Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 15/06/2023: Solaris and Deliberate Practice



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • "Soyokaze"

        According to wordhippo, "Soyokaze" means gentle breeze; slight breeze. It has been rather stuffy here in Tokyo over the past few days: going back and forth from wet and humid to dry and humid. I've managed to keep the AC off and stick with USB fans .. but for how much longer?

      • The library rocks!

        Took my little guy to the library today, he participated in a "baby laptime" program and got to bounce to different songs, read (or more accurately chew on) books and play with other little ones.

        It's really amazing to me that libraries offer these services for free. Since my son was born in November, we've gone from never using the library to visting on a weekly basis. We've started borrowing books, movies and even video games. I've mostly stopped paying for content (besides the newest Zelda game haha). Just last week I got to play the newest God of War game (admittedly after a 3 month wait, but I'm not in a rush). Older games and movies are available within a day or two (they'll even transfer it between locations for you).

      • Other People Have Loved This Too

        There's a park near me that I sometimes go to, with a canal running right through the middle of it. Recently I was wandering through a part of it I don't go to much, far off in a little corner. There the canal turns and that opens up a lovely vista where you can see straight down it and all the land around it.

      • IT WireNextcloud offers on-premise AI capabilities in Hub 5 release [Ed: Now with more buzzwords]

        In a statement, the company said given that numerous organisations were scrambling to build AI into their products, Nextcloud was well placed to be a platform for collaboration when dealing with sensitive data.

        "What do Goldman Sachs and Citi Group have in common with Samsung and Apple?" asked Nextcloud founder and chief executive Frank Karlitschek.

        "They all ban the use of ChatGPT and other online AI products for fear of data leaks. This is entirely sensible, given the record of the companies offering these services.

        {loadposition sam08}"While AI offers incredible opportunities to improve the productivity of employees, the risks are equally large.

    • Science

      • Solaris

        Solaris, in all forms, was a huge influence on me. I remember being up late as a small child, Tarkovsky's Solaris on TV. I was desperately trying to figure out what's going on, but it was very mysterious and completely over my head...

        Later on my father introduced me to Lem, my life-long favorite writer. I've read and re-read Solaris many times, always finding something different...

        The movie is kind of nuts, to be honest. I think it was an attempt to match 2001-A Space Odyssey in scope. I am always particularly amused by the running-around-the-circular-hallway-for-no-reason scene, which to me rings as a low-budget response to glorious rotating space-station excercise scene, and the 15-minute driving-through-the-tunnel-for-no-reason scene matching the hyperspace jump scene...

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Re: beehiveth: degrowth and its discontents

        I do this here USENET-like quote-and-reply thing from time to time, imagining it's going to coax feedback and/or engagement from someone somewhere along the line, despite the vast majority of life evidence screaming it won't. But I do it anyway because I enjoy the mechanics, and can occasionally imagine such engagement transpiring, e.g. imagine responses, counter-responses, etc.

      • Deliberate Practice

        The Orange Site linked to some article or the other on Deliberate Practice, so here are some thoughts on DP.

        Cultures vary in depth, or even within a culture; some pour the tea into a cup, while elsewhere there is a whole ceremony. DP may be necessary to get halfway good at a tea ceremony in a reasonable amount of time. Others pour their coffee from a device that was cleaned last who knows, while elsewhere one will wait for the barista to try a few more pulls until they get it just right. Either method works if you only want some stims for the day. Either may be a bad habit if done too often.

        Cutting out distractions—smartphones, the internet—may help build concentration. Without sustained concentration, what can you learn? There is a Goldilocks zone, maybe three to five hours of good, deep practice per day, split into sessions maybe an hour to 90 minutes long. Spending more time on the same task is pointless and may even regress. The quality of the practice—focused, intent, looking for the errors and how to improve—is more important than quantity of practice.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • The state of the internet

          The internet has gotten complicated. Websites take gigabytes of data, complicated pipelines, frameworks and teams of enigineers. I should know, I've been one of those engineers. I've also been a designer, having to consider to complexity of the beats we build these days. But it wasn't always this way, and I'm not convinced it *better* this way.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

FSF Has Made It Halfway to Its Target (Funding Goal) a Week Before Christmas Day
$400,000 definitely seems reachable now, especially if they extend the "deadline"
Saving What's Left of Decent and Independent Journalism on the Web
We increasingly (over time) try to make local copies (hosted on our server) of important documents; it's hard to rely on third parties
Brian Fagioli's Latest "Linux" Article Appears to be Fake
Another form of plagiarism/ripoff using bots?
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 18, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 18, 2024
[Meme] The Master Churnalist
Speaking of press releases being passed off as "journalism"
Spamnil's TFiR: Still Pretending Press Releases Are 'Articles' (TFiR 'Originals' as Plagiarism or Fluff)
Same as last year
Links 18/12/2024: Zakir Hussain Dies, TuneIn Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Karate Love and Advent of Code
Links for the day
Windows (or Microsoft) Has Become the "One Percent" (Market Share) in Chad
How long before it falls below 1%?
Arvind Krishna, IBM's CEO, Will Eventually Suck Up to Donald Trump Like His Predecessor Did or the Watson Family Did With Adolf Hitler
Literally Hitler
Being a Geek Need Not Mean Being Sedentary
"In the past 18 months," Berkholz writes, "I’ve lost 75 pounds and gone from completely sedentary to fit, while minimizing the effort to do so (but needing a whole lot of persistence and grit)."
GAFAM Kissing the Ring of the Mafia Don
"resistance" to dictatorship and defenders of democracy?
Slop Spaghetti From the Chef, Second Time Today
Fresh slop ready out the oven!
IBM - Like Microsoft - Lies About the Number of People It's Laying Off (Several Tens of Thousands, Not Counting R.T.O. "Silent" Layoffs and Contractors/Perma-Temps)
How many waves of silent layoffs have we seen so far at IBM this year?
Links 18/12/2024: EU Launches Probe Into TikTok (At Last!)
Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Doha/Qatar Trafficking, Bloat Comfort Zone, and Advent of Code 2024
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft's Latest Marketing Pitch
"Stop Being Poor; buy a new PC with TPMs"
In South Africa, a Very Large Nation, Web Developers Can Already Ignore Microsoft Browsers (Edge Measured Below 3% in 55 Nations)
The dumb assumption you must naively test with Microsoft browsers is no longer applicable in a lot of places
Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the Voice of Bill Gates and Satya Nadella
Not hard to see what they've done with the money
Microsoft Boasts That Its (Microsoft-Sponsored) "Open Source AI" Propaganda Got Cited in Media (That's Just What the Money Did)
This is a grotesque openwashing campaign
In Many Places Around the World, Perhaps as Expected, Yandex is Nearly Bigger Than Microsoft (Like in Several African Countries)
Microsoft may soon fall to "third place" in search
Keeping Productive This Christmas
We've (pre)paid for hosting till almost January 2026 and fully back on the saddle
IBM and Canonical Leave Money on the Table Because Microsoft Pays Them Not to Compete and Instead Market Windows, WSL, Microsoft 'Clown Computing', and TPMs
Where are the regulators?
Other Editors Who Agree "Hey Hi" (AI) is Just Hype But Won't Say So Publicly as It Might Upset Key Sponsors
Some media would gladly participate in a scam to make money
IBM (and Red Hat) is a Patent Troll, Still Leveraging Software Patents to Extract Money Out of Other Companies by Suing Them
Basically, when it comes to patents, IBM is demonstrably part of the problem, not the solution
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 17, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 17, 2024
[Meme] When the People Who Falsely Accuse You of Pedophilia Turn Out to be Projecting
When you attack something or someone using falsehoods, as happens a lot to Richard Stallman (RMS), there's risk that the attacks will backfire, badly
In Some Countries, Such as Greece, Almost 80% of Windows Users Are on Vista 10 and About 85% Need to Move to GNU/Linux for Security Patches
Vista 11 was a failure
[Meme] They Don't Want the Public to Know What "Responsible Encryption" Really Means
They also blame "China" for their own back doors (because China learned how to exploit those)
The Linux Foundation's Certificate Authority (CA) Significantly and Suspiciously Raises the Number of Certificates It Issues (Quantity Increase/Inflation) by Lessening Their Lifetime in the Name of 'Security' (That Barely Makes Sense!)
LE made 3 months the "standard" for most, soon to become just 6 days instead of 6 months?
Why I Continue to Believe That at the End Software Freedom Will Win
a short and incomplete list of factors which I believe contribute to the sentiment that we can - and will - win the battles over hearts and minds in the "Tech" realm
Links 17/12/2024: More China Sanctions, GOP Scheming to Prop Up Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/12/2024: The Streisand Effect and Productivity-systems Desiderata
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part X
By Dr. Andy Farnell
Links 17/12/2024: More "Tesla Autopilot" and "Hey Hi" (AI) Blunders
Links for the day
Instead of Promoting GNU/Linux (or Ubuntu) Ahead of Vista 10's EoL Canonical is Marketing Microsoft's Proprietary Software
It's like Canonical employs people who work for Microsoft, not for Canonical
Links 17/12/2024: Many Abuses by Microsoft and War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Content Management Systems (CMS) Bloat/ Static Site Generators (SSG) Trouble
some Web site management stories
DEI Room at fedoraproject.org Pretty Much Dead
We're not against diversity but against its weaponisation by greedy people who do not value diversity at all
The "Latest Technology News" at BetaNews is Slop About Slop
This is at the very top of the "news" (front page) at the moment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 16, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, December 16, 2024