Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 27/06/2023: The Gemini PDA, Leadership and Management



  • Personal/Opinions

    • 🔤SpellBinding: GILURSO Wordo: GEOID
    • On the Cusp of Summer

      There's summer, and then there's _summer_ - that point at which, regardless of what the season says, regardless of what the weather's been, it feels like something's changed, and a new season begins. For me, that's always been July. My partner is a teacher, and has the summer months off. So for her, summer is Summer Vacation, July and August, and for me it's taken on that meaning as well. In school, and then in university, I kept this schedule too, so as I met my partner in university and have been with her since, I've never really known anything different. I can't really defend it in any meaningful way, but summer begins in July.

    • All signs point to her
    • Tree/Shrub TBD

      Yesterday (2023-06-26) this little (shrub? tree?) caught my eye.

  • Technology and Free Software

    • ReactOS, or: The Thinkpad lives!

      With the friendly help of my local electronic waste disposal service i got a new mainboard for my old Thinkpad R60 that has died a while ago (i wrote about it in another post)... so, its back in the land of the living and it comes near the point where we have to ask the "Ship of Theseus" question ;-)

      Now i am at the point where i have not only one but TWO usable fairly (for my circumstances) daily driver capable computers, so what to do with the Thinkpad? I could simply go back and install OpenBSD on it like i had for the most time of having it in my posession, but that somehow feels a bit too... "normal"

    • The Gemini PDA and Time-capsule Computing

      I write this log on a Planet Computers Gemini PDA. Released in 2018, the Gemini PDA is a small UMPC aesthetically based on the Psion Series 5 from the late 1990s. It was the first PDA released by Planet Computers and came in WiFi and 4G models--the latter can make telephone calls and use cellular data to connect to the Internet. The PDA was primarily designed to run Android and is based on an SoC for Android phones, but it can also run Debian, Kali Linux or Sailfish. It can also dual-boot between any of these.

    • Leadership and Management

      I'm in my 40s and a good majority of my life has revolved around being or becoming a technical expert. In school I was the nerdy kid in the 90s that just kept my head down, had a few friends, and grew to love computers. I took my computer to LAN parties, and usually did my work to the best of my abilities. I wasn't the top of my class, I was in the middle, and I wasn't an outcast, I was just there. I blended in, and I wasn't part of any popular crowds. I was kind and friendly, and of course joked with my friends and was angsty just like the rest of the teenagers there, but most of all, my primary focus in school was to learn, and so that's what I did. Whether I was learning the things my teachers needed me to was another story, but I was driven to learn because I didn't like not knowing things and above all, failing.

    • Games Showcase: Baba Is You

      “Baba is you” is a sliding blocks puzzle game—yawn. Where the rules are encoded as blocks on the board—wait, what?

    • Getting the width of the current monitor in Emacs

      If you have virtual workspaces on macOS and you use the emacs function display-pixel-width it will give the combined with of ALL the monitors you are using. You are better off using (caddr (frame-monitor-attribute 'geometry)), since frame-monitor-attribute gets the specified attribute from the monitor which the current frame is actually on. BTW: The function frame-monitor-attributes returns all the monitor attributes. The function display-monitor-attributes-list returns the attributes for ALL the monitors you are using.

    • Internet/Gemini

      • The always something of software

        A while back I wrote a Lua script called 'gemlink' leveraging 'gemget' to fetch the content of a given argument-specified Gemini URL, processing/formatting links so they stand out a bit more to me. I then created another called "gemlink-all" that reads all lines of stdin, running "gemlink" against all such links, facilitating getting the content of numerous Gemini documents into a single file, should I feel like having a bit of a quote-and-comment fest.

    • Programming

      • Useless things? ➰🗿🤏

        I like making software things that may not quite be useless, but only get used by me. I like making whatever I have a whim to make. I don't have to care about what anyone else wants or needs.

      • Re: Interleaved 2D Notation for Concatenative Programming

        I am always curious about structure editors, and ways to represent structured data, especially code. So I was pretty curious about this post and the provided links to the pdf file and a web IDE. However, I think this is one is totally pointless (like most attempts at 2d/graphical programming paradigms).

        The beauty of concatenative languages such as Forth is that the arguments precede the operation dynamically/temporally, and can therefore be decoupled. Arguments can come from anywhere as long as they get pushed onto the stack -- at any time prior to the execution of this particular instruction! This is crucial, as that is how we concatenate.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
 
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore