Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Protocol and Gemini Space Are Not a Niche; for Techrights, Gemini Means Half a Million Page Requests a Month

Techrights on gemini://

Summary: Techrights on gemini:// has become very big and we'll soon regenerate all the pages (about 37,500 of them) to improve clarity, consistency, and general integrity

THOSE who follow our work over Git will know that we're actively improving page conversions. Images, for example, are being transformed into texts that describe what's in those images. Some time soon we'll upload new versions of all the pages.



The above suggests we may be the biggest Gemini capsule among almost 1,700 known ones (new screenshot is taken from Lupa's pages, and those are based on a spider which limits page traversal to a maximum of 10,000). We keep growing in terms of scale and traffic with about half a million page requests over gemini:// projected for the month of October. We didn't anticipate a growth so fast.

As an aside, we'll soon turn 15. It all started as "boycottnovell" in the winter of 2006 when I was finishing my Ph.D. and had some spare time to muck about online, writing about all sorts of technology issues whilst posting in mailing lists, USENET (lots of that at the time!), and getting involved in a number of Free software projects, way before "Social [Control] Media" was a 'thing'.

The domain "boycottnovell" is very clearly self-limiting (but we keep it to avoid links breaking or what's sometimes known as 'Web rot'/'Internet rot'); we succeeded at "boycott[ing] novell" (this was the original goal) and in 2010 Novell was dead (sold), scuttled to pieces and relegated into an ashtray of history, so in early 2010 we moved to "techrights" -- basically the same site and similar goals with a broader, all-in-one/over-encompassing name. The choice of name was Tracy's (the webhost at the time). As per the records, our 15th anniversary is on the 7th of November:




Domain Name: boycottnovell.com Registry Domain ID: 661408793_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: WHOIS.ENOM.COM Registrar URL: WWW.ENOM.COM Updated Date: 2021-10-18T05:01:26.00Z Creation Date: 2006-11-07T14:21:00.00Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2023-11-07T14:21:12.00Z Registrar: ENOM, INC. Registrar IANA ID: 48 Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: renewPeriod https://www.icann.org/epp#renewPeriod Registrant Name: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Organization: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Street: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Street: Registrant City: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant State/Province: GB Registrant Postal Code: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Country: GB Registrant Phone: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Registrant Email: https://tieredaccess.com/contact/119ef4c8-9c57-483a-ad5a-8c58d0aa12dc Admin Name: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Organization: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Street: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Street: Admin City: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin State/Province: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Postal Code: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Country: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Phone: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Admin Email: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Name: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Organization: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Street: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Street: Tech City: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech State/Province: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Postal Code: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Country: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Phone: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Tech Email: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY Name Server: NS5.CATALYST2.NET Name Server: NS6.CATALYST2.NET



As indicated above, days ago I renewed this domain's registration for another 2 years (it's not cheap; it's about 50 euros) because we expect to grow and thrive for years to come. COVID-19 and lock-downs have had almost no impact on us. In Gemini it's not simple to have two domain names (or subdomains) linking to the same capsule because of TLS, but in theory we could also have gemini.boycottnovell.com (though boycottnovell.com predates Gemini by over a decade).

We don't plan anything special for the anniversary; instead we'll try to stay productive as we soon exceed 32,000 blog posts in total.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
 
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day