Tag: syncthing

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Let us start October off on the right foot with an exciting new edition of the Pook-Emu Bee Links.

Oh no, whatever will I do?

1 | Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. Sep. 30, 2026.)
One may think that your favorite (I hope) feed proponent would be outraged about Reddit discontinuing its RSS feeds. To paraphrase the Reddit community: “Well ackshully….” Why in the world would I want to contaminate my feed collection with Reddit?

2 | Citi Bike user reveals outrageous ‘hidden tax’ slapped onto every e-bike (Aurielle Weiss for the New York Post. Sep. 26, 2026.)
These lunatics are complaining about the speed limit. The fees can’t be high enough.

Kitty

3 | Bronx Zoo welcomes adorable snow leopard cub threatened by extinction (Natalie O’Neill for the New York Post. Sep. 30, 2026.)
I too welcome the new snow leopard.

4 | Workers free kittens from shredder that could have ‘obliterated’ them in purr-fect rescue mission (Steven Vago for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
A very timely kitten rescue.

Starcents

5 | Starbucks to close 250 stores: ‘Difficult decision’ (Anders Hagstrom for Fox Business. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have never been a big burnt coffee fan, but there was once a time when Starbucks was clearing the bar many people

6 | Starbucks Japan releases new Pikachu Honey Cream Latte into the wild for new Pokémon collaboration (Oona McGee for SoraNews24. Sep. 29, 2026.)
I wouldn’t drink it because it looks like a year’s worth of sugar. But Starbucks did a surprisingly decent job of converting the Pikachu aesthetic into a drink.

Self-Hosting

7 | Radiology practices that own their imaging equipment less likely to face closure (Marty Stempniak for Radiology Business. Sep. 30, 2026.)
That checks out.

8 | Self Hosting Passwords (Chuck Carroll. May 20, 2026.)
He uses KeePassXC and Syncthing. He is a smart man. I hubly say that because I too use KeePassXC and Syncthing. With that being said, I would not necessarily recommend our combo to “normies.”

Photograph

9 | Sheep Tree (Jan Ulicki on Lens Culture. May 20, 2025.)
Great photo, baaaa.

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My throat is irrtated, my nose is stuffy, and I have a slight headache. It’s ragweed season. Unrelated: It’s time for our daily Pook-Emu Bee links.

Photo of a blue bench resting against a black cast iron fence next to potted shrubs in front of a restaurant.
I took this photo in what I think was Cobble Hill on the afternoon of August 23, 2026.

1 | Dating App Adds Feature Allowing Men To Filter Out Women Who Support Lindsay Clancy (The Babylon Bee. April 27, 2026.)
An all-timer from Babylon Bee.

2 | Iconic, stained glass ‘Watertower’ above Brooklyn Bridge Park dismantled (Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Sep. 1, 2026.)
I’m a fan of the watertower. I am sure I have a photo of it somewhere. But fear not, it is only being taken down temporarily.

3 | This open-source tool was built for academics, and it’s the best productivity tool I own (Yash Patel for XDA. Sep. 1, 2026.)
Zotero is indeed great. Especially when combined with Syncthing for file sync.

4 | Review: Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet—Using a Little to Say a Lot (June for Fuwanovel. August 25, 2026.)
According to Steam, I played Planetarian in 2015. Count me as a fan, it’s an excellent short visual novel. Maybe I should review it since it is also relevant to the history of Insani.

5 | Dyson launches $499 toothbrush with built-in camera, AI technology (Bradford Betz for Fox Business. Sep. 1, 2026.)
GPTeeth?

6 |  Convicted cab driver rapist Gurmeet Singh stripped of US citizenship 15 years after assaulting passenger (Emily Goodin and Chris Nesi for the New York Post. Aug. 31, 2026.)
Now now. I’m sure Mr. Signh’s forgetting that he had brutally raped (not “assaulted” NY Post headline writers) a woman weeks earlier when he was filling out his Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, was nothing more than an honest clerical oversight.

7 | Delicate white blossoms on a tree branch (Doncoombez on Upslash. March 17, 2026.)
This photo appeared as a Brave new tab image on my phone. I liked it, so you can enjoy it too. While you’re in the area, enjoy my 2022 re-publication of a poem about apple blossoms.

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Liked 5 apps new Linux users should install on day one by Dibakar Ghosh (How-To Geek)
Most Linux distros are intentionally minimal to avoid bloat, offering a fresh and clean environment. While this is a major perk, knowing what to install first can be tricky for newcomers. So, to help kickstart your journey, here are five essential apps that belong on every new Linux PC.

I read a How to Geek blog post titled 5 apps new Linux users should install on day one (HT Tux Machines). The author, Dibakar Ghosh, recommended the following apps:

  1. GNOME Tweaks and GNOME Extensions (if using GNOME)
  2. KDE Connect or GSConnect
  3. A Chromium-based browser
  4. OnlyOffice
  5. Flatpak

All five recommendations are sensible. My only amendments to those five apps specifically would be that I opt for Brave Origin as my Chromium-based browser and I prefer LibreOffice to OnlyOffice.

Of course, there are many more recommendable apps out there. I offer five additional recommendations:

  • Ghostwriter: KDE’s Ghostwriter is a simple markdown editor with built-in Pandoc (which should also be installed on every Linux workstation) export through its GUI. I have been using it to draft almost all of my long-form documents for more than five years. It is a “must-install” on all of my machines.  (See my Ghostwriter review.)
  • mpv Media Player: A simple, minimalist app for watching videos (it also handles music). Combine with yt-dlp to stream videos in MPV. VLC is also a common choice with a full GUI, but I prefer mpv.
  • Okular: KDE’s Okular is my go-to PDF viewer. It is a strong default option even on non-KDE desktops (I prefer it to Evince).
  • Syncthing: I use Syncthing to continuously sync files between my computers and phones. It is a part of my own essential apps collection.
  • Thunderbird: Mozilla’s Thunderbird is my go-to email client. There are other options, but I would rate Thunderbird as a good default choice for people starting out on Linux.

For some honorable, more specialized mentions: Calibre (great ebook manager and converter; “ok” ebook reader); Lutris (very nice game manager and WINE front-end (consider WINE a good “essential” pick); Qalculate (my favorite “normal” desktop calculator); Steam (if you use Steam); Recoll (powerful full-text desktop file search); RetroArch (for playing retro games); and Zotero (great reference manager and reader, combine with Syncthing for local storage across devices).

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Pook-Emu Bee links are back today as we start the new work-week.

Yellow flower in Brooklyn. It glows because of the camera flash.
I took this photo on July 2, 2026. I “believe” it is in Columbia Street Waterfront District.

1 – Persona 30th Anniversary Paper Fragrances Feature Designs Announced (Orpheus Joshua for Noisy Pixel. August 9, 2026.)
I have been a Persona fan since I first played FES more than 16 years ago. I have been seeing one 30-year anniversary note after another. I am respectfully asking Sega’s marketing team to calm down. The shark has been jumped.

2 – Someone built a browser that generates every website from scratch, and it impressed me more than it should (Mahmoor Faisal for XDA Developers. August 8, 2026.)
I wouldn’t advertise being impressed by what Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony accurately described as being a “slop machine.” With that being said, I have no doubt that many more people will read about his mind being blown by a slop machine than my daily links, so what do I know?

3 – The Current Status of American Schools (Larry Sand for American Greatness. August 4, 2026.)
Could be better. But the administrators in New York City are doing great.

4 – NYC Council pushes slate of measures to address dangerous e-bikes (Craig McCarthy, Matthew Fischerri, Hannah Fierick, and Matt Troutman for the New York Post. August 4, 2026.)
It’s not enough, but it’s a start. Unfortunately, the start will have to contend with the anarcho-bikists and a Mayor who enables and encourages them, so count me on the “not optimistic” side.

5 – ReactOS Implements First Windows NT6 System Call In Step Toward Vista Compatibility (Michael Larabel for Phoronix. July 2, 2026.)
I had a decent experience with Vista so I think I’ll take my talents to ReactOS once they reach full Vista compatibility.

6 – BasicSync and Synctrain: solid apps for bringing Syncthing to phones (Rodrigo Ghedin. May 8, 2026.)
I don’t use iOS but I am glad to see that there is now a plausible, free, and open source Synthing option there (even granting the iOS-imposed limitations).

7 – Magic Magikarp Makes Moves (Ian Boss for Hackaday. December 5, 2025.)
Nintendo should be ashamed of itself for not coming up with this idea on its own.

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I have another busy day ahead of me, but we cannot forsake our daily Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Syncthing 2.1 adds group organization and proxy support options (Fla for AlternativeTo. May 12, 2026.)

I approve of having “the ability to group devices and folders in the GUI using a new group attribute.”

2. Airbnb enlists Al Sharpton in fight against Mamdani’s short-term rental crackdown in NYC: report (Ariel Zilber for the New York Post. May 11, 2026.)

I’d ordinarily make a “it’s a pity they can’t both lose” joke but in this case the Mayor is correct.

3. Stranger assaulted by maniac weeks before he pushed retired NYC teacher to death recounts frightening attack: ‘Why is he following us?’ (Joe Marino and Anna Young for the New York Post. May 8, 2026.)

‘Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.’

Let us hope she suppresses that stupid part of herself if there is a next time in the interest of getting homicidal criminals off the street.

4. John Calipari slams the NCAA for catering to European pros over American kid (Yalshpat Bhagava for Basketball Network. April 27, 2026.)

Notwithstanding the ever-increasing professionalization of college basketball, I would be inclined to agree with Coach Calipari (always the advocate for elite NBA draft prospects) that young (or not so young) men who were playing professionally in Europe should probably not be eligible to play American college basketball.

5. JPMorgan Offered a $1M Settlement to MeToo Accuser of Female Exec (Paul Bois for Breitbart. May 6, 2026.)

These people just shoot money out of firehoses.

6. “He Was Literally Frothing At The Mouth” – Yuji Naka Really Didn’t Want Sega To Make Mature Games (Damien McFerran for Time Extension. December 16, 2025.)

A family-friendly game designer after our own heart. I don’t suppose this is how we avoided Tails’ Bad Fur Day.

7. Maggots Are an Incredibly Efficient Source of Protein, Which May Make Them the Next Superfood for Humans (Mary Roach for Smithsonian Magazine. January/February 2026.)

Is it just me or have they not been trying to convince us to eat the bugs as much these days as they were 6-12 years ago?

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I read about the Fire Toolbox utility for “debloating” and customizing Amazon Fire Tablets. That inspired me to buy a cheap ($35-40) Fiire 11 tablet from 2021 on Woot back in April or May. I finally got around to using it. Unfortunately, because of updates, some of the Toolbox’s utilities like setting a custom launcher do not work reliably. But I managed to remove a decent amount of Amazon bloat and telemetry. My goal is to set it up as a device for reading articles from my Miniflux instance as an alternative to my phone. Here are my initial key steps:

  • Used Fire Toolbox to sideload F-Droid Basic
  • Installed Iron Fox (web browser), Markor (markdown editor), Frigolio (Wallabag client), KDE Connect, and Syncthing
  • I configured Iron Fox to my liking and imported the uBlock Origin rules I use on my phone
  • I logged into Miniflux on Iron Fox (synced my clipboard with KDE Connect to get my passwords
  • I synced my Markor directory from my phone to my Fire so I could save links from my browser for my newsletter workflow
  • Connected Frigolio to my Wallabag server by sharing clipboard with API key and login information from my computer via KDE Connect

I gave everything a test run in the morning and it worked well. Fire tablets have low-end specs, but Iron Fox felt about as snappy on the tablet as it does on my phone (Google Pixel 6a running GrapheneOS). One potential annoyance is that when I woke my tablet up (I had set it up last night), I was presented with a screen trying to get me to log into an Amazon account. I was prompted to finally set this up because I was being tempted by a $250 sale on Google Pixel Tablets (which are supported by GrapheneOS), but if the Fire works well for my limited Miniflux purpose, I think I will opt to save the $250.

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I have gone through three systems for contact syncing since transitioning to an open source tech lifestyle with my switch to Linux in August 2020. I tried EteSync, Radicale-DecSync, and most recently, using Posteo for server-side address syncing. Today I changed approach, borrowing from the Radicale-DecSync idea, which involved Radicale running locally on my computers, the DecSync app, and Syncthing. I first removed Posteo Sync on my GrapheneOS-powered Google Pixel 6a and then exported the .vcf file to a folder in my “Sync” directory that I Sync to my devices with Syncthing. I deleted my contacts from Thunderbird and imported the .vcf. After some testing, I opted to use Fossify Contacts instead of GrapheneOS’s default AOSP-derived contacts manager because the import and export was more to my liking. I then made some changes on Thunderbird, exported the .vcf, and imported them into Fossify Contacts. It worked as expected. I will keep playing with this system and see how sustainable it is.

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I send a weekly newsletter attached to The New Leaf Journal called The Newsletter Leaf Journal. Unsurprisingly, I focus on sharing links to my latest articles (including some from here) and news and notes about my projects. However, in the spirit of generosity and sharing external links, I pack each newsletter full of links from around the web (21 per issue, as of late). I had a markdown file with links and comments ready to use in future newsletters. This file was over 9,200 words. I managed to lose the file while reorganizing my documents, notwithstanding the fact that my preferred markdown editor, Ghostwriter, creates automatic backups (single-version automatic backups hit a snag when you accidentally write over markdown your file but keep the same name). Maybe I would have been safe the markdown document was not in one of the few working folders that I was not syncing with my favorite app, Syncthing). But the past is the past. I guess that we will be starting fresh as we prepare to turn the calendar to 2024. Fortunately, I have more than enough new links to keep things rolling (so do subscribe via email or RSS).