(Images are hosted on catbox.moe with a total size of 1.9MiB - your data plan will be fine)

Following Android docs, unlocking a bootloader should be as simple as enabling that option in developer settings, and issuing fastboot flashing unlock command in the bootloader.

But not all manufacturers like that.
So, here's the fuckery I went through.

Obtaining Mi Unlock tool

That one comes from here: https://en.miui.com/unlock/download_en.html
Which also links to these steps: https://new.c.mi.com/global/post/101245

First run

And we need an account.

Account creation

Since I'll need it on the phone as well, I decided to create the account from there.

I've used e-mail + password for sign-up.
There was also a confirmation e-mail sent to me, nothing special so far.

Logging into Mi Unlock - First roadblock

After entering e-mail + password, it fucks up with a blank verification page.

This was also reported by someone on XDA, with a solution to update.

Mi Unlock updaten't

I've tried both with and without a VPN, no luck. Some people reported the same issue when I searched around.

Workaround - QR code login from phone app

Of course, this needs more private data - a phone number, because why not?
And of course, it also does not fucking work.

Entering phone number in browser

This worked. But the phone app still didn't like me.

Do notice the "attempts remaining", this will be important later.

Workaround - QR code: Electric Boogaloo

The QR code actually contains a URL, so let's open it in a browser.

Well, fuck. Let's do that again.

And we are in.

Binding phone to Mi Account - More data collection

I thought the problem above (gray unlock button) was the phone not yet being "binded" to the account, so I skipped to this step.

So I inserted a SIM card, but they didn't lie. It really requires mobile data. I even tried Bluetooth network as someone else suggested.

This was a bit of a problem as I used a burner SIM with no data.
Random data eSIM on removable eUICC (9esim V3) was able to help with this.

Back to Mi Unlock - SMS rate limit

It seems there's a limit of 3 SMS codes per 24 hours outside of China.

Back the next day - Episode: Windows drivers

The Mi Unlock tool should include the USB drivers, but something's fucked up there.

Someone on XDA mentioned one of the 2 driver files can be renamed to the required filename, because let's ship a broken tool.

So I did that:
This now shown Windows installation prompt.

But why yes, it did not work.

So, I downloaded the drivers from Google, and tried following their instructions.
So that did it, right? Nah. Windows wouldn't find the driver.

The solution was following someone's Reddit comment.

Choose the option that says 'Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer', then browse to and select the file named android_winusb.inf. From there, you'll be able to choose 'Android Bootloader Interface' to install.

For comparison, on something like Arch Linux, this is a matter of extremely hard and time-consuming sudo pacman -Sy android-tools. /s

Reaching the fruit

The device is finally recognized.

And there we go.

And the final step:

Hardest part?

Unlocking the bootloader. Because it's Xiaomi. I have screenshots from the whole process, but that's more of a thing for "mildly infuriating" community.
Fun fact: Xiaomi doesn't even allow installing APKs via ADB without Mi account...

Why is it running plasma-desktop?

It's the first UI I tried. I've used it with a touchscreen before, and it worked well.
I've also tried installing both plasma-mobile and plasma-desktop, but the configurations seem to clash.
Also, when I use Android I always increase DP in developer settings to >600 which switches some UI elements to tablet mode. I prefer more things on the screen.

plasma-mobile vs plasma-desktop

Apples and oranges, yes, but I'll compare them. I am allergic to apples, but not oranges. Wait, that's not what I was talking about...

Nice things in plasma-desktop

• Sleep works (dmesg reports s2idle).
• More powerful UI (proper desktop).

Nice things in plasma-mobile

• Extra buttons in Konsole (tab, arrows, ctrl).
• Screen can be locked and turned off.
• Existing buttons on phone are automatically mapped to navigation in Plasma.

Bad things about plasma-desktop

• Even if I set power button to "Turn of screen", it immediately turns back on.
• Awful CLI experience without needed buttons.
• Pressing back and home buttons causes awful noise on headphone output.

Bad things about plasma-mobile

• Sleep isn't available as power option. systemctl suspend seems to properly put it into sleep based on kernel logs, but pressing button first time won't do anything, while causing a reboot when pressed the second time.
• While phone's buttons are mapped, I didn't find a setting to hide on-screen buttons, so you just get each button twice.

Running without modifying anything (aside from bootloader unlocking)

I didn't yet want to modify anything on the device, so I just flashed PostmarketOS to SD card.
The device is then booted through a computer using fastboot boot with lk2nd bootloader image.

Miscellaneous

This section is just about me being dumb.

I have no idea about what's going on during the boot process.
There's 49 partitions on the internal storage, I don't know what they're all used for, nor how data is loaded from them.

Device        Start       End  Size Attrs   Name
 1           131072    303103   84M GUID:60 modem
 2           393216    393217    1K         fsc
 3           393218    393233    8K         ssd
 4           393234    394257  512K         sbl1
 5           394258    395281  512K         sbl1bak
 6           395282    396305  512K         rpm
 7           396306    397329  512K         rpmbak
 8           397330    401425    2M         tz
 9           401426    405521    2M         tzbak
 10          405522    406033  256K         devcfg
 11          406034    406545  256K         devcfgbak
 12          406546    439313   16M         dsp
 13          439314    442385  1.5M         modemst1
 14          442386    445457  1.5M         modemst2
 15          524288    524351   32K GUID:60 DDR
 16          524352    527423  1.5M GUID:60 fsg
 17          527424    527455   16K GUID:60 sec
 18          655360    677887   11M         splash
 19          786432    788479    1M GUID:60 aboot
 20          788480    790527    1M GUID:60 abootbak
 21          790528    921599   64M GUID:60 boot
 22          921600   1052671   64M GUID:60 recovery
 23         1052672   1054719    1M GUID:60 devinfo
 24         1054720   7346175    3G GUID:60 system
 25         7471104   7995391  256M         cache
 26         7995392   8060927   32M         persist
 27         8060928   8062975    1M         misc
 28         8062976   8063999  512K         keystore
 29         8064000   8064063   32K         config
 30         8064064   8588351  256M         oem
 31         8650752   8650815   32K GUID:60 limits
 32         8781824   8782847  512K         mota
 33         8782848   8784895    1M         dip
 34         8784896   8850431   32M         mdtp
 35         8850432   8851455  512K         syscfg
 36         8851456   8859647    4M         mcfg
 37         8912896   8913151  128K GUID:60 lksecapp
 38         8913152   8913407  128K GUID:60 lksecappbak
 39         8913408   8913919  256K GUID:60 cmnlib
 40         8913920   8914431  256K GUID:60 cmnlibbak
 41         8914432   8914943  256K GUID:60 cmnlib64
 42         8914944   8915455  256K GUID:60 cmnlib64bak
 43         8915456   8915967  256K GUID:60 keymaster
 44         8915968   8916479  256K GUID:60 keymasterbak
 45         9043968   9044479  256K         apdp
 46         9044480   9044991  256K         msadp
 47         9044992   9045007    8K         dpo
 48         9045008  10748943  832M         cust
 49        10748944 122142686 53.1G         userdata

If I collected info correctly, BootROM loads whatever SBL is, which then loads whatever ABOOT is (which probably includes fastboot), which then decides what to load next (recovery, boot).

But how?
Does it look at the partition table for the names/UUID, or does it look for disk offsets? (There are suspicious holes between partitions.)
If the former, I could re-partition it.
If the latter, I'd be fucked.

Anyway, when it comes to backups, I first erased cache and userdata (fastboot erase), booted TWRP, and cat the internal storage over ADB shell, storing it as a sparse file. It takes up just 3.3GiB.
I also checksummed the storage and image file for verification.

I also tried to extract the stock recovery into Android boot image without extra data after it.
I don't know how to determine the real size, so I used unpack_bootimg and mkbootimg to get the original image, rather than whole partition.
The checksum of re-created boot image was different to original truncated partition image, but upon closer inspection with xxd and diff, this was just a difference in header:

00000010: 68c2 4f00 0000 0081 0000 0000 0000 f080  h.O....... | 00000010: 68c2 4f00 0000 0081 0000 0000 0000 0000  h.O.......

But I found it might indeed be a good idea to just keep a full image backup. After a bunch of NULLs, there's more data.
file doesn't recognize it, but running strings on it reveals readable text:

California1
San Narciso1
Yoyodyne, Inc.1
Yoyodyne Mobility1
Yoyodyne1#0!
yoyodyne@example.com0

Indeed, it seems this is a certificate: https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/sign_builds#signatures-sideloading

Anyway, I am once again getting reminded it might be good to learn assembly (ARM in this case). The content of sbl1 and aboot seems to be an ELF, so I might be able to pop it into Ghdira, and try to figure out what it's doing.
Maybe. I don't know, I have the most stupid of ideas usually.

I feel like an idiot realizing block devices are just... block devices.
They just hold data.
Shocker, I know.
But it just hit me when playing around with LVM. I can create a PV directly on a disk. I can even directly format a disk with FS. Floppies don't tend to have a partition table either. On the other hand, I can partition a partition. I can also just write a Tar directly to disk, like with tape. Or any file.

But with multiple files it starts to become a problem. A-ha! I can just write files to partitions just the same to make reading them simpler.
In this case:

Device      Start    End  Size Name
/dev/sda1    2048  70704 33.5M Limahl - Never Ending Story
/dev/sda2   71680 127492 27.3M Alphaville - Big in Japan
/dev/sda3  129024 201967 35.6M Alphaville - Sounds Like a Melody
/dev/sda4  202752 259447 27.7M Bronski Beat - Junk
/dev/sda5  260096 324229 31.3M Chris De Burgh - High On Emotion
/dev/sda6  325632 386300 29.6M Jermaine Jackson - When the Rain Beg
/dev/sda7  387072 437492 24.6M Kylie Minogue - The Loco-Motion
/dev/sda8  438272 493179 26.8M Mauro - Buona Sera Ciao Ciao
/dev/sda9  493568 545532 25.4M Olivia Newton-John - Xanadu
/dev/sda10 546816 613761 32.7M Radiorama - Yeti

I don't know if it's the limitation of GPT, but fdisk let's me theoretically get up to 2^32^ partitions (default is 2^7^). In practice, this will be lower.
For example:

Expert command (m for help): l
New maximum entries (1-4294967295, default 134217728): 268435456
Not enough space for new partition table!

Expert command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 57.3 GiB, 61524148224 bytes, 120164352 sectors

Right now I just did it manually. Check file size, divide by sector size, add one if remainder, make partition of that number of sectors, name partition, write partition table, copy file with dd and repeat.

But I should try to automate this. It could be a bash script, but I want to learn C beyond basics, so I guess I should try writing it in that.
Take destination drive and files as arguments, then do what I wrote above. And try not to nuke the wrong disk in the process.
On the other hand, I am so lazy I can't typically even start with my hobbies. Which sucks because I want to, I just can't... start.

Anyway, hundreds of files and partitions can't be processed by hand any easier.

Yesterday I was playing around with my other CD-RW drive which only works under Windows.
Someone suggested the issue might stem from my IDE adapter, so I tried it with this one again, just to find it stopped working at some point.

Why I find particularly this one a great loss

It worked just fine with Linux, unlike the other one.
But also, the audio output is clean.
The other one is extremely noisy. This one on the other hand doesn't even produce audible hiss, like my phone does, for example.

That brings me to a second point, the play button. Like many older IDE drives, it has a headphone jack in addition to the rear audio port. But the play/skip button means it needs no command to start playing audio from a computer, and therefore I could also use it as a standalone CD player.
Yet I could still use it for burning and reading data discs.

What it does now

It can't read burned discs reliably. With audio, it will keep skipping. It also produces unreadable burns.
It can still play pressed discs, which suggests major laser degradation at the young age of 23 years. (It did have issues skipping tracks even before, so it wasn't that sudden.)

Is this just a weirdly unsupported piece of hardware, or does it seem partially broken?

Notes

Images are hosted on Catbox.
The drive is connected via USB. ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge
Information provided is from memory as I wasn't noting down results. It took several days to do the tests, often due to unrelated software issues, and my lack of knowledge regarding the different OSs.

Logs

Below are filtered kernel log messages - some messages were repeated way too much

[303803.821623] usb 1-4: new high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303803.953712] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2338, bcdDevice= 1.00
[303803.953735] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
[303803.953745] usb 1-4: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge
[303803.953752] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: JMicron
[303803.953758] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 622222222222
[303803.956959] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[303803.957727] scsi host0: usb-storage 1-4:1.0
[303804.972734] scsi 0:0:0:0: CD-ROM            ATAPI    CD-R/RW 48X16    9.GH PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[303809.784518] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[303818.737158] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303826.573935] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303838.238333] sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[303838.238795] sr 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
[303845.622418] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303918.801647] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303936.512741] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303941.673166] usb 1-4: reset high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[303950.281142] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=1s
[303950.281164] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] 
[303950.281176] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Illegal mode for this track
[303950.281186] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 05 5d ec 00 00 02 00
[303950.281192] blk_print_req_error: 80 callbacks suppressed
[303950.281198] I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1406896 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
    REMOVED LINES
[303961.227527] I/O error, dev sr0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 2 prio class 2
[303961.227544] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 0, async page read
[303961.227559] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 1, async page read
[303961.408769] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 14, async page read
[303961.497219] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 15, async page read
[303965.403967] scsi_io_completion_action: 46 callbacks suppressed

ugen0.2: <JMicron USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge> at usbus0
umass0 on uhub0
umass0: <JMicron USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus0
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x4000<NO_SYNCHRONIZE_CACHE>
umass0:2:0: Attached to scbus2
cd1 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
cd1: <ATAPI CD-R/RW 48X16 9.GH> Removable CD-ROM SCSI device
cd1: Serial Number 622222222222
cd1: 40.000MB/s transfers
cd1: 0MB (1 2048 byte sectors)
cd1: quirks=0x10<10_BYTE_ONLY>
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:21,0 (Logical block address out of range)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 22, Unretryable error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): cddone: got error 0x16 back
    REMOVED LINES
pid 3525 (xfburn), jid 0, uid 1001: exited on signal 11 (core dumped)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ CD. CDB: be 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 f8 00 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:24,0 (Invalid field in CDB)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 22, Unretryable error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): cddone: got error 0x16 back
    REMOVED LINES
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 00 02 71 16 00 00 01 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:64,0 (Illegal mode for this track)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 6, Unretryable error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): cddone: got error 0x6 back
    REMOVED LINES
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 00 02 71 16 00 00 01 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Retrying command, 3 more tries remain
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 00 02 71 16 00 00 01 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: UNIT ATTENTION asc:29,0 (Power on, reset, or bus device reset occurred)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Retrying command (per sense data)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): READ(10). CDB: 28 00 00 02 71 16 00 00 01 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: UNIT ATTENTION asc:28,0 (Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed)
    REMOVED LINES
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): PAUSE/RESUME. CDB: 4b 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ABORTED COMMAND asc:b9,0 (Vendor Specific ASC)
(cd1:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Retrying command (per sense data)

KERN: usb_disk: got device name "ATAPI CD-R/RW 48X16 9.GH": No error
KERN: Media changed from /dev/disk/usb/3/0/raw
KERN: DMAResource@0xffffffff95066028: low/high 0/ffffffff, max segment count 16, align 1, boundary 0, max transfer 524288, max segment size 18446744073709551615
KERN: usb_disk: got device name "ATAPI CD-R/RW 48X16 9.GH": No error
KERN: usb_disk: unhandled ioctl 10102
KERN: Last message repeated 3 times.
KERN: usb_disk: sending or receiving of the data failed: No error
KERN: identify(110, 0xffffffff955a3978)
KERN: usb_disk: sending or receiving of the data failed: No error
KERN: usb error control pipe 38: timeout waiting for queued request to complete
Last message repeated 2 times
    REMOVED LINES
KERN: usb_disk: unhandled ioctl 10102
KERN: usb_disk: sending the command block wrapper failed: No error
KERN: usb error control pipe 38: timeout waiting for queued request to complete
Last message repeated 2 times
    REMOVED LINES
KERN: usb_disk: sending the command block wrapper failed: No error
KERN: usb error control pipe 38: timeout waiting for queued request to complete
Last message repeated 2 times

Testing methods

Operating systems were installed and set up in Oracle VirtualBox on Arch Linux host. CD-RW drive was passed to VMs via USB passthrough.

Usability summary

Test results

I'll start with common OSs first.

Linux

Detects the drive when it's empty. Otherwise it just keeps resetting it over and over, as can be seen in logs.
It might eventually load disc info after several minutes, as well as initiate disc blanking over cdrecord, but that will also take several minutes of waiting, if it ever happens.
There's also a small chance of full system freeze-up until the drive is physically disconnected.
This has been tested with other distributions inside a VM, with the same results.

Windows

Mostly used under Windows 2000, but it also worked on Windows 10.
Everything fully works.

GhostBSD (based on FreeBSD)

Analog (left) and digital (right) audio playback work just fine.

Data discs do not load.
Burning has started randomly on one occasion, but eventually failed.

OpenIndiana (fork of OpenSolaris)

Loading data discs works, despite (probably unrelated) error being shown first.

When it comes to audio playback, I don't know what to use. VLC doesn't support audio CDs over there, and sound-juicer appears broken. It is however possible to use analog playback, though CD-Text isn't being displayed like it was on BSD (cdda-player).

Burning discs did not work. Brasero always reports the disc as full, even when blank.

OS/2 Warp 4.52

This one was a bit painful to set up as I had to install and set up (in CONFIG.SYS) USB and USB CD drivers. Former I had to download, latter was already provided in CP2 (but disabled by default).
Audio CDs cause a time-out.

Data discs won't load either.

Haiku OS (Beta)

Disc drive is recognized, as well as formatted size of the disc, but that's it.

Eject/load works.
Other software (SMPlayer and BurnItNow) did not see the drive.

Android (using MLUSB mounter)

It may be based on Linux, but it acts so dumb someone had to make an app that acts as a USB device driver.

It gets recognized just fine.

And it loads data from the disc. That's all this app can do.

Everything this does works here.

ReactOS (open-source clone of Windows) (Alpha)

Data reads quickly and reliably, just as well as in Windows.

When it comes to audio and other software, it either isn't recognized at all, or causes a freeze-up.

Opening audio CD with file explorer only shows 1KB .cda files which are of no use.
Bittersweet news: it behaves exactly the same with a known-good drive. So maybe once those issues are fixed, it will be just as good as in Windows.

Conclusion

I have no idea whether this is a drive issue, or it's just doing something really non-standard.
I have also tried it with a different controller, making a chain of IDE -> SATA -> USB, but this was equally broken.

Edit 1: :::spoiler -> ::: spoiler to fix formatting outside of Lemmy-UI

There's just too many things I'd want to learn, but I probably can't do everything at once. And I also don't know where to start when it comes to basically any topic.

Courses could absolutely work, but they tend to be paid, so that's a problem.

How do you approach learning new material, especially if you only know a goal rather than a full/partial path?

This was a 3rd run after the issue started.
At first I got 40% packet loss, then 2%, and finally, 0% somehow.

Where even are the packets for that long?

I genuinely have nothing to put on a CV besides (lack of) education.
No projects, no hobbies, no experience, ~~no~~* nothing.
*^"no^ ^nothing"^ ^sounds^ ^like^ ^negation^ ^of^ ^false^
But I also guess it can't really be that empty.

I found posting for a job I could perhaps do**, though unfortunately they want a CV.

**The posting mentions this

Don't worry - we are not looking for experience, we are looking for a quality colleague who is eager to learn and grow - both at work and personally. What is important to us is that you have determination and responsibility. We will teach you everything you need - from the technical side to communication with customers.

Sounds good as I have no experience, but... CV.

Anyway, I am also questioning what to make it in. Originally I though of using LaTeX, but that needs more time. I only really tried to use it once, and that was pain. So many packages, what do they do, how do I use them. Like learning to swim by jumping into a lake.

LibreOffice Write/Draw is probably what I'll have to go with. Draw lets me easily put whatever I want wherever I want. And of course, export that to PDF.

Lastly, I need sleep now. It is unfortunate, as I have most energy and will to do things at night. However, this also includes crazy thoughts and ideas, such as making a second, crazy version of my CV.
Although extremely unprofessional, outdated HTML 3.2, old non-standard elements like blink and marquee, animated bullet points, animated tiled background, and "under construction" GIF in the experience section would be truly memorable.
Of course, I couldn't just send Tar-ed page source. But since it would be a single-page "document", all the GIFs could be withing the HTML file encoded in base 64.
Not that I plan to do it, but I personally like the vision in my mind.

Thank you for your attention.

I wish we as society could simply have one language to overcome language barriers, but that's more of a content for my daydreaming.

I often encounter issues due to language barriers.
Mainly with 2 languages.

Since the start of war, I've been encountering lots of Ukrainians I can't really speak with. Especially when I was on a dorm, where they were a great majority.
Not that I tend to talk with people, but I felt weird after a while.
Probably like someone who doesn't speak Spanish in the US (at least I assume that's fairly common over there).

And now searching for a job, I found many companies want you to know German.
Which I also encountered as "would've been useful now" a few times.

Seems like I should know an answer to this, as English isn't my first language, but I have no fucking idea how I picked it up. I never made any serious attempt (i.e.: studying for more than a week) to learn it.

I also watched over 2 hours of bonus features on the disc.

There are also some unrelated ones I mostly skipped.

Anyway, what I remember from the commentaries and interviews is that there could have been one more scene at the end with the forklift driving through a fiberglass wall, and the 2 guys scratching themselves.

Also, pig blood is cheaper than fake blood, so a lot of the blood is indeed real. Konstantin Graudus (Klaus' actor) also described the awful strong taste of the blood as that's what he got sprayed with.

Oh, and Microsoft Word kept mis-correcting the word "Staplerfahrer".

There's also a re-mastered version on Blu-Ray, but that would be over EUR 40 along with shipping, so nah. This one was 2.66... bumped to 7.45 by shipping costs (Austria -> Slovakia), plus some exchange fee because I got it from Momox on UK Amazon.
German DVD, purchased from British e-shop, shipped from Austria (at least that's what the shipping label says) to Slovakia.

I was thinking about how I used a cheap VPS in the past to "temporarily" host something for Lemmy for fun.
Well, our instance had major issues, and a data loss, making me loose access to those comments and post. And I didn't get a domain name, because it was "temporary" anyway.

Now, whoever inherits 167.160.186.15 can embed something else into 2 of my comments and 1 post.

Anyway, this is also the case of hosts like catbox.moe. Perhaps it dies one day, and instead of original images, something malicious will be returned.

A thought genuinely produced in the shower.

What happened

I didn't pass enough subjects. To study there again, I'll have to go through regular admission procedure again, but it's too late to sign up for next year.

Passed subjects acceptance

Like other colleges, the one I went to accepts passed subjects from previous studies. So if you studied at a different college and passed the same subjects (within past x years), you don't have to re-do them.

However, unlike with the others I checked, our college will only accept subjects passed at A or B. This probably makes sense, as they might not trust other colleges to hold students up to the same standards.

This means that I'll have to retake the subjects I already passed.

Idea 1 - immediate transfer request (not possible)

Not wanting to wait a year, I hoped to go to different college of the same university, and ask for transfer right after registration. (If rejected, idea 2)

Unfortunately, the university's rules only permit transfers within the same field, and the same one is not available to sign up for anymore.

Idea 2 - Piggyback on different college for a year

There are 2 colleges on the same university that still accept students and offer housing on a dorm in the same city.
The university rules also permit students to change their study plans, with possibility of registering subjects on different colleges of the same university.

Thus my idea was to officially "attend" College of Mechanical Engineering (which is desperate enough to have no entrance exams), withdraw from all their subjects, and register relevant subjects on College of Informatics.

I asked the study department about my plan. They confirmed it should be possible, but the A/B grading requirement remains.

How does that make sense?

I could take their subjects at their own college, pass them by their own standards, yet they themselves wouldn't accept them.

Alternatively, I could attend an easier college with lower standards, spend less effort for A/B, and pass just the same.

Alternative ideas

Only idea 1 makes sense economically (if the request got accepted), as otherwise I'd pay for 2 extra years rather than just one.
That sucks, I wished to basically go "hey, I am still here like a cockroach".

So to stay here, it's best to just get a job for a year and try not to loose too many fingers (all I found in my location with provided training and no required education is "plastic press operator" or "metal machinist").

Or give up, and study a different field.