VLC performance on the Acer Nitro 5

Quick note: under Ubuntu 20.04, VLC's performance can be greatly improved for x264 codecs by changing the default setting: Tools -> Preferences -> All -> input/codecs -> Video codecs -> FFmpeg -> Hardware decoding -> VA-PI video decoder. Note: not "VA-PI video decoder (DRM)" This applies to VLC 3.0.x on Ubuntu 20.04. An annoying side … Continue reading VLC performance on the Acer Nitro 5 →

Team topologies fix the Spotify model

The Spotify model The Spotify model [SPOM] describes an organisational structure which aims at maximising agility through removing friction. The building block of the Spotify model is the squad, a team which is responsible for the entire lifecycle of a product from inception to implementation, operation and retirement. Friction is removed by maximising squad autonomy: … Continue reading Team topologies fix the Spotify model →

3M Happy Text

My first computer was a low-end PC which came with a 3M "Happy" office suite (my term, I have no documentation of the thing). It consisted of two 5,14 inch diskettes, one with "3M Happy Text" and one with "3M Happy Fakt" (German version). I don't remember anything about Happy Fakt, but I recall 3M … Continue reading 3M Happy Text →

RAID + dm-integrity vs bit rot

In Building the perfect, cheap NAS I discuss bit rot which silently kills digital archives; my solution chosen back then builds on parchive which adds in a manual process redundancy to archives. This redundancy can be used to identify and correct bit rot to some extent. The issue with this approach is that it's manual … Continue reading RAID + dm-integrity vs bit rot →

Slow rsync on ext4 filesystem

On a rather hefty rsync job between two local ext4 filesystems, writing on the target (a mechanical hard drive which should be able to sustain 100 mb/s) would fluctuate strongly (between 0 mb/s and 160 mb/s) and effectively slow down to a few mb/s on average after a few minutes. While I didn't find the … Continue reading Slow rsync on ext4 filesystem →