Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 07/08/2023: RPoD, Thoughts on Guppy Protocol



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Another weekend done

        At 08:15 this morning there was 1 minute of silence in Hiroshima, in remembrance of the atomic bombing 78 years ago. There were a number of speeches as well, but only a small portion of the ceremony was televised. Recently there have been stories in the news about the bombing, and in the comments the debate still rages on over whether it was necessary or not.

    • Religion

    • Technology and Free Software

      • RPoD swap out complete

        My site (1436.ninja) is now hosted on a refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre, core i7, 10gb RAM, WD red 500gb conventional hard drive (for now). The website is down (the RPoD Gopher Proxy) due to config issues I don't have time for right now. I switched over to gophernicus as the gopherd. I need to make some script changes to get some things like the guestbook and Port70News back up. This will get done, but around my work schedule.

      • RPoD Changes Coming

        RPoD has intermittently been going down, and always when I am out of town. I have it plugged into an oversized UPS which is plugged into a dedicated power circuit in my home. The 'fix' has been to have my wife power cycle the machine. This occurs once I realize it's down, and when I am working, this can be days.

      • hiccup

        This chicken's head is other than atop its formerly connecting neck!

        Lots of enlightening (emphasis on the 'lighten-ing' part) email interaction with quite the Geminaut.

        House/yard work up the gazoo (anyone else here remember "The Great Gazoo"?).

        Assembled a package of images and text for a private investigator regarding some rather clear cut fraud and other associated illegality of my first wife amounting to my having been "seriously taken" several decades ago. There's likely no monetary recovery, but I'm ashamed to admit revenge of some *not illegal* kind is definitely on the table.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • First Thoughts On "The Guppy Protocol Specification"

          Someone's proposed a new protocol, which is sort of a version of the Spartan protocol over UDP, with in-band support for splitting messages over packets.

          I love thinking about network protocol design, so proposals like this one always make my ears perk up!

          My understanding, having implemented server software for both Gemini and Spartan, is that Spartan is mostly successful at being 90% faster than Gemini by altering about 10% of the spec. These alterations include the entire removal of TLS, and reducing the amount of data included in requests and responses.

          It also includes adding a new text/gemini line type, which is unfortunate because it introduces strict incompatibility with exitisting Gemini software, though robust fallbacks are possible to implement server-side.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing)
The company is all about sound bites
Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It
"Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot'
Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure
A very large third one expected next week
If Your Machine Still Has "Secure Boot" Enabled, Then Microsoft Has a de Facto Kill Switch (Even If Your Machine Doesn't Have Windows and Never Had Windows)
It is not incorrect to call UEFI 'secure boot' a "kill switch"
Reddit is Corporate Propaganda
To make matters worse, Reddit ousted many original moderators
Jeff Geerling Shocked to Discover Many Metrics in YouTube Are Fake (His Audience Turns Out to be Much Smaller)
Maybe self-host all videos, don't rely on Google's "FOMO" cheating (addiction based on false assumptions)
 
Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD
Links for the day
Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images)
That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs
There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai
The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech
The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail)
We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge
Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching)
The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions)
the "upgrade treadmill"
Rumour: Second Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in September to Commence Third Week of September
That basically answers questions like, "Any specific date or time of the month?"
Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Reality, ROOPHLOCH 2025, and Writing Another Gemini Client
Links for the day
Updating Firmware is Not the Solution But Only Additional Risk, Disable "Secure Boot" Today
firmware blobs are buggy, secret, impossible to audit, and barely tested
Microsoft Tim's DevClass (Part of The Register MS/Situation Publishing) is Full of Slop
Looking at many sites that are full of slop images is becoming an eye sore and hallmark of text too likely generated by LLMs or 'assisted' (tainted) by them
Microsoft Trying to Fake Demand for Slop. At What Cost?
That's a giant demotion and broken promises
Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant and Kryptonite/Garlic to Vampires
Transparency (sometimes described by words like "Sunlight" or "Truth") is paramount
The Register MS Uses Slop in Articles About Slop
we are fairly certain it's slop or CG based on other people's work
Visiting a Web Page or a Public URL Should be Safe, Predictable, and Benign
It's probably too late to "fix" the Web
The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Paid to Spread Mindless Hype for the "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme and That's a Serious Problem
"Sponsored by Zoom."
Links 08/09/2025: Burger King Cracked, Cox v. Sony Analysed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Socialist Computer Museum and GAFAM/ByteDance/TikTok-Dominated Net
Links for the day
Links 08/09/2025: Tim Crook Disappoints Apple Faithfuls and Zuckerberg Lies (Financial Fraud) for Cheeto King
Links for the day
EPO Workers Point Out that the EPO is Destroying the Planet Under the Guise of "Hey Hi" (It Also Grants Many Invalid Patents Illegally
On 12 March and 16 June 2025, staff representation met with the administration in the Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in Munich
Turn Off Microsoft's Restricted Boot ("Secure Boot")
We're still running a series on this issue
Social Control Media Sites Have Become Bot Farms (Not Limited to LLMs and Automation)
linkedin.com was nothing but trouble and losses for Microsoft
Deep in Debt With the Magnitude of Losses Quickly Growing, Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Now Uses Broadcom for Vapourware, Pretending It'll Do OK Next Year
At some stage it'll collapse
You Can Tell Microsoft is in Trouble When Its Own Fans and Staff Blast it
"Microsoft sinks billions into chasing artificial intelligence fads to hype up its share price."
Multiple Undersea Cable Cuts and We're Still OK
Microsoft customers experience problems
Lawyers Who Think They Are Online Assassins Don't Deserve a Licence to Operate
they've become a laughing stock in their "sector"
Microsoft Windows Fell to 3.9% "Market Share" in Bahamas
Based on statCounter
How the European Union (EU) Fell Out of Love With Free/Libre Software
Lots of bribery
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 07, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear
Links for the day
The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away
Nobody denies that bad things will happen
Google Versus Journalism
Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos
Links for the day
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant
This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
Not Much Left in News Cycles
To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake
Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux
Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported)
As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025