Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Hybrid Shadows - Watched, Scouting Mission

        I've been working on my Hybrid Shadows - my Sci-fi, Transhuman story. I've actually had a couple people ask me about this story lately, and I really appreciate the interest! I love the story, and have much more written in a very, very rough form, including the ending. This one isn't so light-hearted like Lantashi's Dance, so takes more effort for me to write.

        I have a short scene ready to go (Scouting Mission), and will publish a much longer scene in a few days after I have a change to clean it up.

      • I Hate Vacuum Cleaners

        This might seem a bit absurd or hyperbolic but I think that vacuum cleaners are the archetype for the over-engineering which we see in literally everything today it seems. It's a simple problem really: floors get dusty and dirty and the grim has to be periodically removed, but it is not a fun task so we want a device that gets the job done quickly and effectively.

        Now, there are a few very simple devices that have existed since time immemorial. There's the broom, the mop, and dustpan-and-brush. Brilliantly simple with no moving parts, no batteries nor power source needed, nothing that can really go wrong. The only caveat is that they only really work on smooth surfaces, and so, I hear you say, what about carpet! And its a very good point, vacuum cleaners are much better at cleaning carpet, and my answer that is simple: don't have carpet. Just get a rug instead, which can be patted down outside, or cleaned like every other piece of fabric you own. Vacuum cleaners are a solution to a problem that does not need to exist! They're temperamental, noisy, energy-intensive, and most of all wholly unnecessary.

      • Mr. Lucky

        We play two games of Yahtzee a week with my in-laws. My mother-in-law won the second game today, but I absolutely cleaned up in the first game. Four Yahtzees, including one on the first roll. Everyone was cursing me. It was unbelievable, definitely the highest score I've ever had.

      • littered letters

        I went through the Trash on Google Drive and pCloud, and I found heaps of old PDFs and .txt docs from the past 5+ years. I just made a big folder called "WRITE SHIT" and stored them on Proton Drive and my local machine.

        Some of it is ok, most isn't. Some are 30K word "offline" journals, some are short "personal experience essays". One reads like a small dissertation. And a few are poems, haikus.

      • Implications

        When I write something in English or think and dream in English, this is often a perplexing issue that confuses me and makes it challenging for me to fully immerse myself in the "Anglo Zone." Or in the "Latin Zone," for that matter.

      • Siege Perilous? 🏎

        Say you're a driver in F1. You get offered a seat at the front running team. But your team mate will be someone highly rated. Maybe it's Hamilton or Verstappen. The sort of driver who breaks records. This is your chance to be in the best car, to finish ahead of everyone... except one person. You might win a few races here and there, but a lot of the time you're going to be beaten, and even made to look a bit rubbish.

    • Technical

      • Wayland - Only the Future or Already the Present

        It is believed that Wayland is going to be the future of display managers for Linux. So I recently tried it out and am happy to report that it may not only be the future, but is already very usable in many circumstances.

        Before discussing my switch to Wayland though, it is worth talking about what I have been using until now. In the last (at least) year I have been daily-driving Xmonad (which obviously uses the X11 display server). It is great, and I love it and I would certainly return to it if I didn't think Wayland was already ready for me. Of course, I had my own Xmonad configuration (which is actually pretty minimal) including xmobar for the status bar. Though recently I had some issues with xmobar crashing (which was solved by switching away from xmobar obviously) and also longer startup times (30+ seconds) for some applications (which was actually the fault of xdg-desktop-portal-gnome and which was not fixed by switching to Wayland, but I found another fix for that in the meantime). So I decided to take a look at the future of Linux display system.

      • The Old Computer Challenge V3

        Hi! It's that time of the year when I announce a new Old Computer Challenge :)

        If you don't know about it, it's a weird challenge I've did twice in the past 3 years that consists into limiting my computer performance using old hardware, or by limiting Internet access to 60 minutes a day.

      • The Old Computer Challenge V3

        I want this challenge to be accessible. The first one wasn't easy for many because it required to use an old machine, but many readers didn't have a spare old computer (weird right? :P). The second one with Internet time limitation was hard to setup.

        This one is a bit back to the roots: let's use a SLOW computer for 7 days.

      • Re: The Gemini Protocol Seen by This HTTP Client Person

        One thing to note, Daniel Stenberg has explicitly stated several times that as long as the code is up to cURL's coding standards, he's more than willing to add Gemini support to cURL. I'm sure he also has more than his fair share of criticisms of HTTP and any other internet protocol cURL already supports too.

        Also, in this post I'm mostly just going to discuss Daniel Stenberg's original post and not the responses to it. Shockingly, almost of the responses were measured, well-written, and acknowledged the real issues Daniel addressed, like I'm attempting to do here.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft said “GitHub and its leadership team will continue its mission as part of Microsoft’s CoreAI organisation.” But it's just an empty shell created earlier this year.
In short, it's not too clear what Microsoft has just done except dumping GitHub - i.e. mostly a Web site that loses a ton of money (it always lost money) - into some mysterious new bucket
IBM Layoffs in MCC, or Marketing, Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
IBM and Microsoft inflate their share price by circular financing
The Register MS gets Lazy, Uses Slop
Unlike 3-D renderings or "Classic" CG, slop images aren't quite original and definitely not fair use
 
Accessibility Isn't Overrated
Making things simpler typically means better accessibility
The Register's Slopfest
Remember when The Register UK (yes, UK) had better standards?
Latest Version of Windows (Vista 11) is a Failure 4 Years After Its Fake 'Leak'
Vista 11 became more scarce this month
Improving Our Archives
Our old archives are still accessed a lot. Making them better is well worth the investment.
Things One Learns as a Litigant in Person at the UK High Court
Don't fear the official manuals
Slopwatch: Lots of Fake Articles From Fake "Linux" Sites and About "Linux"
Google says it's committed to "AI" (it means slop, not AI); that seems like an excuse to dodge accountability
Links 19/08/2025: "Eavesdropping on Phone Conversations Through Vibrations" and Air Canada in Chaos
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/08/2025: Niche Spaces and "AI Pasta Sauce"
Links for the day
Links 19/08/2025: "NASA Is Giving Up on Climate Change Science" and "Earth's Continents Are Drying Out at an Unprecedented Rate"
Links for the day
Phil Wyett evidence & Debian Zizian plagiarism, modern slavery tendencies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
In Many Countries People Move Away From Vista 11
Vista 11 has been available for download for 4 years already, but adoption has been poor
Desktops/Laptops Fall to All-Time Lows in the UK, So Why Does British Media Quote a Famous Criminal on "End of the Smartphone Era"?
mobile usage (for Web access) has never been higher, based on an Irish surveyor, statCounter
The Groklaw Web Site Has Been Hijacked by Scammers
Groklaw.net isn't a safe site to access at this time
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 18, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 18, 2025
Online Safety Act Does Not Tackle the Worst (and Biggest) Culprits
if our governments are serious about tackling online harms, then they need to look closely at GAFAM and social control media giants
Chat Control (1 and 2) in the European Union Sends the Wrong Message
This is an EU law
Slopwatch: Google News and Serial Sloppers (Fake Articles About "Linux")
Calling out the culprits
Gemini Links 19/08/2025: Digital Legacy and Chat Control
Links for the day
English Law Misused by Americans and Irishmen Against Brits is Unfair
There's always a way to improve existing laws
Overly Maximalist, Expensive, Localised Patent Law is Dooming Western Companies, Argue 3-D Printing Champions
We've long warned (over 7 years already!) that China's approach to patents will impress WIPO by gaming the totals but will doom the West
Links 18/08/2025: "Microsoft Store" Gets Increasingly Hostile, "Cracking Abandonware DRM"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/08/2025: Summer "Gone" and Web Reposts in Gemini
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows in Gabon: Still Moving Down
What is this Unknown? Who knows...
Links 18/08/2025: LLM Reputation Damaged, Australia Catches Google Foul Play
Links for the day
Geeks Like GNU/Linux
The technical community seems to be consolidating and rallying around GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux is 486 in Ireland
4.86% that is
End of Reliable Media
it makes the world a worse place, it renders the Web a misinformation machine
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 17, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 17, 2025
GitHub Won't Last Much Longer
Many things at Microsoft are going to go the way of the Skype (or "dodo"). GitHub will be among those.
We've Never Used Large Language Model (LLM)
we just never used an LLM
"Secure Boot" is a Security Problem, Not a Solution
These people don't try to improve security but to undermine security
Gemini Links 18/08/2025: Retro and Endless Escape from the WWW
Links for the day
Working Whilst Away From Home
Decades ago being away meant all sorts of problems associated with workflows and connectivity
The Next Version of Windows Will Always be the Best (for Microsoft)
It's worse and slower over time
"End of the Smartphone Era" According to Jeffrey Epstein's Key Enabler
They call it "sour grapes"
Links 17/08/2025: Strike Downs Air Canada, Postmortems of Putin's Red Carpet Summit
Links for the day
Links 17/08/2025: Slow Tools and Enshittification of YouTube
Links for the day
Don't Talk to Bullies
This serious matter is still being examined by British authorities
Links 17/08/2025: "The Performance of Power" and "My Undesirable Friends"
Links for the day
Growing Our Reach
Our goal was never "hits"
The Russian Vision of Technology
Russia's surveillance is very extensive
Sooner or Later Almost Everyone Will Know "AI" is Just a Go-To, Misused, Misapplied, and Grossly Overused Term of Liars and Con Jobs Who Ride a Ponzi Scheme
At the expense of people gullible enough to "invest" in this or take salaries/bonuses in the form of "stock" (tied to a Ponzi scheme)
The Register MS Has Begun Using Slop Images
It's not clear when it started; but it's definitely getting worse [...] Worst of all are 'articles' about slop that are themselves slop
Reddit Funded by Microsoft
Reddit is merely a filter and we knows who controls that filter (using money)
When It Comes to Technology, Mozilla and Firefox Are Illiberal
Last month in Planet Debian we saw one more person explaining to everyone how to "turn off" DRM in Firefox and hide the pop-up/s
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 16, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 16, 2025
The Open Source Initiative Has Many Scandals, We'll Try to Summarise Them All
Open Source Initiative (OSI) hates facts
Open Source Initiative (OSI), Wikipedia, Molly De Blanc, and Censorship/Reputation Laundering
OSI is like SPLC. The old name remains, the mission changed
Gemini Links 17/08/2025: Misunderstanding "Geminiverse" and Let's Encrypt
Links for the day
Links 17/08/2025: Breaches, Layoffs, and Scams
Links for the day