It can be difficult to add a secondary storage to Nextcloud if the storage location is a new local drive. Authentication errors abound and leave one unable to use the additional space. To resolve this, add the drive to the system, and use the occ command to add the secondary storage. Add the new drive, whether real or virtual, and boot the machine. Then use lsblk to identify the drives. This is an example from my nextcloud instance:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0   480G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   472G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
└─sda5   8:5    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 464.3G  0 disk 
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 

Create the path for the mounting of the partition via mkdir /mnt/secondary which is the path that I am using on this machine. Then use fdisk to setup the formatted partition. In the example above, the sdb device appears as the one that needs configuration. The command to begin is fdisk /dev/sdb and after that launches, use the menu to create a new partition ttable, add a new partition, set it to primary, write to disk, and exit. To confirm the existence of the partition, run a fresh lsblk and compare verify the output. After doing that, format the disk via mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb1.

Obtain the UUID of the new partition via the lsblk -f command. Example outpout of this command is:

lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                           
├─sda1 ext4   1.0         d9720050-a770-4d6c-8620-78595132d60e   87.2G    76% /
├─sda2                                                                        
└─sda5 swap   1           f70c9ad7-e991-405b-b093-8b3c92ae8568                [SWAP]
sdb                                                                           
└─sdb1 ext4   1.0         8561c6b1-6cf0-4487-bf95-0cfb1befbb0f                
sr0   

Use nano to exit the mounting details via nano /etc/fstab. Add the new partition to that using noatime as an option, along with 0 and 2 as the parameters. The parameter noatime tells the system not to update the access time everyone a file is accessed and the 2 tells the operating system to continue booting if the disk is not present for some reason. Here is an example of the file where the data for sdb1 appears.

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=d9720050-a770-4d6c-8620-78595132d60e /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=f70c9ad7-e991-405b-b093-8b3c92ae8568 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sr0        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
UUID=8561c6b1-6cf0-4487-bf95-0cfb1befbb0f /mnt/secondary  ext4    noatime         0       2

Then mount the new partition via mount -av which will process the fstab file. After that, cd into the /mnt directory and change the ownership of the secondary folder created earlier via chown -R www-data:www-data /mnt/secondary. The www-data user may not be the username. In this case, the webserver for the Nextcloud instance runs via the www-data account so that is the one that works here. After changing the ownership of that mountpoint, cd /var/www/html/nextcloud or whatever the Nextcloud path is for the PHP files. There should be an occ file present. Use the following command sudo -u www-data php occ files_external:create SECONDARY 'local' null::null -c datadir="/mnt/secondary" and SECONDARY will appear in Nextcloud as an external storage visible to all logged in users.

Apostrophe on Linux fails to show the preview in some newer operating systems. This occurs because the WebKit backend switched to using hardware acceleration and this does not work for many users. A fix to the launching command works to bring the preview back to Apostrophe, but the same fix will not work for Epiphany.

The fix is:

 nano /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.gitlab.somas.Apostrophe.desktop 

And the modify the exec line to say the following:

 Exec=env WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 apostrophe %U 

These changes will disable hardware acceleration and return the preview functionality.

The quantity of spike protein created via the mRNA transfection process in humans continues to grow. This case shows that at 3.5 years, the lack of an off switch allows continual gene expression.  This means that individuals may express that gene and produce those proteins indefinitely.

This case documents the longest reported in vivo persistence of vaccine-derived mRNA, plasmid DNA fragments, and spike protein following mRNA vaccination, with reproducible detection across multiple independent laboratories, distinct biological compartments, and complementary molecular detection systems extending beyond 3.5 years after the final dose. Spike protein, spike mRNA sequences, and plasmid backbone elements were identified in both immune cells and somatic tissue, with continued absence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein or antibodies, effectively excluding prior infection as the source. [via Persistence of Vaccine mRNA, Plasmid DNA, Spike Protein, and Genomic Dysregulation Over 3.5 Years Post-COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination | Medical Research Archives, archived 17 July 2026]

Joshua Stylman’s essay on refusing to give the digital identification is a great read and definitely worth sharing.

The system requires your participation to work. The catch is that this may also be its biggest weakness. It only becomes a cage when adoption is near-universal. In other words, when opting out means you can’t participate in daily life. When cash still works, and analog alternatives survive, resistance may be inconvenient but still livable. That’s why they need you to volunteer.

Don’t give it.

via The Authentication Layer – Joshua Stylman.

Discernment regarding the technology choices that one makes continues to remain important.  In many cases, doing away with social media entirely is the best choice.  Freedom and knowledge for posterity is given up bit by bit.

The infrastructure for systems in which you “cannot buy or sell without an ID” is being assembled one prompted selfie at a time by Meta, Uber, banks, app developers, and verification vendors. This often happens before governments even pass the final laws.

via Private Biometrics Are Building the Digital ID Prison: No New Laws Required. – The Burning Platform.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile256GB bs=1024 count=268435456 status=progress
chmod 0600 /swapfile256GB
/usr/sbin/mkswap /swapfile256GB
/usr/sbin/swapon /swapfile256GB
echo "/swapfile256GB     none   swap    sw     0     0" | tee -a /etc/fstab

Document z260205wa, last modified 21 May, 2026
See z260205f (an earlier note related to swap file creation).

It is possible to configure the behavior of Linux with regards to the use of swap memory. The default setting is a swappiness of 60, which means the kernel begins using swap memory once processes use 40% of the system memory.

To view the current swappiness setting, use the command
cat /etc/sysctl.conf | grep swappiness or use the command
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness or the command
/sbin/sysctl vm.swappiness

To immediately change swappiness, use the command
sysctl vm.swappiness=1 or another number other than 1. In the case of 65536MB of RAM, a swappiness setting of 1 means that once 655MB of memory remains, the kernel will start swapping data to the disk.

To make the change permanent, add vm.swapiness=1 to /etc/sysctl.conf. It is also possible to achieve the same effect by adding the sysctl vm.swapiness=1 command to a crontab that takes effect upon reboot using @reboot /sbin/sysctl vm.swappiness=1 in the crontab editor.

Document z260521wa, last modified 21 May, 2026
See z260205f (earlier referece note on configuring swappiness)

This page contains details on the numbering conventions for my zettelkasten.

For purposes of organization, these are case insensitive. Sometimes I write them in all capitals and sometimes in lower case. All notes identifiers start with the letter z. That is because Joplin requires a character rather than a number in order to search. Then comes the date code. After the date code, a letter identifier specifiying the medium of the note. It is preferred to use lowercase for the letter portions of the names.

z260519w – web document
z260519l – loose/large page, archived in three-ring binders
z260519j – Joplin
z260519p – pocket notebook
z260519m – main notebook
z260519z – Zettlr document

Each one then has a letter, a-z, following the intial portion. z260519ja is the first note of the day in Joplin. z260519jb is the second. Zettlr documents consist of MarkDown (.md) files. These files may be created in Apostrophe or another markdown editor and saved in the Zettlr vault or be created within Zettlr itself. The Pandoc User’s Guide contains a guide to Pandoc’s Markdown.

This web document is z260519wa. The Joplin note related to this is z260519ja.  For example, I just created z260519za-ark-ascended-notes.md in my Zettlr vault with some cheat codes for Ark Ascended. I sometimes follow the Zettlr convention of notes numbered like z2605192219 and z2605192238 when creating specific notes related to something I am working on.

This allows me to track thoughts and records across time and media.

Last modified on July 26th, 2026 at 9:08 PM

Linvega contains excellent information on historical computation devices such as calculators and slide rule mechanical calculators.

Scientist Sees Squirrel convers the importance of writing from the perspective of an evolutionary ecologist and entomologist in Canada.

The Mathematical Reason Most People Never “Make It” is an article that details why it is necessary to create, even when it seems that the payoff is lower than it should be.

Price’s Law states that the square root of the number of people in a domain does 50% of the work.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• In a company with 100 employees, 10 people produce half the output
• In a field with 10,000 scientists, 100 produce half the meaningful research
• On a team of 25, 5 people carry the entire operation

…The formula is simple: √n = your high performers, where n is the total population.

Oh, and it wasn’t exclusive to research papers—this pattern showed up everywhere he looked.

This applies to many different things.  This article was a good read.

Document no. z260525wa, last updated 25 May, 2026

[+] = Added
[*] = Changed
[^] = Moved
[=] = No Changes
[x] = Deleted
[!] = Bugs
[_] = To Do
[>] = Migrated
[<] = Migrated

Linux Operating System Notes:
[_] Increasing watch handles on Linux
[z260726wa] Adding external local disk storage to Nextcloud
[_] Manually set the time zones and sync time on Linux
[_] Configure Boot on Devuan Excalibur (ref. z260205a)
[_] Window resize script for X11 (ref. z260205b)
[_] Creating SSH keys and using them on multiple machines (ref. z260205c, z260307a, z260309a)
[_] Excellent backup and restoration scheme using lrzip (cf. z2605919zb)
[_] Monitoring network activity on Linux (ref. z260205d)
[_] Disabling IPv6 in Debian and ending errors appearing in Journalctl related to it (ref. z260205e)
[z260205wa] Creating a Swapfile
[z260521wa] Configuring swappiness levels

Linux IRC paste bins:
Debian pastebin | OpenSUSE pastebin | #Linux chat pastebin | Pasteboard Image Uploads

Bash Shell Functions:
[_] Bash shell function webarchive (ref. z260305a)

Quick memos:
Use apt-get install ./x rather than dpkgi -i x when installing third party debs.

nano -c -i -q --guidestripe=79

Software Articles:
[_] Disable Updates in Thunderbird
[_] Disable DNS over HTTPs in Mozilla browsers
[_] Remove OneDrive from Explorer via Group Policy on Windows

Redshift was not installed on Debian 12, yet color temperature kept changing without manually doing it.  xsct 6500 restored default color temperature.  Switching to a Gnome session and disabling night shift worked.  After logging back into xfce the temperature issue returned.

dconf reset -f /

brought back the normal color temperature.