2026-03-21

Welcome to my daily blog, my name is Oatmeal Joey Arnold, follow me on social media and on all the websites at Joeyarnoldvn or else. Wait, was that a threat? No way. I'm joking. But that's the thing about me, I'm a nerd stuck in the body of an athlete, born in 1985 in Oregon, been online since like 1995 (or longer) meaning I've been on the world wide web the past 30+ years uploading over 30K+ videos, we're talking thousands of hours of worth of content (I have millions of things online, literally), most of my content is terrible which is weird because I'm a perfectionist who would probably prefer only sharing my best stuff on the Internet. Click here for more information. Quick disclaimer, I sometimes like rant, I speak often from the top of my head opinions, feelings, random thoughts, I often don't even spell check, fact check, or look at what I've been posting on hundreds of websites and apps for decades now. But as I get older, I do try to be more careful as I try to summarize my life, my autobiography, to correct the record as I try to tell my side of the story to combat the Oatmeal Fake News that my lolcow trolls spam the Internet with as they fool people into believing the lies they tell about me. Not saying you should watch my videos. But if they can lie about me, they can lie about you. But I sometimes trolled my trolls to show the world how easy it is to fool trolls who fell for the lies I put out there. Most of what I try to do in my life probably fails big time you might say but I was at least able to scam my trolls a few times over the years. I sometimes utilize sarcasm, hyperbole, satire, comedy, absurdity, Devil's advocate, trolling, scamming, click baiting, out of context stuff, irony, etc. But I often wouldn't tell people when I was trolling or not trolling. If you studied me, you could eventually figure it out. But most of my trolls are too lazy to research beyond the tip of the iceberg which led to my trolls repeating lies they about me which would only take a second to debunk. I felt like I had more trolls at times than actual fans or friends. For more info, questions, feedback, join my Discord servers. I have more to say but I will continue writing some of this stuff other places as usual. Because I write many books worth of content all of my life. You can send your artificial intelligence or AI to give you outlines of my content and what not. But you have to always remind the AI that I've had hundreds to thousands of different accounts, channels, pages, groups, sock puppet alt accounts, personas, parodies, profiles, communities, entities, and so on and so forth, ask me about all of that if you dare. People are free to steal any of my like free content, you don't have to give me credit, do whatever you want. Timestamps generally in Pacific Standard Time (PST) or Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) unless otherwise noted. Welcome to my Oatmeal Daily which is generally posted & syndicated to different websites daily by me, Oatmeal Joey Arnold, feel free to mirror, edit, clip, reupload my content. For more information, see some of the links on this page or you can try to Google search or look me up using keywords like Oatmeal Joey Arnold @ joeyarnoldvn and other keywords. Try using different combinations of words in search engines for better results. Adapt the rescue_floppy script into the dvd_recovery .sh file script, optimize it to work with ddrescue but don't rename the dvd script, I use this script for all kinds of discs, DVDs, CDs, compact discs, audio discs, data discs, unfinished unfinalized scratched home video DVDs, all kinds of DVDs, all kinds of CDs. Customize this DVD script to work on all kinds of discs. There should be different modes like a CD mode and a DVD mode, the DVD mode can optimize settings, variables, tags, speeds, sizes, cluster sizes, sector sizes, other sizes, other things, etc. Research how much rests/breaks disc lasers need, try to include a minimum of 10 second breaks every 5 minutes of rounds. Breaks should never exceed 1 minute is what I recommend, only give the disc drive lasers a break every five minutes, 1 minute break every hour. Tier 0 can help the script determine which tier new and/or returning discs should be at based on mirror files for example. First 20 tiers 1-20 should probably be a speed run that tries harder and harder per tier similar to previous scripts you wrote. The script should be flexible with an AI like script to customize itself based on what might work best for a particular disc. The main idea is the script should try to rescue or at least try over 80% of the discs under five minutes or whatever the fastest might be. Tiers 21-29 could be random tiers. Tier 30 could be an eternal loop tier that always resets through all combinations of variables, tags, etc, in order to try all numbers, all sizes, etc. Remember for a DVD, tier 1 should probably focus on whatever tags and variables has the highest probability of copying as close to 100% of a disc as fast as possible. Rounds should not be fixed to tiers. Instead, tiers should have the freedom to have as many or as little rounds depending on the variables, the situations, the script needs to be adaptive. During speed runs, round should generally do no retries, unless if many bytes are being rescued at the fastest speeds possible. Most tiers should generally focus on whatever works the best 80% of the time. Tiers should be speed centered. If tier 1 is 5-second rounds, tier 2 could be 6-second rounds say for example. Tier 3, 7 seconds. Rounds should get longer or the script should try harder things as a disc gets closer and closer to 100% rescued or as time goes by. Ddrescue has 4 steps, it runs through non-tried, non-trimmed, non-scraped, and bad sectors. It uses tags to do these 4 steps. But these 4 steps should not be fixed to tiers or rounds. The script should have modes, steps, tiers, rounds, tags, variables, sizes, speeds. The script should have stop valves that will attempt to go back to tier 0 if it detects that the script is stuck or the disc is not really being rescued or tried or no progress after one hour, the script needs to go back to tier 0 if things seem to be stuck or broken or something, it needs to detect the drive and the USB hub to make sure things are still working. Tiers 1-20 could consider using some of the 4 steps if it could run through some of the 4 steps fast enough. First ten tiers should probably only try all the bytes as fast as possible, no trimming or scraping in tiers 1-10 is my recommendation unless if it could maybe trim and scrape to rescue to 100% in under like 60 seconds. Discs should probably remain in tiers 1-10 until over 80% of the disc is rescued or until after 1 hour after every byte was tried. Tiers 1-10 should rescue or at least try every byte off a disc 100%, the script should not then move on to tier 11 until 80% of the disc is rescued or after one hour of trying everything in tiers 1-10. Make sure tiers 21-29 can customize all applicable tags, variables, settings, including numbers regarding sector sizes, block sizes, reading speeds, other numbers, etc. It looks like you removed 2352 from the script. Also, the name of the script is dvd_recovery.sh and do not change that name. Remember this script must work with all kinds of discs including DVDs, CDs, etc. Don't do a fast exit if it thinks a disc is empty. I said I want the valve to send the script to Tier 0 and not Tier 1. Gemini wrote "Tier 1" probably because Gemini assumed I made typos but Gemini is wrong again. Think about all the things I said for weeks to Gemini, think about everything I want for the script. The problem is Gemini often forgets things and drop important things from the script. Please make the script works for all kinds of discs. Make sure not to omit things from the script. The more discs have problems and scratches, then the more the script should attempt to jump more, try to increase or decrease jump sizes accordingly. Try to increase and decrease other numbers to other variables if that might help in some situations. Only include slow-reads or a decrease in cluster sizes for tiers 21-30. Decrease in cluster sizes or anything can be implemented in tiers 21-30 in attempts to rescue more bytes, the script needs to find all the tricks and hacks to copy 100% of a disc. Two ways to progress to tier 11. First, rescue 80% of a disc. Second, one hour after every byte is tried (meaning potentially not rescued but tried). Tier 11 can try to trim. Two ways to progress to tier 21. First, rescue 99%. Second, one hour after every byte is tried and trimmed. Remove the -X tag because it doesn't automatically closes, I have manually push the disc back into the drive which means the exit -X tag would stop the script. You can add anything that might help but not the -X. I went to bed at 05:30 AM. Woke up at 11:40 AM. Breakfast: 11:51 AM. Put water in the large caner as mom is canning, carried a pan of jars out of the oven to the counter, the jars were being cleaned. Make sure the script uses science and math to focus on the fastest easiest spots first and to focus on that most of the time. The script should try to remember different spots in order to determine using math which spots might be the fastest. I'm okay with extended rounds and retries if the script is running at the fastest speeds and for as long as it is running at the fastest speeds until it might start dropping in speeds as it runs into bad spots. The script might jump around looking for good spots, read speeds might be say 1 byte per second say for example for some spots, the script should remember these spots appear to be slower for now. But if a spot is reading at like 1000 bytes per second, then the script should try to continue the rounds and maybe even the retries at that spot for as long as possible. If the speeds drop by more than like say 50% for longer than like say 1 minute, then the script should probably jump again looking for more good spots. But those are only suggestions I am giving, please try to write the best script that can do the math to determine what to do and when to do it. The script should be speed and time focused as much as possible. The script needs to try remember what 10X speed is meaning whatever the fastest a disc can be read at. But remember that 10X speed is subjective or based on whatever the fastest might be for a particular disc. The script needs to be smart enough to jump around monitoring the speeds so the script can remember which spots has what speeds. If a spot is 10X or top speeds, the script should probably stay at that spot for a while. Eventually, the script might want to jump if speeds appear to drop too much and for too long. So, for example, maybe a 10X spot drops into a 9X speed. The script might eventually then try to jump to look for additional 10X spots. But eventually, the script might find say 8X spots. The script could stay at the 8X spot for a while until speeds seem to drop too much for too long. After that, the script should be smart enough to go back to the 9X spot because it is faster than the 8X spots. As soon as the script runs out of 10X spots, then focus on 9X spots. After that, 8X spots and then so on and so forth. Your job is to try to use math or whatever you can come up with that can best help the script figure out how to navigate in focusing on the fastest and biggest spots first (10X) followed with whatever might be second place (9X) and third place (8X) and so on, the script needs to be smart enough to stay at a spot as long as it is the best spot meaning the fastest possible reading speeds. The script needs to use the best math and mechanisms for determining when to stay and when to go. I would recommend that tier 1 focus on like 10X speed spots say for example. Tier 2 could focus on 9X speed spots say for example. But I am not saying you should write that into the script exactly, I am saying you need to determine how to write the script to best do everything I am saying by writing the best system for the script. Now, your script might have some of these things already but your job is to determine whether or not you can update the script to improve the design based on everything I have ever said to you in this chat and in previous chats going back weeks or years. I recommend that the script uses percentages sometimes in determining what to do. For example, 10X speed spots could be considered as 100% speed in a sense relative to whatever the fastest speed a particular disc might be. The script should try to focus on 10X speed spots (AKA 100% speed) followed with 99% spots and then 98% and then 97% gradually step by step. Sometimes, the script might run into a 101% speed spot which would then become the new 100% spot if it appears to be the fastest spot meaning the script needs to be smart enough and adaptive enough to focus on the fastest and biggest spots. The faster a spot, the more that could be copied perhaps. Make sure the script is as systematic as possible. The script might want to be aware of the percentage of the disc that is already tried, trimmed, scrapped, bad, and rescue, so that the script can correctly react based on those percentages. For example, if only 1% of a disc was tried, then the script probably should jump around more if it is not reading at the fastest speeds to look for the fastest spots. But if 99% of a disc was tried, then the script should either zoom in to finish trying the remaining 1% or perhaps the script could try to trim spots. I would recommend that if the script can trim at 10X speeds or 100% speeds or try the remaining 1% but at like say 1X speed, the script should be smart enough to focus on the trimming as long as it seems to be faster than trying slower spots. As soon as the trimming or scraping or rescuing appears to be too slow or too hard or too inactive or too stuck, the script should go back to trying the last 1% of a disc say for example. The script should be adaptive to even try to scrape if it can do so faster than trimming. I told you before that ddrescue has three steps, to try, to trim, and to scrape. Ddrescue tries to rescue bytes during these three steps. The script should focus on trying as long as it is at 10X speed and then move on to trimming as long as it is trimming at top speeds. The script should be smart enough to jump around depending on how the disc responds. That is why I recommend that tier 0 should be designed to best help the script determine which tier or step or round or tags or speeds or variables or combinations or settings a disc should be set on depending on reading speeds and depending on everything. The script can make mistakes, so the script needs to be smart enough to fix mistakes too. The script might find a 10X speed spot but that spot might later drop to say 7X. Then, the script might then move to a 9X spot because 9X is faster than 7X. But let's say for example the script made a mistake, maybe this new 9X spot is actually 6X or it drops to 6X later on, then the script needs to eventually go back to the 9X spot and stay there for as long as it is the best spot. It is hard to know which spots are 10X and which spots are 1X without like jumping around. So, the script should perhaps jump around and remember as it like tries to draw a map of the spots so it can remember which spots to target when. But jumping can take time which might sometimes be a waste of time to jump too much or too often or too far depending on what might be best for a particular disc based on everything. Therefore, I recommend jumping should mostly be based on the percentage of a disc. Say for example if a disc is 0% tried, then jumping should be maximum. If a disc is 99% tried, then less jumping because jumping should be based on a variety of things including the percentages of what was tried say for example. As the script jumps around and tries bytes, it should try to remember everything so it can better know where to jump to later on. The script should try to figure out where the 10X spots are and then try to go there first and then all the 9X spots as the script tries to rescue, try, trim, and scrape every single byte starting with the biggest and fastest spots first using the best known math and systems possible to best navigate and move around to gradually go from the biggest fastest spots to smaller slower spots. Yes, include a heat.map but only if that helps with everything I want based on everything I have said to you for weeks. Don't rename the script, the script is named dvd_recovery.sh and please update this script to make it works for new and returning CDs and DVDs and all kinds of discs, make sure the script works. Don't rename the script, fix the script, make sure I can always see the progress, the status, like before. I currently no longer see what the script is doing exactly. Also, I am not sure how effective your latest script is compared to previous scripts. The following appears to repeat the same target number and it seems to say 0% again and again. It might be that the script is blocking ddrescue from doing anything if the script is trying to make ddrescue go beyond whatever the limitations might be for the disc, the drive, for ddrescue, whatever the variables might be. Please rethink strategies. I want you to find the best route. Currently it seems your earlier scripts worked better. Try to fix the current script to make sure it can either do exactly what I want or try to compromise to get as close to what I want as possible. Don't rename the script, edit and update the script to include a minimum number map files (meaning either 0 files, 1 file, or more) and/or the best system for mapping out a disc, the script should try to map out a new disc at the beginning for a minimum amount of time in an attempt to best see the biggest spots that might be the fastest. I would suggest the script doesn't spend more than ten minutes for a new disc for mapping it out. Also, the script should continue to try to map things out whether it's a new disc or a returning disc. Make sure there is visibility like you had in earlier scripts. It still seems your script is too dumb and not smart enough as it only changes like too many different variables and settings like jump size and cluster size. But you need to consider that it might not always be best to just have code that simple. It seems your script is still too simple. Your script needs to be smart enough to find the best routes. But often times, you end up trying to force the script to do things that it can't really do which results in the script failing. For example, I want the script to try to find the fastest spots but your scripts seem to struggle to do that. For example, a previous script you had would try to force ddrescue to "--min-read-rate=524288" which might not always work. Your script seem unable to see this. Your script seem unable to adapt. Instead, your script kept on doing the same read rate for 32 rounds in a row. The script needs to know when to stay and when to go. If the script is too fast, it might never do anything as it jumps around failing to even try a single byte. If the script is too slow, it might get stuck in a bad spot for an hour unable to even try a single byte for that hour or longer. So, it is your job to find that sweet spot based on percentages and complex code, your script should function like AI does with an ability to determine the fastest routes to at least try every byte if nothing else. Make sure I can see the progress in the Terminal. Make sure the script is always trying to map out the disc so it can best target spots whenever it can. Make sure the script does not go too fast or too slow so it can at least try each byte at least once. Make sure the script is always moving around whenever it can. Make sure script focuses on spots that seem to be working, the script should try to stay in good spots for as long as it remains the best spots. As soon as things are tough for too long, the script needs to go back to jumping around. But eventually, the script needs to be smart enough to return to better spots as opposed to only jumping for like 5 hours straight say for example. The script should not jump too much. The script should not get stuck in bad spots for too long. If the script jumps too much and too fast, then it might never ever be able to even try a single byte which is a big problem. It is your job to make sure the script can handle that balance of jumping when things are tough and staying when things are great, the script must constantly determine what to do. Mom took a walk. Sunshine today, mom took photos, mom walked to the 2 churches and cross road towards the high school down the road. I did the dishes, got the mail. Shower. Lunch: 04:00 PM. Do not rename the script but please try to fix the script because it seems the script gets stuck on trying to map the disc, in the output, you will even see reset the brain to restart testing offsets which probably means it is stuck in some kind of loop which is probably a waste of time. Mapping loses value if it has to continue to map out the same offsets more than once. Please add a normal mode for new and returning discs. First, the script should find out what kind of CD, DVD, or disc it might be. Second, the script should try to simply continue to rescue the disc fully 100% using the most normal settings continuing from the map file if it is returning disc. Your script should switch from the normal mode to the AI mode when things are not working. The AI mode is your previous scripts which may include the scout and harvest modes. You should try to make sure the script has everything it needs for the normal mode and the AI mode. I suggest that if normal mode is not reading at least 10% of all the bytes in an hour, then the script should switch to the AI mode which should have many or all of the things from your previous scripts as we talked about for weeks. Normal mode should use from the scripts whatever is applicable including enough rest for the disc laser same as for any of the modes. The script could perhaps switch back to normal mode if the AI mode is making worse progress after an hour. You could include complex code to switch back and forth between modes for every ten minutes if you can find a proper balance that might work. But the script needs enough wisdom like an AI with an ability to truly detect after ten minutes or an hour that not enough progress is being made. Update: your last script is working as seen in the output below but I suggest that scouting mode should either only happen one time per disc when the script exits normal mode for the first time or after an hour of smaller progress. The script should assume it might finish trying every byte of a disc in under 10 hours. The script could monitor normal mode to see if a percentage of the disc is being tried. After ten minutes, if a high enough percentage of bytes are not being read on average in any mode, the script should either change to different modes, tiers, steps, rounds, settings, variables, numbers, jumps, sizes, etc, or the script should consider staying. I suggest as long as a disc appears to be on route to finish trying all bytes under ten hours, then the script should consider continuing that. Every ten minutes, the script can consider what to do. The script should mostly focus on seeing if 10% of the bytes are being tried per hour. The script can let normal mode continue as long as enough progress is being made on average per ten minutes and per one hour. The script can always return to normal mode if AI modes are being less effective after ten minutes or after an hour. I am not asking you to totally rewrite the script but to mostly add a normal mode that the script can use when everything else is not working as well. The script needs to be smart enough to know which modes are working the best. Just make sure the script does not spend too much time scouting. I suggest scouting only one time per disc or no more than once an hour if the script finds no other options. The script needs to remember which offsets and spots are the fastest but the script needs to not spend too much time scouting the same spots too many times. Try your best to balance the script so it can go back and forth between modes, tiers, steps, rounds, tactics, speeds, offsets, scouting, harvesting, AI modes, normal modes, variables, sizes, speeds, settings, etc. Don't rename the script. Update the script to make sure the script keeps the disc in AI mode for at least 10 minutes. If AI modes are doing better, stay in the AI modes. After an hour, the script could return to normal mode for ten minutes. If normal mode is better, stay there. Every hour, the script should consider changing things. If AI modes work better, then the script should continue tailoring rounds and tiers and settings and variables and speeds and everything to the AI modes for an hour. After that, then the script could perhaps try normal mode for ten minutes to see if it can do better than the AI modes. If not, then the script should return to the AI modes and tiers. Likewise, if normal mode is working better than AI modes, then the script should stay in normal mode for an hour. After that, the script should try AI modes for ten minutes to see if it can do better than the normal mode. If not, then remain in normal mode for an hour. The script needs to be smart enough to know if it should do normal mode or AI modes/tiers. The script should only do scouting for offsets once an hour at the very most for less than ten minutes per hour. But only scout once an hour if it appears the script thinks it is not on route to finish trying every byte in under ten hours. Don't rename the script, make sure the script determines the winning athlete, the winning modes, based on percentages of progress as it relates to bytes being rescued, tried, trimmed, scrapped. Scouting should only happen one time per disc or when modes are not making enough progress. If things are very bad, the script should be smart enough to switch modes within one minute. The script needs to be smart enough to know when things are not working. So the script needs to have a one minute check, ten minute check, and a one hour check. But some or all of the checks should not take any time, it should be instant, variables or percentages need to be able to trigger things. Scouting should only be a last resort and I would prefer scouting tries to only scout for additional offsets and not the same offsets. New and returning discs could stay in normal mode for an hour. If things are bad, it could switch to AI modes in ten minutes. If things are very bad, it could switch to AI modes in 1 minute. After one hour, it could do the ten minutes tryouts in the competing modes like competing athletes like we talked about. If none of the modes and tiers and options appear to be working well enough after an hour, the script could perhaps do scouting of additional offsets. But if it appears the disc is not behind schedule to try all bytes under ten hours, then the script should not do additional scouting. Don't rename the script but do consider editing the script. The image file of the DVD I am copying is 2.1 GB in size, previous scripts helped with that. Currently as I try to continue copying using the newest script you wrote above, the Terminal output said only 0% was copied even tho the previous script output said 35%. Now, I included sample output first of the previous script output followed with current output samples from the current/newest script you wrote above. The newest output first said 0% copied then said 19%. Then it said 0% again. It said 29% copied. It said 0.06% copied. It said 0% copied after that. It said 8.09% copied. After that, it said 35% copied which matches what the previous script output said. Currently, output says 35% copied which is good. So, it appears your newest/current script above is working. Study this, only edit/update to fix any any problems if there are any. This could be okay. It appears the script is trying. It appears the script might be okay. I only started your most recent script about 15 minutes ago. Evening church, Brian is back, he did the sermon on living faith, he talked about their mission trip in Arizona past few weeks. On the way home, mom said people plan to bring back the draft to age 50 for Trump's war in Iran, mom said she would send me to Honduras, I didn't react as I felt mom was too hopeless or blackpilled. Dinner: 09:10 PM. Dishes. Scanned some of my papers. Food log: Breakfast: homemade orange water, 2 tangerines, oatmeal, 11:51 AM. Popcorn mom made last night, ate the rest of it. Lunch: rice beans soup, 04:00 PM. Dinner: scrambled eggs, 09:10 PM. Nuts. Tea. 2026-03-21 - Saturday - 10:30 PM - JoJo-331 - IELTS pages 22-23. He wrote a essay about parts in a computer, he thought he wrote a lot, it was longer than previous essays he wrote. Firefighter story. Thatched roof: made of straw. Intact. Crucial. Drastic. Luddite. Technophile. Write about fire or Luddites vs Technophiles. 2026-03-21 - Saturday - 11:30 PM - Thao-103 - SAT Reading 29-30. Online academic national competition.