Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 20/06/2023: Gemini's Fourth Anniversary is Today



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Politics and World Events

      • God, nature, and the space aliens

        Recently I talked with a religious friend about how I find the body very complex. He then jokingly said to me, assuming I believed in his religion, "can you believe that some people think something as complex as a human crawled out of the ocean?" I shrugged it off as I did not want to ruin my relationship with this person (we live in a society), but his comment did make me think.

        [...]

        When he taught us the leg muscles, he used one particularly funny example that I still remember. One certain muscle near the knee (that I forget the name of) prevents the knee joint's capsule from getting pinched between the femur and tibia bones when the knee bends. He told us the story of how when god, nature, and the space aliens all got together to design the lower extremities, they had problems with their prototype caveman pinching the knee capsule every time he tried to walk. Luckily, baby Jesus came along on his tricycle and suggested that a muscle pull the capsule away from the bones just before they bend, making it so that the caveman could walk just fine.

      • Top Gun: Maverick

        Finally got around to finishing Top Gun: Maverick tonight. Rented it from the library a couple weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to it until now. Definitely a fun movie, the action scenes were super well done! Love that the "enemy territory" was in a snowy, mountainous region, made for some great visuals. The dogfights were great, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

      • Little meadow

        When I moved in there was grass behind the house, a little, inhospitible backyard past the sandpapery square of concrete patio. Looking out the back door there's the sun-blasted patio, some grass, swampy yard, then the hill up to the cemetary scrubby with thicket and young trees.

        I dug a bed for mint along the house's back wall up to the patio, another bed out from it that supports a healthy horseradish where Evy grew gourds. Other plants didn't do well there til this year when I planted onions. Evy's parents brought their old painted iron yard table and chairs.



      • 🔤SpellBinding: CERSTUY Wordo: MEATY
    • Technology and Free Software

      • Using git bundle to synchronize a repository between Qubes OS dom0 and an AppVM

        In a previous article, I explained how to use Fossil version control system to version the files you may write in dom0 and sync them against a remote repository.

      • Asus L410MA lid screen issue with XFCE4 on Debian 12

        Despite being cheap I decided to buy another Asus laptop from the same family for my little one, also this laptop was purchased as second-hand hardware, even because I was convinced to have definitely resolved all the issues, in the previous tests eventually Devuan worked better than Debian.

      • Asus L410MA lid screen issue with XFCE4 on Debian 12
      • Framework Laptop, one year on

        This laptop was meant to be an auxiliary laptop, for writing on the couch. I'm an Apple main user, and knowing macOS has helped my career. But I'm also very pro Right to Repair, and those two things are butting heads right now. So the Framework laptop seemed like the obvious choice, being Very Repairable.

      • Re: Richard Stallman

        After reading Ploum's recent post about how Richard Stallman was right all along, I have to say that I agree with his take.

        [...]

        This might seem odd coming from someone who just posted about how sick he was of Linux and was moving back to FreeBSD. If only all of my choices were easily explainable in life.

        I've found myself as I get older actually becoming more "radicalized" than I was in my 20's and 30's. I definitely feel like society lost it's way a long time ago. One of the things that I like most about Ploum's post is that he recognizes the larger parallels between society's ills and free/libre vs proprietary software. Everywhere you look these days you see that what used to be held in common trust is being carved up and divided among those who don't really need any more.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Gemini's Fourth Anniversary

          The Gemini protocol was first publicly announced under the name "Gemini" on this day in 2019. solderpunk considers this to the official start date of the protocol, meaning today is its fourth anniversary.

          From my earliest days on Gemini, I knew the protocol dated back to 2019, but last night I got to thinking about what that really means.

          I first explored Gemini and decided to create my own capsule in March of 2021. By then, COVID-19 had been ravaging the world for more than a year. Many businesses were still shuttered, many areas were still in full lockdown, and most people still practiced social distancing. We were forced to carry out most of our communication through social media and other online platforms controlled by corporate interests. The Reddit post became our only source of news, the Netflix subscription our only form of entertainment. And in that isolated environment, political and social tensions spilled over, fresh on the heels of the George Floyd protests and riots on one side and the contentious US Presidential election and January 6 protests and riots on the other.

      • Literature

        • Re: The Library Rocks!

          Alex wrote an excellent quick post about using local libraries. It reminded me of when my mother used to take me and my brother to the library almost every day as a child; they really are excellent places with incredible services.

          As Alex wrote about the physical benefits and services of libraries, I thought I should share some of the digital ones. I agree that going to a library can be an amazing experience, but it is also useful to know how to get the most out of yours when you can’t go there in person.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 10 Out of 200: Showing Public Tweets is Not a Privacy Violation, But This Isn't About Justice, It's About Censorship
It's time to put a stop to this abuse of process (which is what the Judge deemed it to be last year)
IBM's Payroll: Cannot Even Pay the People What They're Legally Entitled to
How financially-stressed is IBM at this point?
 
Links 12/03/2026: Heating Bills to Soar, "Banks in Gulf Evacuate Their Offices"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: On Phone Anxiety and Bjorn "Looking for Someone to Take Over Antenna"
Links for the day
Cultification: best candidates avoiding Debian leader elections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman (RMS) et al Cited in 'Nature' (Journal/Site) Today, "CODE beyond FAIR"
Under Open Access
The Register MS, on Verge of Collapse, Keeps Promoting a Ponzi Scheme for China
Publishers that participate in this simply don't care about their readers
Overview of False Narratives and Lies Used to Lower Salaries at the European Patent Office (EPO), Abandoning Patent Quality and the EPC
Many of the latter slides are the same as Munich's
Links 12/03/2026: Atlassian Layoffs, GAFAN Covering up Slop-Induced Outages, "Age-verification in Operating Systems and the Internet"
Links for the day
The EPO's President, Who Covers Up Cocaine Use, is Trying to Suppress Communication Between EPO Staff Under the Guise of 'Privacy' (and in Defiance of a Court Ruling)
Why does Europe's second-largest institution: 1) curtail communication among staff (including union) and 2) go out of its way to avoid obeying a court order from ILOAT in Geneva?
Exactly One Week Before Next EPO Strike, Media Intentionally Not Mentioning EPO Strikes
One form of propaganda technique/s involves the systematic suppression of certain topics, or of particular "narratives"
Suicide of disgruntled employee? Bus fire at Kerzers / Chiètres, Switzerland, at least six dead
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Gemini Links 12/03/2026: "on Urbit" and the True Cost (or Criticism) of "Social Control Media"
Links for the day
Slop About "linux" in Google News
Once people recognise that those sites are fake it's hard to 'unsee' what they are
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part V - Attempts to Take Down and Suppress Criticism of Back Doors Controlled by Microsoft and the American Government
The cost of maintaining illusions
Slides From the European Patent Office (EPO) Explain Why They're Striking, How They're Striking, and What Comes Next
A week from now the strike will go ahead
GAFAM Datacentres Are Facilities of War, So Risk of Downtime by Missiles or State-Sponsored Cracking Has Vastly Increased
How safe is your business in "clown computing" or DCs marked as some "legitimate targets" at wartime?
Companies That Take Away Blood and Sweat From the Community to Sell a Ponzi Scheme to Everybody
We need Free software that is run by communities
1,234 People Gather Online to Plan Next EPO Strikes and Other Industrial Actions
yesterday an online gathering orchestrated the next moves by EPO staff
Links 11/03/2026: Fake Videos Swarm YouTube, "Ukraine Can Now Manufacture ‘China-Free’ Drones"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/03/2026: Lagrange for iOS and Android and "Turning a Folder of Git Repos Into Project Launcher"
Links for the day
Kafkaesque: Unlawful Activities in the UK to Cover Up Unlawful Activities in the United States of America
Why is bribery and even extortion seen is OK? Because rich people do those things?
Former IBM Executive, Ron Hovsepian, Doomed S.u.S.E. (SUSE)
SUSE is like a child nobody wants to raise
Quiet Layoffs or Silent Layoffs Alleged at Microsoft
Will some investigative journalists do their job now and ask Microsoft tough questions?
After a Long Lull LinuxTeck (linuxteck.com) Came Back Only as a Slopfarm
Unlike Linuxiac, LinuxTeck wasn't very active in recent years
Links 11/03/2026: EPO and USPTO Software Patents Thrown Out Again, Copyright Concerns Over Slop (Plagiarism Using Buzzwords)
Links for the day
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 9 Out of 200: 5RB Barrister Does Not Even Know the Name of His Own Client (That He Was Paid Well Over $200,000 to 'Speak' or 'Cover' for)
If you assault women in the United States, there's a barrister available for you in the UK
IBM's Fedora is Now Led by GAFAM Slop
The official word of Fedora is partly slop
IBM 'Dinobabies' Speak Out
"They want newbies out of school at a much cheaper rate"
Links 11/03/2026: "Drill, Baby, Drill" and Social Control Media Recognised as Threat to Democracy
Links for the day
5 Years Since Freenode Conflict
IRC isn't going away
A Week Ahead of Next EPO Strike the Staff Representatives Show the Administrative Council That the Office Lost the Best Staff, It's No Longer Attractive
the message circulated regarding the open letter to the Administrative Council
Jeff Bezos as an Individual Said to Have Enough Capital to Buy IBM
Assuming a market capitalisation of 234.70 billion
Starting Soon: Another New Series About Richard Stallman
There are some inside stories we can tell
Gemini Links 11/03/2026: School, Code Slop, and "Fancy Weapons"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Geminispace Continues to Grow
Geminispace Will Soon Have 5,000 Capsules
Very Little Slop About "Linux"
We hope to see slop eradicated by year's end
BBC Lied for Its Longtime Sponsor (Bribes for 15+ Years) Bill Epsteingate, in Effect Covering Up Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls
The state of the media is truly awful
Microsoft GitHub is Not Free Hosting and It Won't Last
Not for much longer [...] Microsoft is afraid to say that it is pulling the plug, but it seems inevitable
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, March 2026
When will the media properly investigate this?
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part IV - Escalating to Ministers, Explaining the Severity of These Matters
British Sovereignty at Stake
"The Lost Generation" Came Back, This Time Literally
Based on my limited experience with young people ("alphas"), they're lost
IBM is Not Likely to Survive Another Decade
Despite having already survived over a century [...] Last week we saw claims that some company would likely acquire IBM for its remaining assets
IBM Has Just Been Sued Again by Its Own Staff (This Time a Manager, Stephen P. Gutierrez)
IBM's behaviour towards its staff can prove costly
When a Company Says Its Layoffs are "Due to AI" Check the Debt (Typically the Real Reason for Mass Layoffs)
The mass layoffs at Microsoft continue, but Microsoft hides those in some of the same ways IBM does
Doing More With Less
primacy of concepts rather than bells and whistles
Andy and Helen in Cybershow on Divesting From the United States' Technology and Politics
It is no longer considered a taboo to say this and it's not "anti-American" because many Americans can relate to and agree with such criticism
Links 10/03/2026: "GEMA v. Suno Copyright Case" and "Valve Faces PRS Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unlicensed Steam Music"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/03/2026: Woods in UK, Slop Laziness, and "Small Technology and Small Economic"
Links for the day
Garrett Announces LibreLocal Instance in Northampton, Massachusetts (USA)
his message was the only one last month
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 8 Out of 200: Gross Misuse of UKGDPR to Protect the Agenda of American Back Doors (Mass Surveillance)
Responding to bunk claims regarding UKGDPR and claims of 'analytics' in our sites
Links 10/03/2026: Oil Prices Rising, South Korean/US Military Assets Redirected
Links for the day
Links 10/03/2026: Rust Rewrites by Slop "20,171 Times Slower", "You MUST Review LLM-generated Code"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 09, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 09, 2026