Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 04/05/2023: IKEA Maze and Lawsuits Over Negative Reviews



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • A Ducky Couple and the Unexpected Sunset 2023-05-04 (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

        Yesterday, I caught this devoted pair enjoying a leisurely swim during the noon hour...

      • An off-ramp from the digital IKEA maze [2023-05-04]

        There is an episode of Star Trek where a character is for plot reasons trapped in a shrinking parallel universe. As time passes, people she knows one by one just vanish and she is the only one who seems to notice. Eventually it gets to an absurd point. She asks if it really makes sense if a ship made for a thousand people would have a crew of a few people, and everyone just sort of like shrugs and looks at her like she's crazy. That's basically what the last decade of the Internet[1]. It feels like it's shrinking. Like parts of it are vanishing.

        In part I think it's the fault of the big walled gardens on the web, whether Facebook, Twitter or Reddit. They're essentially designed like a maze. They make you feel like there are no other websites aside from few silos and e-commerce and various forms of blog spam and political propaganda, like the web only consists of maybe a few dozen big sites, encircled by an endless digital strip mall.

    • Technical

      • Lawsuits Over Negative Reviews

        I hate how businesses now can sue a person over a negative review or at least threaten to do so. They even shame a person for it to defend their reputation with responses such as:

        "... I have seen that you slander a lot of businesses in Google review..."

        Chances are they won't sue me. The only reason I've removed the revies is because I do not want to be shamed.

        I have a right to a good reputation, too. So what if I am not a business. I'm still a human being. This causes me to believe that I should criticize businesses anonymousloy by writing my opinion in chalk on the sidewalk or something.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • My Gemini Crawlers Meta Info Page

          I have the (bad?) habit of diving into my server log files every once in a while to know what’s going on. This is not needed for a purely static site like mine. I know that I will see robots crawling my sites at will, but at least I'd like to know which ones and how.

          After scouring the documenation of different Geminispace crawlers, I tried to piece together information about used IPs and more. Because the amount of information released differs, I created an overview page with all the available info and added some additional info, which I, as a user and server maintainer alike, would like to know about those crawlers.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Banning Things Versus Teaching People the Reason/s to Shun/Boycott Those Things
Prohibition has its limits
 
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: Lynx in the 'Modern' Web and 'Overcooked' (Plagiarised by LLM) Code
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2026: Java Needs Seawall, Egypt Blasted for Arbitrary Detention of Activists
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 100 Out of 200: Interlude and Outline of the First Half, 3+ Months That Got Us Death Threats Connected to Brett Wilson LLP (and Cyber Attacks That Are Difficult to Attribute)
This week we plan to have a good time
Links 07/06/2026: NASA's Mars Maven Declared Dead, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Bemoans Russia's Crackdown
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 06, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and "Six Days of Play"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Epstein Problem' in Board of Directors of Microsoft, Surveillance Giant Google Under Legal Threats for Online Misuses
Links for the day
Software Freedom Takes a Lot More Than Coding
some of the roles in the Free software community that don't receive (m)any grateful words
Ubuntu is Losing to Other GNU/Linux Distros
"Linux Mint"
Old Articles Explaining That Patents - Especially Software Patents - Are Bad for Innovation
We've omitted more than 50% of the articles we had gathered as candidates for inclusion
European Patent Office (EPO) Crisis: Huge EPO Strikes, Profound Corruption, and Cocaine Use by Managers Tolerated
These strikes won't be ending any time soon
Why GNU and FSF Will Choose AV1 Over AV2 (It's More Widely Supported)
for the foreseeable future they'll stick with AV1
Mass Layoffs (RAs) and PIPs (Excuses to Sack) at IBM: Insiders Tell No Relation to Actual Performance
If many thousands are impacted by this, then certainly it is newsworthy
Links 06/06/2026: LinkedIn Infested With Spies, Ethernet WiFi Router On Pi Pico 2W
Links for the day
25 Years With PalmOS
That my Palm PDA still works in 2026 (not in mint condition but close to that) says a lot about the "build quality" of gadgets 20+ years ago
Why We Dumped Online Shopping (Groceries)
subsidies kept the "online" stuff artificially cheap
Microsoft Fell to All-Time Low in Monaco Last Month
So says statCounter anyway
Lawsuits That Don't Work
Not as expected anyway
SLAPP Censorship - Part 99 Out of 200: Graveley and Garrett Seem to Have Crashed Brett Wilson LLP (Worse Than Taking Russian Oligarchs as SLAPP Clients)
a state of disarray
Microsoft Has Spent Months Preparing Lists of People to Cull in Massive Wave of Layoffs (Allegedly Start of July)
There is some consensus that we're weeks away from mega-layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/06/2026: "Competing" With LLMs and "Automation of Any Kind"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Linux' Foundation Openwashing Slop on Microsoft's Payroll, Ukraine Wants Permanent Ceasefire With Russia
Links for the day
50% of the 'Gains' Made by "Quantum" Hype Already Evaporated
"It was all hype about quantum nonsense. Heading back to reality now. Expect sub-$220 after earnings release next month."
Heap of Trash Online, Not Just the Fault of LLM Slop But Enabled by Slop
Google News has just promoted a pair of prolific slopfarms
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 05, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 05, 2026
Links 05/06/2026: Lawyers in Trouble for Citing Cases That Don't Exist (Slop Too Bad to Justify Costs; Even It It Did Work, It Would Still be Far Too Expensive)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/06/2026: Bears in the Streets, WWII Revisionism, and Westworld
Links for the day
IBM is "Making an Exit". Only the Executives Will Get Rich.
failure disguised as success
Microsoft's LinkedIn Called "Dying Platform" by One Who Worked There
The co-founder of LinkedIn has just stepped down too
GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) Layoffs Are Due to Surging Debt, or About 120 Billion Dollars Borrowed in One Year Alone
It's well above 150 billion dollars if one adds Oracle
2026 is the Year of Blockchains, Says IBM's CEO a Decade Ago?
"falling upwards"
After One Jeffrey Epstein Associate 'Leaves' Microsoft's Board Another Jeffrey Epstein Associate Steps Down, Workers Concerned About the Mass Layoffs
How many more loans can Microsoft receive? Those loans are becoming increasingly risky.
IBM Exploits Overambitious, Hungry Young Men to Help the "Great Quantum Hype Campaign" (Pumping the Stock Based on Deliberate Misinformation or Outright Disinformation)
The boot-licking campaign is live...
What Will Likely Happen When the Slop Bubble Pops (and When It'll be Widely Accepted That It Popped)
all the "most successful" slop companies are so deep in debt
The Register MS is Part of the Problem, It's Publishing "AI" SPAM Because it's Paid by Chinese Military-Connected Firms
Given that The Register MS is run by a Microsofter (since last summer), destruction seems inevitable
Most Coders Used to be Women, Not Men (and Men Who Dropped Out of College Now Plunder Everything They Can)
"Ethics For Hackers"
IBM's CEO Does Not Use GNU/Linux, So Why Did He Suggest Buying Red Hat Only to Lay Off Its Workers, Market Slop Instead of Linux, and Sack UNIX Professionals?
Shortly after IBM had bought Red Hat and there were mass layoffs we pointed out that Red Hat's CEO was not using GNU/Linux
If You're Not Focusing on Software Freedom, All You'll Get is Slopware and Buzzwords
If you're not focusing on attaining Software Freedom (and remember "Linux" is just a brand), then you're losing sight of the goals that actually matter
Red Hat/IBM: Microsoft is Our Partner of the Year
Red Hat is a really bad gravy
Gemini Links 05/06/2026: Enshittification of Institutes for Project Management, Codebases Contaminated With Slop, Personal Stories
Links for the day
Communicating With Freedom - Part II - Quibble Breathing New Life Into LibreJS
Notice how work on one thing led to thousands of lines of code added to a mostly dormant (but nevertheless important) project
Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
Links 05/06/2026: More GAFAM Layoffs, Google Faces Regulatory Crackdown in UK Over Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing
Links for the day
Rumour That Layoffs at Microsoft Will Kick Off on July 1st, 2026 (Impacting 10,000 or More Workers)
this is what the rumour mill or the word through the grapevine is
Mission:Libre, Which Teaches Young People Free Software Ideals, Needs Financial Backing
plea for assistance with Mission:Libre
The Slop Ponzi Scheme is a Problem and Threat to All of Us (Even Those Who Don't Invest in or Use Slop at All)
This problem is systemic, not contained
"Blind Justice" Examines the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Turning a Blind Eye to Abuse by British Solicitors
We have some jaw-dropping examples of how the SRA does not do actual regulation - to the point where its staff does not actual work and does not look into any evidence at all!
7 Days From Now the FSF's Founder Gives a Talk in Bern, the FSF Has Just Advertised This
Meanwhile the FSF (or GNU) processes and uploads many recent talks by RMS
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Down But Not Out – Costa's Comeback
he managed to secure a top-level EU position in June 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 04, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, June 04, 2026