Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 25/08/2023: Old Computer Challenge Tools, Internet Appliance



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Wow, this is really happening

        This week it's actually hit me that I'm starting this full-time faculty job in almost exactly a month. I had to have official copies of my transcripts sent over to the school, do some other paperwork for the start of the term, &c.

        I spent today writing the first week of text for my online intro to logic class and I'm starting to write lecture notes for my in-person classes.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: AEOLMNH Wordo: ZOOEY
      • Competence — A new approach to story

        Pop culture narratives, such as movies, spend a lot of time on conflict, but whenever they do give us a few crumbs of competence, people tend to think it’s really awesome. So maybe, just maybe, it’d be pretty good if they threw out the screenwriter’s manuals and started to give us a li’l more of competence.

        One of the most memorable and quoted moments from the biggest blockbuster movie of 2012 is a guy talking about how he successfully copes with his emotions and anger. I’m into that.

    • Politics and World Events

    • Technology and Free Software

      • a kind of chat thing

        I noticed that there was some mechanism for sending arbitrary data directly instead of just poking stuff into the DHT. kind of makes total sense, I'd just been distracted poking at the DHT stuff.

      • Old Computer Challenge Tools 2023 Update

        I've finally got around to uploading the fork of astro[1] I adapted for use on TinyCore. Because it uses the ash terminal, I called it ashtro[2]. It uses a tool I also had to build (to make up for the lack of termcap etc.) called termsize[3].

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Internet Appliance

          Last weekend I watched LGR's video on The Netpliance i-Opener, an Internet Appliance. When I saw the UI and a few screens it brought back memories of how exciting the Internet was back then. It was also a throwback to see that news could be read without obnoxious flashing ads and banners and auto playing videos and stupidily narrow margins. The shopping page in particular reminded me of how much more quaint the WWW was at the time. Unfortunately those days are long dead and gone.

        • Slash and Burn in the Twitter Jungle

          Browsing the Mastodon profile of someone from my city, I found this post, a couple months old now, about the ways in which Twitter keeps breaking. As the article's subtitle says, "everything worked fine until Elon Musk took over"; it details the ways in which Musk's chaotic reign has supremely fucked the site and alienated not just its users, but also the developers in the Twitter ecosystem, the people who make all kinds of software that hooks into Twitter's API.

          Unfollow bots, literary bots, where's-Musk's-plane? bots (the latter of which was naturally the first to be banned) - these all generally rely on API access to get information, send tweets, send DMs. Now, there has always been a precarity in making one's living in the public APIs of major sites: you're relying on not just stability, but goodwill, and it's very easy for both to vanish. In Twitter's case, both did. The stability was remarkably okay until early July, when (it was supposed) some unpaid bills (or at least fuck-you-I'm-not-paying-these-bills) lead to rate limits and yet another bluebird exodus. But if the stability was mostly okay, the goodwill obviously wasn't.

      • Programming

        • How I watch y*utube in ratpoison.

          If the script is executed without any arguments, a browser is opened on the landing page of your selected invidious instance. If the script is executed with a however many arguments, all the arguments will be parsed as a search query.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web