Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 26/06/2023: Cypherpunk and Praise of elinks



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • ABCOILD Wordo: PANDA
      • not enough time to live

        if you could earn your living toiling 3 just hours a day, what would you do the rest of your day?

      • As my morning alone time slowly slips away



        and I guess it maybe sorta conforms to some physical sensational whatevers

        but I do feel uncomfortable with food that won't fit the spoon or fork such that there will likely be collateral lip soiling

        one of the most difficult things

      • I got married

        Our wedding ceremony was very nice and reflected us well. No priests or churches, just us and our family and friends.

        Fun were had, went to sauna, saw cute ducklings, listened to wide variety of music together... And I even danced.

      • Too Fast, Too Loud, Too Much

        The growth of this place is straining my equanimity. It's not the amount of people moving here, per se, but rather the built environment 'developers' (what a strange and misleading name for mindless corporate organisms that eat land!) have made to accommodate them. We needed significant density to house this mass influx of humanity, and we got unchecked suburban hell. Hundreds of thousands of wild acres--a precious resource for many peoples over the last 10,000 years--are gone, buried under a hideous sea of identical 4000 square foot houses and big box stores. Malvina Reynolds was mostly right, but it's not little boxes on the hillside, it's pharaonic tombs in three different Richmond-approved colors. And the cars.

      • who lives in Chicago?

        Hello I am leaving to CHI for a year! Does anybody have some tips for living in the CHI

      • catching up (four runs and the upcoming marathon)

        it's been exactly two weeks since my last post and a few things have happened since then. i was mostly busy getting my life back in line, reestablishing my routines that make me feel safe in my own four walls even when my mental is subpar. running has helped me quite a bit to distract myself from the many stressors that rest on my shoulders at the moment. i looked at my calendar this weekend and i almost wanted to cry at just how busy all my upcoming weekends are. but that's just how it is sometimes. it's not like i signed up for things that i don't want to do. quite the opposite. it's just a lot at the moment, really. i'm no good at planning ahead of time and keeping tabs on so many things at once is challenging my grey matter more than i thought.

    • Science

      • The Low-Hanging Climate Fruit

        I’m seeing a lot of “oh it’s great that we discovered these easily-pluggable, low-hanging fruit emitters like methane leaks and diked-out peatlands, yay” and on the one hand, yeah, fixing the low-hanging fruit, the 80/20, the squeakiest wheels is definitively something we’ve got to do…

        …we already knew we were in trouble before we discovered these issues and these sites. We need to fix a lot of the normal stuff too.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • The QOI-Remix Image Format

        I've spent the last couple of days working on an image format, based on QOI, called QOI-Remix or QOI-R. For those who aren't familiar, QOI is a lossless image format created by Dominic Szablewski; the spec fits on a page and it's enormously faster than PNG, while achieving reasonably good encoded file sizes. I thought this was a really good area to be exploring, and one relevant to my own interests and to permacomputing (under the larger umbrella of efficient software.) With that in mind, I did several changes to the image format, adding a little bit of compute overhead but frequently achieving substantial reductions in filesize - and remaining far faster than PNG.

      • TCP Escoteria

        We now resume a dialog already in progress.

        Josephus.— See here, there is a "connected" method to check whether a TCP socket is connected.

        Aloysius.— The peer could close the connection the very next second.

        Josephus.— But I want to know whether the socket is connected right now.

        Aloysius.— This is also not possible; the peer may have already closed the socket, and one cannot tell the difference between the ESTABLISHED and CLOSE-WAIT states.

      • Chrooting into BTRFS

        I was trying to rescue my new Manjaro installation. But, I had never tried chrooting into a BTRFS volume before.

        chroot lets you rebase the file system from a running system (like a live USB flash drive) to the file system of a stopped system (like a broken Linux installation on your hard drive). By changing the root (chroot), utilities run inside the chrooted environment act as if they were being run on the computer that you are troubleshooting. So, if my Manjaro installation is not working, I can use my installation disc, chroot into my system, and run updates, check the logs, or run other utilities. In this way, chroot combines the functioning of the live system with the file system of the broken installation.

      • Quick thoughts on Lemmy

        I’ll jot down some quick thoughts on Lemmy, a Reddit-like service for the Fediverse. When it first was announced a few years ago, I thought “yeah, right, it has a really long way to go” and instead of helping I just sorted it under “vaporware”. But now it’s becoming usable♥.

      • Cypherpunk

        My general principle is that private conversation between known entities (like friends & fam) is usually a good thing and something humanity is well adapted to (since that’s how offline has worked for millenia) while anonymous immutable persistent broadcast is danger zone and unlike anything previous generations have had to deal with. Even a skeevy bathroom wall can be cleaned up or painted over.

      • Re: Framework Laptop

        Whenever I read a Gemlog entry that I think I might want to reply to, I bookmark it for later.

      • Old School Stylish

        Old School Stylish (OSS) is an interesting zine supplement of 28 pages (counting both covers) for Old School Essentials (OSE). OSS drops the class system and instead lets characters pick up “styles”, which are small collections of capabilities. As they adventure they can find and acquire (with suitable effort) more styles. Everything, from hit points to spells to thief capabilities to Armour Class, are part of styles. Characters can have multiple styles active, and can switch out styles for other ones they have learned. By default characters still have levels, but there is a option for dropping levels as well. As you might guess from the cover image this zine takes inspiration from martial arts and cultivation media. OSS offers a lot of ideas for how to acquire styles in play, from petitioning masters to learning a style by observing special circumstances. It provides several tables to help you come up with interesting ways for characters to learn styles. It also suggests that the players NOT use the book to select styles for their character, but leave it up to the DM to place styles to be found in the world, which I thought was interesting.

      • Simplicity and Debian Lenny

        I'm enjoying the simplicity of Debian v5 (Lenny) on the old desktop [0]. I realized shortly after the install that I didn't have to rely on the DVDs I had burned to install packages on this box, I could take advantage of the Debian archive mirror itself, which works with Lenny and this sources.list

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Hi all, Loving this already :)

          What a wonderful BBS this is. I was able to sort out an error on adding a certificate within minutes ! Great job, Skyjake

        • How I Operate My Capsule

          The rise of community-oriented services on Gemini, especially Bubble, has helped introduce more people to the protocol than ever before. Recently I've seen several different newcomers looking for more information on how to set up a capsule and have a more independent presence on the platform. I'll share how I do that in this log.

          This is not meant to be a guide, but rather a non-technical overview of how my capsule is set up, and it's written for an audience that is not as tech-savvy. It goes more into concepts than the particulars of the technology behind them. My hope is that recent arrivals to Geminispace can find this document, see what goes into operating my capsule, and get a better sense of how easy it can be.

        • In praise of elinks

          As I spend more time in text-based tools on the command line, I've become quite appreciative of the elinks browser. I've been building various portable Raspberry Pi based computers over the last while and I've realised that web browsers like Chromium and Firefox are the bottlenecks in terms of performance, because they are so resource-hungry. Netsurf is a nice alternative, but works quite poorly if using a touch-screen input, for example scrolling is quite finicky.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Garrett Announces LibreLocal Instance in Northampton, Massachusetts (USA)
his message was the only one last month
Attacks on Techrights Make Techrights Stronger and Attract More Whistleblowers to Techrights
The harder they attack us, the more productive we become
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part III - Very Strong Legal Basis for an Appeal
The case is now being escalated to a Foreign Secretary and former Deputy Prime Minister
No Slop Found in RSS Feeds, Only in Google News
No slopfarm will survive for very long, certainly it'll go bust as soon as readers (if it had any) know what it is
 
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
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
The Register MS Has Just Taken Money From Google (Where the Former Chief Editor Now Works) for Femmewashing and Ponzi Scheme Promotion
now The Register MS not only promotes a Ponzi scheme but also bags money to pretend Google respects women
People at IBM Are Still Smart Enough to Understand What's Really Going on
"I would never refer someone to work at IBM that I liked! I hope all of you have reviewed IBM on Glassdoor."
European Patent Office (EPO) to "Eventually Eliminate the Tasks Performed by Formalities Officers"; EPO Run by People Without Experience in Patents
full paper
RMS is 73 Next Week
Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) turns 73 exactly 7 days from now
Iran & FSFE: blackmailing women, from football to the French Government (CNIL)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Police investigations, lawsuits & Debian leader election candidate shortage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Defeated Cancel Culture, a Mostly American Phenomenon
RMS is talking now
Links 09/03/2026: Many Security Breaches and a Pandemic of Censorship
Links for the day
People Who Work or Worked at IBM Hate It
bluewashing is only the first step
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talks in 30 Minutes, Next Stop Bern (Last Stop)
We assume he'll travel back to Boston after that
IBM's Fedora as a Booster of Slop Disguised as Code or Computer Programs
Maybe we should also stop seeing a doctor and instead ask chatbots about symptoms?
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk Five Hours From Now
there is growing recognition for what he really did for everybody
What the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Action Fraud UK Have in Common
Don't let London become the world's "crime capital"
EPO Strike 10 Days From Now, Planning Assembly Tomorrow, Last Couple of Strikes Had High Participation Rates (1,500-1,600 Staff Went on Strike)
The next strike is in 10 days' time and then there will be another strike
Dr. Andy Farnell on How GAFAM, NVIDIA and Others Lie to People Via the Sponsored Media to Prop Up Lies Under the Guise of "AI"
Lots of key aspects are covered
Links 09/03/2026: GAFAM Outsourcing, "MAGA Political Meddling" in EU, Indonesia Bans Social Control Media for Children Under 16
Links for the day
Using Slop (and Slop in Articles) to Attack Copyleft 'on Budget'
This article is pure BS from an anti-GPL and anti-RMS 'activist'
Why The Register MS Sold Out to Microsoft: They're Losing Lots of Money, The Register MS is Bleeding to Death, Based on Its Own Financial Records
With over 6 million pounds in debt (nearly 10 million US dollars) we guess it's likely some other company will take over the site (if it deems it worthwhile)
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 7 Out of 200: Like With the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Misuse of UK-GDPR to Try to Hide Embarrassing Facts
They do and say really bad things, then allege it's a "privacy violation" to mention those things
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 08, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 08, 2026
Gemini Links 09/03/2026: Exponentials and Tailscale
Links for the day
Sloppyleft
Article by Alexandre Oliva
Hard to Replace 'Human Touch'
The reason many people insist on using GNU
Richard Stallman Gives Talk in 20 Hours at Ostschweizer Fachhochschule Campus in Rapperswil-Jona
The talk is in English
The Slop Companies Gamble at Our Economy's Expense and They Know It's a Losing Bet (So It's a de Facto Robbery)
The crash of this bubble isn't just inevitable, it's already happening and receding sporadically because of false announcements about money that does not actually exist (to "buy time")
Suppressing Speech by Blackmail, the Iran Story
When Debian wanted to stage a seemingly legitimate election it needed to have more than one candidate running; so eventually the female partner of a geek rose to the challenge (had no coding skills at all, no technical history in Debian) and lost to the "incumbent German"
Too Focused on Buzzwords the Media is Paid to Saturate the Collective Mind With
Just because companies do really bad things in the digital realm does not imply "AI" or follow from "AI"
Discrimination and Prejudice Against Female Journalists
we can shame people who attack a reporter on the grounds of gender
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part II - Trying to Put People in Prison for Committing the Act of Journalism
This is abuse of process
Attack on Copyright and Copyleft by Code Conversion Is Nothing New, It Predates Slop (Code Produced by LLMs) by Several Decades
Even back in the 90s many people converted programs from one language to another. That could invalidate copyleft (and copyright), which already existed
Almost a Slopless Weekend for "Linux"
Let's hope slop will come to an end or sites will cease linking to slop
Insiders Explain Why IBM is Dying and the Inherent Culture Problem
There are many ways to shave this IBM cat
Links 08/03/2026: Microsoft Lost $400 Million on "Project Blackbird" and Half the States Sue Over Illegal Tariffs
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2026: Cisco Holes Again and "Blatant Problem With OpenAI That Endangers Kids"
Links for the day
Activism/Journalism in Our Blood
one must fight for one's principles
Gemini Protocol in Its Prime
What's particularly neat about Gemini Protocol is that it's fast and cheap
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 6 Out of 200: Intentionally Misnaming Women, People Who Offered to Testify That They Too Had Been Subjected to Similar Abuse
Today it is International Women's Day
Even Fedora Leadership Cannot Figure Out the Microsoft Kill Switch/Back Door, 'Secure' Boot
It does not actually enhance security
Bruce Perens: Richard Stallman "Has Achieved His Goal"
Stallman's next talk is tomorrow
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 07, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 07, 2026