Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 14/09/2023: Distrohopping to Fedora Silverblue and When GemText Can Become Worse Than Plain Text



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Another response regarding pinyin

        Yes, the difficulty of experimenting with innovative or otherwise different teaching methods within a conservative environment is difficult, and we've talked about this before. I'm very lucky that my teachers were willing to engage in different ways of teaching us, unlike some other classes i have heard about. The lack of resources for pinyin-first teaching, and the difficulty in splitting classes more finely based on skill than one class per general level make this likely not to change for some time.

      • Stone Skipping

        In our high school days, my friends and I went on walks almost every day. It didn't matter where: the corner gas station was just as viable a trip as a hill five miles away overlooking the city.

        A favorite route of mine took us to a nearby park with a trail running through it. The trail followed a small creek that cut through the dense forestry and meandered behind immaculate suburban lawns. We'd often stop along the creek wherever we could find a straight stretch, and we'd skip stones together.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: DEWILNH Wordo: HUNKY
    • Politics and World Events

      • RE: Human Rights

        The well-being of a civilization's individuals should be their right, according to the abilities and resources of the civilization. I believe that. Therefore the (or at least a) goal of a civilization should be the well-being of its individuals. Alas, the purpose of civilization is not well-being but survival. If not of the individual, then of the group. And there's no lower limit to the shit scale... as long as survival is ensured.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Global tabs in window managers

        Tabs should be a part of the window manager, not the application. This is a hill i have been on for a long time (before i changed the direction of celeste, it was one of the things that was around for the longest). There is no reason why all things shouldn't be able to be tabbed together rather than segregated by application.

        There are a few instances of this around. Haiku gets mentioned a lot, but partly i think due to the design happening before tabs were really a big thing, the implementation isn't great due to a lack of quality of life features, like being easy to use.

      • Distrohopping to Fedora Silverblue

        The way I've been using my computer, the laptop that got me all the way through school, has changed a lot since I graduated. Between classes and homework sessions I'd often have downtime, and I used to fill this with things like tweaking my setups, random internet browsing, watching videos, you get the idea. Managing my Arch system was something I kind of enjoyed doing, and it was different enough from my school assignments that I'd still have energy to do it even when I didn't have energy for other things I wanted to do like personal programming projects.

        The past couple weeks though I've started to notice I really only take out my computer when I have something specific I want to accomplish, like writing a post or working on a project idea. And in this case Arch was starting to feel like a hassle. Updating every couple of weeks was annoying even when it went smoothly, which it didn't always. I also was running Hyprland and the pace of development on it is still really fast with the developers not being afraid to make breaking changes between updates. I just didn't have the patience to keep up anymore, which isn't to say anything bad about the project but rather that my computer usage has changed.

      • Are You a Terminal Emulator Hipster?

        GNOME Terminal, Alacritty, Kitty, XTERM, Terminator, Guake Terminal, Tilix, Hyper, Tilda, eDEX-UI, Konsole, Yakuake, and many more. I hadn't even heard of many of these before searching for terminal emulators to add to this list. Which terminal emulators have you used and why?

        I'm the kind of person who doesn't like spending a lot of time with configurations. I don't have a dot files repo. I don't even have a personal vimrc file. I tend to just use whatever comes with my Linux installation.

        This is a lie these days, actually, because I just realised that I copy over my home directory to the new computer. And I always install tmux.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Gemtext can be worse than plaintext

          Recently I was thinking about the limitations of gemtext, and how to work around those. For inspiration, I started thinking about how those issues were handled in other limited formats. I thought back to what's often considered the most limited format: plaintext files.

          Plaintext is limiting because it has no formatting at all. There are no semantic elements. That's also part of it's strength, allowing it the most universal support.

        • Gemtext Whitespace Comparison: Amphora vs Lagrange

          This is a test that emerges from @Zelena's [frustration] with whitespace handling in Gemtext, and her [request] that browsers "Do not strip whitespace." Her claim that "Gemtext can be worse than plaintext" is worth considering. It is also an experiment that feeds into my essay "Between Two Chairs: The Problem With Gemtext". If you don't like a lot of blah-blah, consider this post to be the Cliff's Notes version of that essay.

        • Oracle Cloud might screw me over

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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Corporate Media: Blame the People Who Enter the Abandoned IBM Buildings, Not IBM for Abandoning Workers in Pursuit of IT Sweatshops
When the media spreads falsehoods stocks can go up (a lot higher), but at whose expense and how long for?
SUEPO Munich Report on the Recent EPO Demonstration and Rolling Strikes That Continue to Grow
"increasing registrations for the 'rolling strikes' running until autumn"
Gemini Links 11/07/2026: Old Computer challenge, Poems, Antenna, and More
Links for the day
 
Blogs May be Making a Comeback (They're Not Fediverse, They Are Joined by RSS Feeds)
Don't fake expansion where none existed
ChromeOS and GNU/Linux in the United Kingdom Reach 11%
the UK shows signs of digital maturity
Canonical is Selling Microsoft, It Pays The Register MS to Sell Microsoft
It's all about money to them. And they call this journalism.
When Red Hat's HR Becomes the Same as IBM's HR (Bluewashing)
Red Hat keeps sacking very experienced engineers and adding temporary interns
GNU/Linux Growing in East Asia
Assuming this is more or less accurate, we could use a plausible explanation
Over a Week After Microsoft Discontinued Some XBox Models It Apparently Exits Some Markets Altogether
We seem to be witnessing the end of XBox
Links 11/07/2026: "Trademark wars of Influencer Culture", Xinuos Uses Copyrights Versus UNIX
Links for the day
North America: GNU/Linux Measured at 10%
To better understand what contributes to the gains
Following Corrections and Adjustments statCounter Sees GNU/Linux at 7.1%, an All-Time High
There is a lot of layoffs at Microsoft this month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 10, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, July 10, 2026
Links 11/07/2026: Wednesday-Saturday News Catch-up
Links for the day
Prioritising High-Importance News
In order to fully catch up with news we'll not publish many new articles until next week
The Register MS: "AI" More Than 80 Times in One Article. But It's Not an Article, It's Sponsored Keyword-stuffed Page.
The Register MS is being paid to actively promoted this scheme
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 09, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, July 09, 2026
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 08, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 08, 2026