Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 21/07/2023: Offline-first and Oversharing



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Taking The Bait

        This morning I got an email from the University stating that I had a duplicate account and that it was going to be terminated within 24 hours if I didn't verify my account.

        Naturally I was nervous and clicked the link in the email, which appeared to be from the university website, but it took me off to a different "jotform.com" site. I was confused and then tried typing in the link from the email only to have it 404 me. It was at that moment I immediately realized what just happened, I'd been the victim of a phishing attack. Fortunately it appears to be not a very sophisticated one as it was just a hidden link. So unsophisticated that I wonder if this was just a fake phishing attack by the university itself, which they do as little practice drills.

      • Sumo Nagoya 2023 Day 13

        Wow! What a tournament so far. There has been some strange happenings for sure.

        Kirishima (former Kiribayama) has returned and been doing fairly well. He won his first bout as an Ozeki so the gods will be happy. Hopefully he can get his kashi-koshi and avoid being kadoban with Takakeisho in at Aki.

      • Winter

        It always feels unfair how winter keeps getting colder even after the solstice. It's not like I'm ungrateful for the extra daylight, even if there is no warmth to the sun. And I understand enough about orbital mechanics and latent heat to know why it works that way. I just can't help but feel cheated.

      • *Warning: Post in somewhat depressed mood*

        Recently, for the last couple of weeks i am in a somewhat *meh* mood with missing energy for nearly everything.

        The thing is: Over the last three to five years my wife and i were constantly on edge, there was our barn conversion project, there were many problems that needed attention NOW, there was the ilness of my dad (he MUCH better now, thank the nonexistant gods!), there was the pregnancy and birth of our son... to make it short: We had simply no time for anything besides the immediate needs. Now, with the big project finished, our son now five months old and new habit settled in there is again free time... but i somehow have no energy left (and no real interest) to do anything with that free time.

      • You gotta love Dylan

        I see the word 'woke' more in contrast to the word 'asleep'. The "woke" are convinced they've a better grasp of morality than those they consider asleep with respect to the same.

        And they're religious about it. They've their bible, i.e. left-leaning news media. One might say left-leaning media scripts are the woke's script-ure. They consider any other points of view heretical. They proselytize. They shun to the point of cancellation of the unrepentant. They're basically a secular religion.

        (NOTE: from my point of view they don't merely "lean"... they "apocalyptically, twin-towers-grade crumble and fall" every hour, on the hour..)

    • Politics and World Events

      • re: Crying "woke"

        I have a bone to pick with WOKENESS, one of my least favorite newspeak words. WOKE is one of those: when I hear it, I know that any chance of a productive or even remotely interesting or satisfying conversation -- are out the window. There will be no deviations from the party line from here on - left or right.

        Note that it is simply mentioning this word as an adjective€¹ (except in the context of linguistic misuse or perhaps quoting some fool), is enough to indicate to me that the person using it is likely a rabid, brainwashed simpleton, or possibly feeble-minded idiot. You just know what follows. There is simply no point continuing the conversation -- just not politely nod and back away!

        I may agree with what they are saying (though probably not entirely). "My dad is, like, not woke." "Perhaps you are right. Oh, look at the time."

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Offline-first approach

        I've taken an offline-first approach to computing. I find it benefits me greatly, by using more resilient utilities, having technological sovereignty, and nonetheless spending less time on the Internet, more offline, even if it's on a computer.

        I don't recommend data hoarding, I think each should keep how much data they consider to be useful, if they have the space required for it. Keeping offline wikis, dictionaries, translators, backups, passwords, can always prove to be helpful, relying less on hosted services, and more on yourself (Argos translate comes to mind as an offline translator).

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Oversharing

          For the last three days, once a day I've sat down with my UMPC and created an empty Gemini log file. I'd fill in the date and format all the links, then move my cursor to the body of the post. Minutes would go by, then hours. Each time I would find that I had written nothing. Eventually I'd close my editor in frustration, delete the file, and move on to other things.

          Rob's Gemini Capsule has been relatively quiet this month, but it hasn't just been this month. I posted 30 fewer entries to my log over 12 months in 2022 than I did over 11 months in 2021, the year I launched the capsule. So far in 2023, every month except July has seen the same number of posts or fewer per month.

        • My PROXY v2 C# Implementation

          Since we're on the subject of reverse-proxies today, here's something I wrote in C# which parses a binary (v2) PROXY-protocol header from the beginning of a Stream.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Northern Africa: GNU/Linux Measured at Around 5%
by Clownflare
SLAPP Censorship - Part 159 Out of 200: Telling Courts False Information and Spoon-feeding Them Insults, Hoping or Expecting Them to Repeat These Insults
When lawyers trick courts into repeating something false
"AGI" is Decades Old and It Never Found a Viable Business Model or Real, Actually Useful Use Cases
I keep reminding people of local firms (right here in Manchester) doing the same thing the media now calls "AGI"...
 
Gemini Links 23/08/2026: Turning 60, PineTime, and Simulation Hypothesis
Links for the day
Will Your "Modern" New Car Still be on the Road in 2060?
Are people now expected to change a car as often as they replace a mobile phone and, if so, how fast would costs add up?
The Sniff Test
Be sceptical of "CoCs"
Cloudflare Sees a Quarter of Requests in China Coming From GNU/Linux Today
Will 23% ever be the average for GNU/Linux rather than a mere peak?
You Can Lose Some Battles and Still Win the War
Winning or losing isn't something for a scoreboard
GNU/Linux Usage Measured at 23% in Russia Today
the average was almost 10%
Things Not to Fear Missing Out on
Life is too short to pay attention to social control media
Gemini Links 23/08/2026: Exercising Again, Tackling Phone Addiction, and Putting Graal Online Back Online
Links for the day
PIPs and Lawsuits: On the Future of IBM Trying to Spit Out Its Own Staff at Minimal Cost
"I'd rather be laid off than be put on a PIP"
France: GNU/Linux Averaging at 7%, Peaked at 14% Today
When will 14% be the average?
Links 23/08/2026: Water Crises, Illegal Tariffs, and Carney Confronts US Over Patent Imperialism
Links for the day
Links 23/08/2026: Slop "Children's Stories Contain Bizarre Patterns" and "Butterflies at the One Garden"
Links for the day
Microsoft is in Double Trouble in Singapore
Android+GNU/Linux+ChromeOS are near 20%
The Slop Industry Bribed the Media to Pretend It Has Something New and Revolutionary. Now It Bribes Politicians Too. Anything to Avoid Scrutiny and Regulation.
borrowed money has long been used to bribe the media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 22, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 22, 2026
Microsoft to Its Workers in April-May: You're Too Old, Go Away. Microsoft in August: Young People, Go Away.
What does this company even sell anymore?
Clownflare Data US-Centric
We are assuming that for national security reasons not many sites in Chinese (or based in China) outsource their traffic to Clownflare
Gemini Links 22/08/2026: Broken Car, Devuan, and Thundermail
Links for the day
Links 22/08/2026: Prince Harry, Elton John and Others Pay High Price for Frivolous Litigation in the UK
Links for the day
'Voluntary' Mass Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
IBM does not want people to notice what truly goes on there
Another Round of GAFAM Layoffs, This Time Apple
Now Apple "is shutting down an entire Vision Pro team focused on developing gaming features for the mixed-reality headset."
Gemini Links 22/08/2026: The Bodyguard (1992), Minimalism, Backups, and IPFS
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 158 Out of 200: Making Alliances With Men Arrested for Strangling Women Was Always a Terrible Strategy
They work for American slop companies
Links 22/08/2026: TikTok Settles With Feds, Harms Caused by Social Control Media Gaining Attention
Links for the day
New Data Shows Microsoft's XBox is Really Dying
XBox is a "burning platform"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 21, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 21, 2026
Sources-First Publication
Thank you for keeping us on track
Ubuntu is Not Linux
I was one of the first users of Ubuntu
Links 21/08/2026: Outrage Over Politicians Who Support Slop-Feeding Data Centres, "America Is About to Get More Expensive"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/08/2026: Rain Coming Back and "Small Internet"
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at IBM, But Mostly in Secret (PIPs and 'Voluntary' Redundancies)
Gerstner laid off a record number of people; Krishna tries to find 'innovative' new ways to cause workers to leave
Slop-ware: Nobody Knows What Code Goes Into Linux and Most Developers Cannot Understand the Rust Code (Even If They Tried)
So nobody is in charge
The Slop Pyramid Scheme (Not Boon!) Isn't Good for GNU/Linux, Even If the Plagiarism Engines (Framed as "Training" or "Intelligence") Almost Always Run GNU/Linux
We need the slop pop - we need the bubble to pop
North America: GNU/Linux Measured at 13%-15% Every Night
many (north) Americans use GNU/Linux at home and are using it to access the Web in the small hours of the morning
Links 21/08/2026: "Silicon Valley’s Billionaire Cults Are Coming for Democracy" and "Who’s Raking it in as the National Debt Explodes?"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 157 Out of 200: What is a 'Defamation Troll'?
"Defamation Mill" also
Northern Europe Leads the Pack in Abandoning Windows After Threats Made to Greenland (Says Clownflare Data)
Clownflare has a vast trove of data, so it cannot be easily dismissed as pure nonsense
Clownflare: In Past 12 Months Microsoft Windows Fell From ~80% to ~75% on Desktops/Laptops in Asia
Microsoft is deep in debt
Secret Layoffs at Microsoft, Apparently More Sites Will Shut Down Entirely
vindicates us and serves to affirm what we've said for over a month
The State of Slopfarms About "Linux" in August 2026
The Web needs serious cleanup, which curation can help deliver
IBM Offers Workers Some Money to Fire Themselves, It's Called "Next Step" and It's Allegedly 'Extended' (Not Enough Fools Have Fired Themselves)
Will IBM executives - including the CEO - ever be held accountable?
£5 Million Unsolicited/Undisclosed Bribes and What That Means to British Politics
It still remains unknown (disclosure denied) who helps fund the £1 million lawfare against us
[Satire] Pocock, Binface & nobodies vs Farage: defamation before UK High Court
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The IBM Censorship Team, PIPs (Silent Layoffs) in IBM Europe
There seem to be many de facto layoffs going on at IBM right there
SLAPP Censorship - Part 156 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP Becoming Wilson FC
Now acting almost like one-person shop (lots of staff has fled this past year)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 20, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/08/2026: "Ensmallening the BigWeb", "Rust Dependencies"
Links for the day