Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 26/08/2023: Game Showcase of Black Mesa and Two Years on Gemini



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Edan's Capsule - Why I Don't Like My Parents: Part One

        I feel like my parents are being a bit overbearing at the minute.

        A while ago, I said I was interested in anthropology, and that I might like to study it in university; but they immediately put it down and told me it would not be useful to me.

        Yeaterday, I ate my roast dinner one component at a time (i.e. veg first, then the potatoes, and then the meat and stuffing); then my dad started talking about how I would become obsessive, like someone he used to know.

      • the web revival space as a refuge for harmful ideas

        Recently, it seems like the web revival/indie web/retro web/personalized web sphere has had a huge influx of members. Probably a mix of dissatisfaction with the bigger social media sites like Twitter/X, Instagram, Reddit, and maybe even Tumblr, as well as troubles to find spaces you're content with in the fediverse. I know some people have trouble with Lemmy and Mastodon, from choosing an instance to their instance closing down or the instance owner being involved in drama, being defederated, or having trouble finding content all in one place. I've also seen people who fled from Reddit fleeing from Squabbles (I think it is Squabblr now?) because of severe disagreements with the admin, and delete Cohost over allowing or not allowing the sharing of sexualized drawings of underage fictional characters.

      • Re: refuge for harmful ideas

        Although I am not sure BBS is the right place for this discussion, I am still sharing it here. Some people like me do not have capsules and may want to comment or ask questions. I thought it would be good to open a thread about it here. Perhaps as a way of collecting blog post replies about this.

      • 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 -out the window. There will be no deviations from the party line from here on - left or right one.

        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!

      • Talking about the weather

        Remember when "talking about the weather" was a clique for jokes, a device to indicate that desperation to avoid awkward silence had reached the point where even the most fundamentally uninteresting subjects were suddenly a viable topic of conversation? Those days sure are gone. I wonder if old media will cause confusion for future generations, in this regard. Anyway, I'm writing this, or at least have started writing it, during a very sudden, very intense, rainy squall. These are not uncommon in the summer time where I live these days. I actually really enjoy them. This one slammed shut many of the windows in this room which we've kept slightly ajar to help ventilate the place (Europe has crazily advanced windows which are hinged on multiple axes simultaneously, somehow. Australia has never seen the likes of it, even double-glazing remains an exotic novelty. At least we've figured flyscreen out - looking squarely at you, NZ), and has blown some (thankfully non-fragile) decorations off the wall adjacent to the last one still open.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Marx and Bakunin

        ... I think that we are now in a mood, determined by the present conditions produced by social development, to look more objectively, without taking sides, at that contest between two great revolutionaries that dominated the rev. movement in the 19th century; to appreciate that we have both of them, and to understand their difference and opposition. Both they took part in the revolution of 1848, as militants; but then their ways parted; they were indeed products of entirely diverse social milieus. B. [Bakunin] came from Russia w[h]ere Czarist absolutism kept down all social and spiritual progress; Marx was formed by the rising Western industrial capitalism. For Bakunin therefore liberty was the great idea; he saw in ... State power the basis of the slavery and poverty of the masses. Marx saw in capitalist exploitation the cause of misery and slavery; political freedom he saw present in England, where, however the competing small business, unorganized, he considered organization as the chief demand, which could only be ascertained by a central dominating power, democratic state power, dominated by the working class. So their basic ideas stood against one another; M.[Marx] saw that Bakunin’s political freedom was not sufficient (vide England); B. saw that Marx’s organized state power would bring worst slavery. Bakunin had studied and assimilated, as many Russians, Western science and knowledge, and, different from other Russians, applied them to take part in the struggle of the exploited masses in Western Europe, thinking that their grievances were the same as his. Marx revolutionized Western science and put in this way, by his Historical Materialism and his Economic theory of Capitalism, a new basis to all further class struggle.

      • A Wall Is Just a Wall, It Can Be Destroyed

        We know that throughout history, various prisons around the world have experienced riots and uprisings. But this is an almost rare occurrence. Prisoners had to live for years in the same gloomy room and were thus considered passive subjects. How do we define a resistance where we can almost only rely on ourselves, in a space that is almost isolated and full of pressure, which offers almost no opportunity to organize, such as a prison?

    • Technology and Free Software

      • CircaDian: Games Showcase: Black Mesa

        What if you could relive a favourite childhood memory—but with everything upgraded so it’s as awesome as you remember?

        I’ve just finished playing Black Mesa, and ... well, that’s what it is for me.

        It’s a remake of the original Half Life.

        Dedicated fans—particularly, I think, movie fans—wince at the word “remake”, because remakes are often awful: missing the point of the original, adding nothing.

        Black Mesa on the other hand truly captures the spirit of the original while not being shy about making changes. Weirdly, it ends up closer to how I remember Half Life than the actual game.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Two years on gemini

          In the summer of 2021 there was a discussion on an email list where someone mentioned the tendency to invent technically advanced solutions to engineering problems instead of simpler, more robust ones. Of course, engineers need to make themselves needed! Someone linked to Cheapskate's guide to computers and the internet, and there I found a mention of this new gemini protocoll. I took a look through a web proxy and became fascinated. There were already many gemini browsers available, but only one that I managed to install. It was amfora, and I've stuck with it since then. Although amfora may lack some features, the experience is so dissimilar to browsing the web that you can't forget for a second that this is not just a stripped down html homepage but something quite different.

      • Programming

        • Program your computer

          From this point of view, anything that you can't easily program yourself is effectively not a computer. Effectively, it's an appliance (at best).

          But why the pedantry? Why would you program anything for yourself? After all, there's a veritable army of professional programmers out there, clambering over themselves to get you to run software that they've written! And their programs are *polished*; way better than you or I could accomplish on our own.

        • Autodiff

          Automatic differentiation is a method by Seppo Linnainmaa for quickly computing the partial derivatives of a function defined by a straight line program. This method is very important in machine learning because it makes it easy to implement gradient-based optimization methods (which are, among other things, used to fit neural networks to data; did you know that neural networks are just straight line programs?).


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
In Göteborg
Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
Justice for Wildlife
animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
Boys will be boys
Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
We may never know the dialogue or its nature
Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
Old Isn't Always Inadequate
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
The Monkey Business of Rust People
Compatibility won't matter
Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
avoid many perils of today's Web
Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
Links for the day
4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025
Links 29/09/2025: Opposition to Surveillance Giant Google and Conflicts Worldwide (Moldova Sides With EU)
Links for the day
Why the EPO Never Managed to Silence Us (After Over a Decade of Trying)
Firms like Mishcon de Reya and Brett Wilson LLP contribute to a bad stigma, staining the entire occupation
Links 29/09/2025: Datacenter Fires and "Too Much Internet Use Is Changing Teenage Brains"
Links for the day
Almost a Couple of Years After Microsoft Hijacked the Name 'Sudo' (to Describe Unrelated Windows Stuff) Microsoft Canonical Breaks Sudo in Ubuntu
These are vandals in "goodwill" or "security" clothing
Does the Good Law Project (GLP) Know the Director of Brett Wilson LLP Deems It OK to Endorse Violent Actions Against Trans People?
We were miffed to see this morning's report
Names Are Not Unique IDs and the UK Government's "Digital ID System" Would be a Nightmare
Digital surveillance, "apps", and worse (all the time)
What is Roy and Rianne's Righteously Royalty-free RSS Reader?
A news reader that uses OPML files and parses RSS feeds
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in 5 Days
We should be talking about software freedom, not "Open Source"
It Feels Like Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Tacitly Admitted That It Defamed Me
It arguably admitted many other things by refusing to deny or address them (altogether)
Stefano Maffulli's Front Page Mentions "AI" 11 Times
They're more focused on slop (plagiarism) than sharing or Software Freedom
CMS Rot
With "modern" (bloated) content management systems (CMSs) there is a long chain of dependencies
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 28, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 28, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About Linux 6.17 and Microsoft Meddling in Linux Development
today's Slopwatch is short because the picks are from Sunday
Gemini Links 29/09/2025: The Labor Wars and Retro
Links for the day