Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 17/05/2023: Several Gemini-Related News



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • And all of a sudden it's Wednesday

        I can't believe anyone still believes "the news".

        Then again, we're talking about people, here.

        I mean, for the love of separate selfhood hypnosis, right?

      • Toasting the End of Amatonormativity

        I noticed this was removed from library.inu.red at some point (presumably also removed from The Anarchist Library). Personally I found it to be a fantastic read, and was frustrated when it could no longer be found. As far as I know it's not anywhere on the Geminispace, and happens to be hard to find on the world wide web. I believe it also poses some interesting questions given its age, and I also happen to partially disagree with some parts of it.

      • Album #267: Jeru the Damaja - The Sun Rises In The East

        It was nice to hear a new album for a change. My backlog has filled with the 60s and 70s rock albums that are the mainstay of this book. Peter Frampton and Iron Butterfly are Classic Rock staples that would also appear in "1001 Albums You Will Almost Certainly Have Heard Before You Die".

      • The simple joys of the humble slide rule

        A bunch of scales printed on three rulers, the middle one of which can slide relative to the other two. Then finally, a glass box around the outside with a thin ("hairline") mark down the middle, held perpendicular to the rulers.

        Yet with this simple contraption you can perform all calculations normally reserved for a calculator, all the way through most Americans' high school math. I'm forever amazed by the ingenuity that enables trigonometry, powers, logarithms, and more to be calculated by rubbing two sticks together. This simple action was actively being performed in outer space by the pioneers taking part in the space race.

      • even alleyway pubs have their bar bellars

        I recall Ozzy Osbourne saying in an interview (Rolling Stone?) that he had his first drink when he was 14 in Liverpool, England. Him and a friend would go to a bar, and get a "Bellar", which was half lemonade, half beer. (The bartender likely justified that if it was 51% lemonade and 49% beer, age limits didn't matter - but I speculate). And they (Ozzy and his friend) called that drink a Bellar because he said there were always two old ladies at the end of the bar, who would "bellar" at Ozzy and his friend ("bellaring" meaning yelling at, or talking down to, I am guessing).

      • Album #264: Sonic Youth - E.V.O.L

        This album came out 37 years ago. That guy at the record store who snubbed you for not having struggled through E.V.O.L. doesn't work there any more. He retired. The record store closed. You're free. Skip it.

    • Technical

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Notes on the Last Two Days

          As these things sometimes do, the poem prompted another one, this one a proper ghazal. Well, a proper Canadian ghazal, anyway, in the form made famous by Thompson and then expanded by so many others (Phyllis Webb and Isabella Wang being my favourites).

          I've been saying that I'm bouncing off cohost. That's not entirely true. I still check my feed every day, and I'm glad I do. Today I saw a post about someone setting up a BBS basically for messages only - no doors, and only a few files (someone uploaded Doom and Keen!). After work yesterday, I made supper for us, played with the younger dog, had some cherry cider. Sat down, and logged in. The second BBS I've called (logged into? telnetted? what's the term in this modemless age?) in the last couple years, the first, Seabreeze BBS, really just for doors: some LORD, some Tele-Arena, the odd game of Yahtzee.

        • Coming up on noon

          In way, finding older Gemini posts feels a bit like chancing upon tasty leftovers.

        • RE: Are we rebuilding the centralized web, minus tracking?

          A central place encourages: 1. Frequent polling, to see if there's anything new 2. Frequent polling, to see if your posts have many "likes" 3. Frequent polling, to see if you have many "followers" 4. Competition for attention, which is generally bad for an inclusive community that promotes free expression, and also leads to ... 5. ... short and shallow content optimized for maximum buzz and short attention span 6. An "A-list" of users popular enough to discourage others from sharing unpopular opinions or participating in general (see Shirky's essay, IMO awesome and still very very very relevant)

        • One year!

          It has been one year since I set up this site on smol.pub on May 16, 2022.

        • Net News

          I decided to install a mall net news server for Campaign Wiki. That's the site I use to host all sorts of role-playing related stuff.

          I installed sn because I already knew that I couldn't get INN to work.

      • Announcements

        • GeminiLoggBookOberDadaisticus: [ANN] Strange Bedfellows

          The new Oberdada album Strange Bedfellows has now been released. Fourteen tracks of conventional music, following existing and novel conventions, guide the listener from beginning to end, unless you are listening in reverse order. The songs are thematically linked, often in subtle ways that may reveal themselves as Easter eggs only after a few listenings. Superficially, the album covers several styles such as tango, jazz fusion, and progressive rock, yet circles around the core of interconnected themes.

          As most of the instrumental parts have been actually performed, as opposed to programmed, the music is far from the slick and perfected production ideals in vogue. Still, what may sound spontaneous is the result of meticulous attention to details and long hours of editing.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: Portugal, Midnightpub, and "Tech Right Admins"
Links for the day
Almost 2026 Already (When We Turn Twenty)
In just over a year the site will turn 20
When "Sponsored Feature" in The Register MS Means Ponzi Scheme Promotion From the Communist Party of China (CPC)
the promotion of a financial scam
Week of EPO Leaks: Workers of the EPO Are Getting a Pay Cut While Prices Rise Fast
More to come in the next few days
Microsoft is Finally Giving Up on XBox, The Chief Says the Grapes Are Sour Anyway
Microsoft loses hundreds of dollars on each XBox that it sells
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Various Slopfarms Propped up by Google News
Why can't Google News do better than this?
Links 25/10/2025: Two New Smokescreens for Scam Altman and ‘TikTok USA’ Remains in Limbo
Links for the day
Bad faith: can't change Debian Social Contract (DSC) without unanimous consent of every joint author
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Confirmed: Very Close Friend of Bill Gates and Microsoft's Biggest Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold Flew the Lolita Express (a Gateway to Pedophilia), According to Bill Gates-Sponsored Seattle Times
There is no speculation or any "conspiracy theories" here;' those are verified facts
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: "The Highest Leader of The Global Civil Society Community", SSL Certificates Causing Bitrot
Links for the day
Links 25/10/2025: Target Layoffs and "Shutdown Sparks 85% Increase in US Government Cyberattacks"
Links for the day
"Big Data" Was a Big Lie
Remember "Big Data"? Remember "Data Scientists"...?
statCounter Has Been Broken for a Long Time
Considering the huge proportion of Web requests that come from LLM bots (more so this past year or two), statCounter may struggle to justify the operating costs
Techrights Anniversary Party on November 7th
Let us know if you need any accommodation-related arrangements
Trends That Must Alarm Microsoft and Mozilla
Expect Firefox to no longer be supported by various sites in the US
Why Microsoft Became the Layoffs Leader
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs
Speaking for Ourselves and Letting the Facts Speak for Themselves
we've already published over 50,000 pages
For Second Time in a Day The Register MS Takes Money From Private Companies to Sell a Ponzi Scheme
Do not have empathy for those who have zero empathy towards you
IBM is Misleading IBM Shareholders
IBM is still all about vapourware and buzzwords
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 24, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 24, 2025
The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
Links for the day
Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
Links for the day
Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
Fame is no laughing matter
They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
We've become a lot more effective and efficient
Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
Today in the front page
analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
Even Vista 7 is still used more
Rust is Very Secure
If only Rust itself is secure
Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
Censorship is all around us now
Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
IRC predates the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
Links for the day