Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 21/08/2023: Trust Model Online and Gemini Radio



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • One Meal

        One meal per day is pretty tricky; you probably don't want to drop from three or more to one directly. Maybe start with two per day, say around 09:00 and another 16:00 or so, and keep at that for a week before going to one. Another good idea is lots of fibre—sugar wafers or whatever are not going to tide you over the hours like a good bowl of brown rice and lentils or beans and brown rice or brown rice with tofu. Variety! A lot of modern food is somewhat lacking in fiber, though, or if there is fiber it comes with, like, 7000% of the daily salt requirement. 7000% salt was probably okay if you were working in a foundry and sweated out that much, but maybe not for keypushers.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: CEKLURN Wordo: STIRS
      • Summer storm/apple tree

        We are having the biggest storm in 80 years pass through today/tonight (it is just befor 8pm local time) where I live (Southern California Mountains). It mostly just rained all day like most other rainy days. But I guess the accumulated water caused my soil structure to weaken deep enough that one of our two apple trees (the one that produces more apples) collapsed onto my driveway a bit ago, just narowly missing my car (which I have moved back out of the way of the other apple tree).

        We've been getting around .33" of rain an hour, but it is about to bump up to 1.4" of rain an hour for a few hours with 50ish mph winds. We are hoping none of the other trees around us, particularly the large evergreen trees, fall. We've moved my daughter's bed away from windows and toward the low center of the house out of an abundance of caution.

      • Venn diagram of improbability â­•â­•

        I have a colleague who likes to play the banjo. He's an enthusiast for this rather niche instrument, which he's been playing for some years now.

        Recently the company moved to a new online meeting tool, and there have been teething troubles. Today the same colleague was in a meeting with someone and they had issues with screen sharing. Everyone in the room was trying to ignore the half of the meeting we could hear, but we were all as surprised as he was when said "When I accepted the screen share, you heard BANJO MUSIC?!!"

      • Thoughts on Oppenheimer (2023)

        I just saw Oppenheimer. What a film! It was probably the first film that I've gotten really immersed in. Some people disliked how quick the cuts are, but I loved it. I finally felt like I'd seen a film with a pace matching the speed of thought. I didn't feel patronized by the movie, and I was easily able to follow the different scenes as the film jumped between time periods.

        Oppenheimer was so optimistic about how nuclear bombs would be thought about. I won't spoil the movie (thô you can read what he thought from many sources), but I will say it reminds me of the finvenkismo of the early Esperantistoj, who thought that Esperanto would solve war and promote cross-cultural acceptance instead of chauvinism. Evidente, la tuta mondo post Esperanto ne eniris denove al milito.

    • Photos

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Re: Dark mode/light mode

        The good news is that Lagrange is already fully equipped for this because it has been implemented for macOS and iOS.

        The bad news is that supporting this on further platforms requires specialized code for each platform. There's already a feature request open on GitHub about adding support for this on Windows, for instance.

        I understand you're talking about GNOME, though. Since Lagrange uses none of the GNOME libraries, it cannot easily access the system-wide setting for dark mode. At a glance it seems at least D-Bus is required, and Lagrange does not use that (directly) either. D-Bus would be a pretty useful addition for Linux desktop environments for a few other reasons, though.

      • Retro Mail Call (New pickup!)

        Every now and then I get nostalgic, get online and order some of the gadgets that I craved for back in the day. I am a Palm OS enthusiast, former dev and these devices will always have a soft spot in my heart.

        In todays mail bag, we get a Palm Tungsten T3! It's one of the more "modern" Palm devices that sport Bluetooth (which can be handy for setting up a internet connection, routing it through your phone or computer). Only appropriately that I would take a picture of it using my Palm Zire 71, hence the slightly blurry pictures.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Thoughs on trust, SSL and Gemini

          People criticize Gemini for standardizing trust-of-first-use policy of TLS certificate verification (FAQ:4.5.5), discussing security and scaling. Here is my take on these issues.

          [...]

          Whenever you connect to a server you never connected before and have no a-priory reason to trust, it doesn't really matter whether it has a self-signed certificate or a certificate signed by CA. Well, there is a little difference -- you will know if your DNS response was spoofed in case of CA-signed certificate. But you still has no reason to trust the content server sends to you.

          Now suppose this server happens to publish source code of some useful program. You download the source, audit it diligently and deem non-malicious and useful. Server publishes new version of the software, and another one, and you eventually develop trust into the server and its certificate.

        • Gemini Radio - Episode 54

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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 28/10/2026: BaseFree Numerical System, Tolino Vision 2, and More
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVIII - Microsoft is Not the Victim (It Was Never the Victim), It's Just DARVO
"DARVO is now in the dictionary. That’s a win for abuse survivors"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVII - The Relevance of Silent Layoffs at Microsoft
"Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)"
 
The Cyber Show on Plagiarism (BS Artists) and Fear of GNU/Linux Users
Take a look at these articles
"EVENTS" as Paid Spam (Marketing) at The Register MS
Now that layoffs are "buyouts" and debt is "credit" (or "investment" in slop) why not call spam "event"?
Just Jealous
LLMs vs Developers
The Need for Operating System Kernels That Forbid LLM Slop
Not even OpenBSD is an alternative to Linux slop
Links 27/10/2026: "Why My Dad Didn’t Have a Cell Phone" and Sudan Famine Risk
Links for the day
Links 27/10/2026: Google Increases Spying on Online Everything (Personal Files, Mail), Anthropic Takes Its Losses and Debt Public
Links for the day
The British Economy Too Dependent on an American Slop Scheme
United States Government debt will soon eclipse 40.5 trillion dollars
We've Already Begun Work on the 20th Year of Techrights
We'll do a yearlong endeavour of improvement instead of a one-day hurrah
Volunteers or Unpaid Developers Won't Bother Interacting With Mindless LLMs That Pass Labour From Lazy Companies to Human Beings
The people who run Debian are killing the will to do Free software
Slop is Killing the Open Web
The Web is a jungle and "open sites" (without restrictions or walls) are exposed to the 'feeding frenzy' of reckless plagiarists who call their "theft" something like "super intelligence" or "training"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 26, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 26, 2026
As Microsoft Tells Close to 30% of Its Staff to Leave IBM Takes Notes
IBM does the same with PIPs
It's Perfectly Possible That Microsoft Has Just Told Most of Its American Workers to Leave
A better news headline might focus on the US and give a figure like 50%, not "quarter"
Richard Stallman Was Right About "Hey Hi"
Now the chicken come home to roost
Gemini Links 27/10/2026: "To Change or Not To Change?" and "Initial Planner Plans"
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVI - The Faustian Pact That Irritates Hired Guns is Still a Distraction From the Serious Harm Done by Their Clients to GNU/Linux Users (Notably Plagiarism and Back Doors)
We'd rather talk about the harms caused
Links 26/10/2026: Microsoft Chaffbot "Building Detailed Psychological Profiles of Its Users", Man Executed for Childhood Offenses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Writing Down Dreams and "Sabbath as Resistance"
Links for the day
The Register MS Gets Rid of Disclosures About Paid-for Spam Regarding "AI", It Also Composes Fake News for the Sponsors
Selling away its credibility is known as "Sellout"
Microsoft 'Buyouts' Sound Just Like 60,000 Layoffs of 'Expensive' or More Experienced Staff ('Soft' Layoffs or Even Worse, Negligible Severance)
This is not a "gift" to staff, it's just a pink slip with a hundred dollar bill attached to it
This is How Microsoft Ends (Over a Quarter of the Company Now on the Chopping Block)
Microsoft has quit pretending
Search Without Encryption for Legacy Systems (Permacomputing) and Full Backward Compatibility
At your own risk
Shift to the Lula (Left)
Lula is a friend of Free software and ODF
More Stories and Material Than We Can Publish
We're gaining or have amassed material faster than we manage to publish
European Patent Office Takes From the Poor to Give More to the Rich
The "pension schemes are overfunded at 120.5%"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XV - Annualised Consequences for Opposing Microsoft Back Doors in Linux Since 2012
a roundup of what we got from GGG
Links 26/10/2026: China’s Communist Party Plenum and Aleksandar Vucic Concedes Defeat
Links for the day
In Reporting, Timing is Everything
If you keep calling people "paedophiles" when you yourself are connected to paedophiles (or are a paedophile), you're attracting a lot of unwanted attention to yourself
Links 25/10/2026: Microsoft Layoffs and Cuts, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Brazilian Politics and Leaving Bear Blog
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 25, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, October 25, 2026
Another Form of Microsoft Silent Layoffs: Workers That 'Expire'
When the media becomes a lapdog, not a watchdog, false narratives gain traction
Carte Blanche for GPL Violations 4 Days Ago (by Torvalds)
Slop disclosure is no longer required for the Linux Kernel
There Are No Women That Are Kernel Developers Sent by Corporations Which Claim to Champion Diversity
As noted the other day
Sites with "Linux" in Their Name Cannot Slop and Retain Readers
if they write about "linux "(or "Linux") using LLMs they will be caught, then shunned
At Microsoft, the Silent Layoffs Impact Executives Also
Microsoft hid the real story of Helen Chiang
Linus Torvalds Defected to Enshittification
Linus Torvalds is betraying a generation of high(er) standards
Links 25/10/2026: TMZ Revisits Epstein's Connections to Bill Epsteingate, "Italy Hit by New Cost of Living Protests"
Links for the day
Microsoft’s Spin About Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns: They "Never Should Have Existed"
Microsoft-sponsored spin
It's Slop
Maybe we'll exclude It's Slop from our curation. It's a Linux Foundation outpost of sorts, an apologist of sloppy code and plagiarism.
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XIV - Six Years of Learning Irish, But the Real Issue Was Microsoft-controlled 'Secure' (Restricted) Boot
Had I not opposed back doors in Linux, not of this would come about
Gemini Links 25/10/2026: Moana (2026) and OpenBSD Updates
Links for the day
The Netherlands Fast to Adopt GNU/Linux, "Market Share" Rises to Two-Digit Value (on Desktops/Laptops)
It peaked at around 20% yesterday
DST Still Needs to Get Abolished
Get rid of DST, efficiency will improve and systems will become more reliable
PHP2Shell as Paid-for FUD Campaign (Intended to Help Sell Slop and Fake "Market Value" of Slop Pushers)
PHP2Shell considered overhyped [...] Remember all the paid-for hype regarding Mythos? What happened to all that?
Microsoft Sort of Tried to Sell XBox Piecewise (Offloading Microsoft)
XBox is in a morbid state
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 24, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, October 24, 2026