Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 22/07/2023: Duelin’ Boots and Oddmuse Issues



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Dry Herb Vapes Are Game Changing

        Smoking is a common habit for people to develop. If you aren't a smoker you probably know someone who does or did. I have been a smoker for about a decade. The only real difference is that I am not a tobacco smoker, I smoke cannabis/hemp/dope flower. Though admittedly I did pick up cigarette smoking for a year as a teenager I fortunately got out of that before it became an addiction.

        For about 10 years now I have smoked cannabis in various formats, hand bowls, bongs, gravity bongs, one hitters/dugouts, joints, blunts. Lots of experience with all sorts of pieces, pipes, and papers. However one thing that has illuded me until a month ago has been 'dry herb vaporizers'. And this is what I would like to write about today. What dry herb vaporizers are and how it has made my smoking like far better for my health and wallet.

    • Politics and World Events

      • But Who Will Maintain The Roads?

        When I tell people I am an anarchist, the response is often something along the lines of "that is just naive. Without the government we are screwed! Who will maintain the roads?"

        I find that incredibly amusing, considering the current state of the US infrastructure (your country may differ).

        The roads are total shit; bridges are collapsing, and trains are derailing daily, all while costs are rising exponentially.

    • Science

      • Gibson's theory of ecological perception

        In a reductionistic scheme perception would be studied in the laboratory with artificial tasks, quite dissimilar to our everyday experience. Studies of pitch perception might involve pure sine tones, but absolutely no real musical excerpts. James J. Gibson's ecological theory, which I do not know too much about, points out the necessity of considering the senses as they operate in context in complex environments. Gibson's often cited books were long out of print, now some of them have reappeared, but unfortunately not affordably priced. However, a few papers can be found on the internet.

        Gibson's ecological theory of perception has had some influence on certain musicologists and researchers in auditory perception (Eric Clarke, Stephen Handel, among others). This is perhaps not what one would expect, given that Gibson developed his theory mainly in the visual domain. I'm not aware that Gibson would have had nearly as big an impact on more recent research on visual perception, but I could have missed something.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Duelin' Boots

        I tried dual-booting back in the very late 1990s, Mac OS and I think it was Yellow Dog Linux. Since then, not so much. Problems include the installers or updators elbowing one another, which may result in one or more systems that cannot boot, and do you have the time and skill to debug and fix that? Or how many on IRC or a forum will be dragged along when the waters turn out to be a bit too swift and deep? There is also generally a lack of security updates until the other operating system(s) can be booted, which means frequent reboots, or a virtual mandate that urgent security updates be installed before the long-since-rebooted OS can more safely be used. Also dual-booting may not mix well with configuration management, in particular the kind that is push based. Or maybe the different OS do different things to set the clock on the motherboard, and now you have unexpected time sync problems? Dual booting is more complicated and time consuming than any benefit provided, in my view: you have not only multiple operating systems to maintain, but also the potential for bootloader and hardware level interactions between them, and various security and configuration management drawbacks. Do you have the time for that?

        "Mac OS" probably needs to be tagged with "Classic" these days; this was before Mac OS X 10.0.0 came out. Also I guess postings are supposed to have stock photos in them? I haven't used any modern AI, so here's something cropped with ImageMagick.

      • Advice about computers

        A few days ago, one of our patrons asked for advice about computers. And a good patron gave some recommendations. I checked them out.

        I won't go into the details now, but suffice it to say, that I'm not a tech guy. The limited knowledge I have about technology is purely out of interest.

        A brief background on why I'm making this post is that many years ago, I went to buy a computer, and I got ripped off. I didn't even realize that until I talked to my brother, and he got visibly upset.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • How wonderful to be able to count on two-fold Geminaut quality

          winter was one of the first I started reading courtesy of Antenna. And not once have I been let down by the quality of their writing and character. Grant it, that means I feel above average embarrassed, because by comparison I feel more a hack of a former, and impolite cretin in the latter. Oh, to able to write like that *and* not get involved in variations on the theme of participatory selfishness.

        • Reduced Site Functionality

          I somehow managed to introduce a bug into this site's configuration. It manifests as one of processes serving the site eating all the CPU resources. Every day there seems to be about zero to three of these.

          As I can't debug such rare events, I need to rely on logging but my efforts so far haven't been successful. So now what I'm doing is that I'm disabling part of this site's functionality, piece by piece. Let's see whether I can pare it down to a set that no longer runs into the problem.

        • Thinking about switching away from Oddmuse

          Oddmuse started out as a CGI script written in Perl. This is great for very small and dynamic sites: Most of the time, nobody is visiting and the process isn't running. As activity increases (and search engines and bots activity increases!) a CGI script is an increasingly bad idea. Every time, you load the Perl binary, it loads the script, parses the script, runs the script, loads the libraries, parses the libraries, and so on.

          These days, I run a Mojolicious server which keeps the script in memory and reruns it for every request. The webserver acts as a proxy server for all of this. And it's somewhat tricky: Every now and then there are processes that won't die, accumulating, see 2023-06-28 Reduced Site Functionality.

        • Bots crawling my sites

          I'm thinking about blocking all bots from my website. But where to start? How about this: Check the access.log file (I use Apache as my web server). If the User Agent Field contains the word "bot" that sounds like a candidate? Let's see!


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
 
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2025: Convicted Felon Quits UNESCO, "Vibe Coding Goes Wrong", and Signalgate Gets Worse
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2025: Forgejo Woes and Smolnet Directory Week
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2025: Storage Tapes Still Kicking, Windows TCO 'on Steroids' (Microsoft-Induced Catastrophes)
Links for the day
Bobby Borisov (LinuxIac) Has Apparently Begun Experimenting With LLM Slop, So We Cannot Trust LinuxIac Anymore
So did LinuxIac become a slopfarm? Maybe not yet, but it's getting there
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day