distractions.

In long….

2019.

I remember brainstorming with @Aaron about this documentary some 3 years ago.

The idea was that we have so many materials for TROM (think about the latest book, The Origin of Most Problems that is over one thousand pages long) that we definitely need a documentary of some sort to introduce people to these ideas. Maybe a 1h long documentary or so. And make it quick. I was kinda convinced I can do it in like half a year….

2020-2021

A year or so later I started to work on it. I said, let’s do it! But I needed financial support. I made a donation campaign for 13k euros to allow me to work for a full year on the documentary. I only raised 2-3k. So I didn’t have the money. I thus delayed it…

I even made a sort of video-campaign for it….

My idea was to make a script, to write it, but I ended up writing more and more….then I thought “Fuck it, I cannot make a short documentary….I wont limit myself. I will make it as long as it will be.”. So I wrote more and I was starting to incorporate our books into the documentary. Lots of scientific papers, lots of science, lots of facts….and I started to realize that this will become a huge documentary and perhaps boring…also….wtf do we still need “proof” that this society is fucked-up? And to explain “trade as the origin of most problems” (the core of the documentary) we should not need “facts” as much as a way to make people rethink that the problems we see today are a result of trade. Many voice it by accusing “money”, corruption, capitalism and so forth.

Anyhow, after talking with others I kinda got convinced that I should ditch the script and do a more personal one. A documentary that’s easy to follow and makes sense for most people. So I decided to interview a few of my TROM-friends. Also, I would be a talking head too.

That was easy to do. Sit down and record. Of course I had a sort of script/notes for it all. We started to record in June 2020.

And finished in May 2021…

Took almost a year to finish the recordings…which I would have considered insane if you told me when I started it. But you know the Covid19 pandemic started and we got busy with that, mentally (following the news) and physically – a bit restrained by the restrictions.

It was also when I had to deal with some serious stuff for TROMjaro and took me a lot of time to deal with…

On top of that I released a new massive project: https://trom.tf/ and we were adding new services to it.

We moved all of our videos and social presence to alternative platforms that were trade-free. This was a massive amount of work but something I am extremely happy I did. We also moved the many websites we had to a new, unmanaged server since it was far cheaper and far more powerful….this was very new to me. I had to learn how to manage a server. Took at least a month or two to get used to it.

We were also TROM-casting…..and we were suffering tremendously money-wise. I was quite depressed about all of it. Felt really down because I didn’t know how to continue the work.

So that period of time was quite busy and stressful for me. In July 2021 I started to edit the documentary. Luckily I got some financial support and that allowed me to work on it.

I had over 40h of recordings….with 2 cameras. Was a lot more difficult than I expected. I did a of of work.

The rest of 2021 I spent trying to work on the documentary but also stressing about the financial situation…plus a ton of work on trom.tf – from technical to moderation and everything in between. Oh, and we moved TROMjaro from Gnome to XFCE…for those who understand what these are they get it that it was very difficult.

Took several months to work on and off and make it stable. At times I worked everyday for weeks on end. I had to postpone the documentary work several times because of this.

Between dealing with TB of backups, moving servers, creating new projects, trom-casting, tromjaro (remember I was also testing hundreds of apps for our tromjaro library), moving our materials to alternative platforms and such….I tried to work on the documentary too.

2022

This year I worked a lot on TROM II. By June I was able to finish some 2h of it. See. But then I had to stop again because we were financially fucked again. I launched WebApe, a webdesign project to help me make some money. That took some time to create and then to try and find some websites to make. Thanks to @Alexio I managed to get 3 projects. That was not financially sufficient. It was still stressful.

Luckily our financial situation greatly improved. Thanks to @Guillaume , @Roma @Aaron and a few others who donated big amounts of money, and especially to @Sasha who managed to make some money too. Now we were fine. Now we are fine!

I managed to add 30 more minutes to those 2h in July/August. Then cut the rest of the 20h into the last remaining 3h of the documentary. I tried to start working on these 3h but I could not much….busy with tromjaro, trom.tf, videoneat and the rest. TROM-Cast no more either….

NOW

You see I am busy with more things than what I just explained. Since the start of the documentary I did a lot of new projects and a lot of work in many ways. I also spend time replying to emails or having long discussions on the TROM Discussions chat. I do many things….no wonder that I could not finish this documentary yet.

Now it is October 2022. And things seem perfect for me. We have enough money till next year, same time. So I should not worry about money for at least a year or so. That’s absolutely FABULOUS. I’ve never been better financially actually. But let’s not celebrate yet since my calculations only take into account our basic needs. Who knows what else may intervene. Also, what do we do after 1 year?…. Therefore any donations are immensely important to prolong this work. And I am always transparent with whatever money we get for TROM.

Anyway, I have money now. And it is quiet here (summer is gone). Things should be calm and relaxing. Now it is the perfect timing to work and finish the documentary. Unless some weird things may happen, like a World World 3, or the hosting company kicking me out, or who knows…

All of the trains work great: tromjaro.com, videoneat.com, trom.tf, tromsite.com, tromnews.com…..my websites. All!

Therefore I will have to force myself to get back to TROM II.

I will mute the TROM Discussions chat for now, so that I am not distracted. I am really sorry that I have to do this. There are over 100 people in that chat. But I truly need to focus on TROM II and I will 100% get distracted if I leave the chat on. People will comment there and I cannot help but check it and respond…it is great to see more and more people there, and no worries, as soon as TROM II is released or close to be released. the chat will be available for all to comment again! I am 1 human and I can’t do everything, please understand that I need some quiet time to finish this.

And won’t even open my email until later on in the day or something like that. I need to isolate myself. Let’s see how it goes…

Trust me it starts to annoy me this documentary….I do not want to work on it for so long…I want to do new things. New videos, books, talks, debates….etc. So let me finish it 😁.

TROM Meeting in May

Next year, in May, we will organize a meeting- Similar to this –

And I definitely want the documentary to be done by then. Things look exciting again! Cannot wait! 6-7 months Tio boy! FINISH IT!

If you feed your brain with culture, then culture is your operating system. But culture is a human invention. Often too simplistic, moronic, competitive driven, trade-influenced. A culture of celebrities and those watching them, dreaming of becoming one of them. Shallow values, fake smiles, fake lives.

If you watch movies, listen to music, scroll endlessly on social (ad) networks; you tiktok daily, gossip, small talk, come’here drink a beer; if you are enculturated, you are missing out on something mind blowing.

This:

And this:

And this too:

And this weirdo:

And this, wtf that is:

Or these:

THE WORLD: The REALITY.

The center stage of your life. You are the center of the universe because your experience is yours, and that makes you the most important creature in the universe for yourself. And the reality is something we, humans, recently discovered. Plus, it is not being “marketed”. And thus, it is not “popular”. So many do not know about “it”. The “reality” is, for most, a geeky thing…science and such…

Immensely misunderstood.

You are being tricked into culture/society. You are being fooled and scammed. By this:

This:

Or this:

And this weirdo:

You are not part of that “world”. It is not yours. You are only here to watch it, get jealous, to consume and be consumed; to dream about illusions.

But if you realize that you are part of a humongous universe, and of an evolutionary process taking up billions of years, then you are as equal as anyone else. We are all in this, and it is about us, because we discovered this world. Embrace it. Force it into your essence!

As harsh as this may sound: stop watching movies or listen to dumb music. Stop using Facebook, Tiktok and the like. Games? Fuck them! Don’t copy this retarded society. Don’t be tricked by it. Netflix, Spotify, “smart”-phones, whatever the shit it is advertised to you: clothes and fake holidays, are all a scam. You’ll live and never realize what you truly are, a HUMAN.

Everyone tells you to consume these stupid useless shits. Because they are traded. Refuse!

I am telling you from my personal experience. I too was watching movies, and all sorts of shows, football, and all that. Was obsessed over some. But me, my life, felt mediocre at best. I am not like those famous people, I am not as good looking, well dressed, and so on….It is impossible to escape these feelings when you are soaked into culture.

But then I forced myself to watch documentaries, and read about the real world. For years. Felt very unnatural and uncomfortable. But after some time that gets into your system. Now I feel as important as any living creature. We are truly the universe looking at itself.

These used to mean “stars” in my world:

But now the only stars in my world, in my head, in my reality, are those that I see in the night sky.

That’s the difference!

You are star-stuff, literally. The story of you, and the importance of you, is far greater than you may imagine. This is not some inspirational corny post, it is true all that I am saying. A star had to explode, for the elements in your body to be created.

A frog, a fish, a mountain, that grass and the blue sky. Only made of a handful of building blocks. Same ones. A lego-like world. A mystery waiting to be revealed. An endless process of discovery. We will never know the full story of ourselves…..how the universe began….what was before that….where do we go….and that, to me, makes us immortal. Because we are, the universe indeed.

How beautiful! How real!

I wish we would all realize who we are, rather than what we are told to be, by a culture oiled by trade.

Don’t get scammed! Force reality into your brain.

You know I made a post some months ago being quite concerned about WW3, and I really try to keep my tits calm when it comes to such scenarios since I have seen so many times speculations about all sorts of things and normally nothing radical happens in this world, in any regards.

I haven’t posted about the situation in Russia in some time, but I kept an eye on it via AlJazeera, BBC, Euronews but also the awful rt.com out of curiosity. Things slowed down a bit for the past months, but became a lot more tense for the past weeks. There is a serious worry that this can still escalate into a WW3, as unimaginable as it may seem even for those acknowledging that it may happen. Like me.

Russia (Putin kinda leading it) seems to have very few options on the table other than some small nukes to “scare off” the world. And Ukraine is pumped full of weapons and support.

Russia already set the stage to not allow itself to go down in a controlled manner. Declaring some 10% of Ukraine as “theirs”, and Ukraine having no interest in backing down, to the contrary taking that territory back, combined with the inability of Russia to fight on the ground and hold onto territories….makes me think that these crazy minds that are in power in Russia, are very close to use bigger weapons like nuclear ones.

Problem is, once they do, it is like trying to extinguish a flaming cooking pan by pouring a liter of water on top of it. Ukraine + the rest supporting them will probably respond in kind. Explosions, the big kind, will happen. We are past the “sanctions” card, we are past the threats that seem to have 0 effect, and now the morons may go on a full-war approach.

I hope I am wrong, again, but seems quite a tense situation.

And as much as people hate Putin, he is not the only one there. He has a lot of supporters and people around him. Whatever they think, they have started a big fight and they won’t back away easily, or at all it seems.

Let’s see how things will progress….probably we will see 2-3 more months of fighting on the ground, to then who know….a nuke or two!?

Fucking awful bunch of humans this society has created.