Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 17/09/2023: The Rehearsal and AuraGem Music Bugfix



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • In Which I Finally Meet Spaghetti Pete

        For years we've been hearing about one of our friends' infamous former roommate. They became roommates, the story goes, when our friend answered a classified ad for a roommate that ended, "must like beer." He responded back with, "Hey, I'm looking for a place to live, and I like to drink beer." And this is how he became roommates with the guy that became known as Spaghetti Pete.

        Spaghetti Pete is the sort of guy who likes to have a good time: when he's not working, he's either at a party, or throwing a party. You'll always be offered a beer. And every now and then Spaghetti Pete gets ideas about something that sounds like fun.

      • where's bartender

        I've ordered a tea 6 months ago and still didn't get it. Have you seen ~bartender recently? Is he doing okay? If he's on a vacation, then we need to urgently find a replacement. What kind of pub is it without the most important person, without whom people cannot get drunk?

      • TV Showcase: The Rehearsal

        The “mockumentary” has held a place in my heart since “Borat” (2006).

        A mockumentary is a humorous production in the style of a documentary; “real life” participants interact with, usually, a very smart comedian playing a character.

        As a format it goes places nobody else can go, gently—or sometimes not so gently—poking fun at life with deadpan humour that I find immensely entertaining.

        More recently the UK series “Cunk on Earth” took a few episodes for me to get into, but left me convinced that the production is a work of genius. It’s worth watching the whole thing just for one scene about nuclear weapons—and ABBA.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Beangate

        The trick here is to make something old sound like a modern political scandal. Anyways, the foundation of modern Western mathematics is (or was) wrapped up with a number of, uh, strange views. The rational mind may put these rules down as "woo" or "humbug", but here we are. Here's a sample.

    • Science

      • stream 5

        i think there is something important even though it seems like there's not. it seems like everything is either important or unimportant, but if everything is equally important, then it also feels like every thing must be unimportant. I think there is a lot of beauty in the subtlety of sometimes adding line breaks and capital letters at interesting times and places to tweets and like that things. I think it matters to every character. every char. characters as people as letters and numbers and symbols inside of strings. what beauty what love what mystery is encoded in the strings of us our DNA or our actions logged in coordinate maps through all time through all places.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Ennui Institute

        I've been thinking about smol.pub all day so figured I'd give it a go. "For the price of a cup of coffee," and cetera. I've spent the bulk of my life, adult and otherwise, On Line and sweet peaches does it suck for the most part these days, a few small circles of community notwithstanding (1). I'm enamored with the idea of a simple posting platform, and have experimented a little bit with markdown-generated static sites (2) for accessible text-first tabletop role play adventure writing, which I've enjoyed, but I want to go simpler. This dovetails with a vague plan to Raspberry Pi Zero myself a markdown editor hobby PC, one which should really sputter under modern web conditions by design.

      • ChatGPT Writing Gamebooks and Pangamebook 1.6.0

        The new algorithm for shuffling gamebooks that I implemented yesterday caused all sorts of bugs in Pangamebook. It also revealed one or two old bugs I just had not noticed before.

      • Kvetching - Tech - The Machine Stops

        Once a month or three I do Fediverse. Tried to-day. Within 7 minutes, I was physically ill, my gut contorted, my shoulders tense. And this, not from reading bad news or uncouth disagreement. No, sick just from the biotic effect of the technology, even with pleasant pictures of pixelated kittens and amiable company. Within 20, I was writing irate re-replies to autie reply guys. 25 minutes later, I shut it all down with a sigh of relief.

      • Nothing much ...

        ... to say today. It's been a great weekend after a couple of quite crunchy weeks, but now I'm staring down the barrel of another few weeks of serious knuckle-down. All good, can't complain, I love my job! But I'm looking forward to things easing off a bit at some point.

        In the spirit of directionless rambling, I noticed just this afternoon that I'd received an email from the FSF advertising the upcoming 40th birthday of the GNU project. Amazing that it's been that long! Amazing also, that one of the two events they're hosting will be in Switzerland, and just a bit over an hour's train journey from where I live. There's even to be an RMS keynote!

      • Internet/Gemini

        • AuraGem Music Bugfix

          The bandwidth throttling of music files was on a global basis by accident, which meant that it was throttling bandwidth for the sum of the bandwidth of all connections. Now bandwidth throttling happens per connection, which means there can be concurrent connections of 320 kbps streams running.

        • Language log no word for x archive

          A list of articles documenting claims that some language has some amount of words for some concept.

        • slow updates

          I’ve been thinking it’s painful to update the main page and I’m pretty slow to push updates. I’m imagining I can solve this with a new tag, that when present, will automatically get added to the index and I can grab all the files that match this year. Or maybe the last N posts… I’ll try for the current year to begin with.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): The OSI Election is Rigged, Biased Against People Who Oppose the Openwashing of GPL-Violating Bots Operated by Microsoft for Profit (OSI Gets Paid to Promote This)
they reckon that pretence of calm would serve them best, helped by puff pieces
In Vietnam, statCounter Sees Microsoft Windows Falling Below 7% "Market Share"
Can Microsoft still demand $500 or more per Windows licence?
Fresh IBM Layoffs Reported in Europe and North America, Jobs Allegedly Moved to South Asia (Low Salaries)
As usual, IBM does not talk about this
The Ludicrous Mythology of Commonality as Signal of Value, Merit, Popularity
Devalue what's true, promote marketing?
 
Microsoft Has Not Much Left to Show Investors, Shares Fall Almost 20%
It's not even clear how Microsoft makes money anymore
Links 11/03/2025: Spring and Misfin Server
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 10, 2025
Latvia (and Lithuania) Stepping Away From GAFAM, Microsoft
Windows becomes unessential as Android and GNU/Linux rise
Microsoft Layoffs Are Infectious (Don't Get Acquired or Become a Partner)
It seems like companies choosing to become "buddies" with Microsoft are dooming themselves and their products
A Closer Look Inside the EPO, Courtesy of Benoît Battistelli's Submissive Lapdogs Roberta Romano-Götsch and Elodie Bergot
new report comes from the Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN)
Links 10/03/2025: Staff Strikes, Mass Layoffs in Gaming Industry
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/03/2025: "Eat The Rich" and Two-Year Anniversary of the 'Space Elevator' Orbit (Like 'Webring')
Links for the day
Links 10/03/2025: Small Web Praised, LLM Chatbots Exposed as Worse Than Useless Again
Links for the day
A Call for GNU/Linux and BSD Developers to Unite Against GAFAM and the Regime They Empower
We have long encouraged and continue to encourage people who value Software Freedom to altogether boycott GAFAM
[Video] Richard Stallman on the Four Essential Freedoms (Manuel Cuda News, 2025)
Added to a channel several days ago by Manuel Cuda News
Gemini Links 10/03/2025: Realisation About Young People, Punks, and Discord IPO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 09, 2025
[Video] Richard Stallman on Understanding the Misconception of So-called 'Artificial Intelligence'
to "know and understand"
FSF's Defective by Design (DBD): Amazon Tightens the Digital Handcuffs
Reproduced verbatim
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Plenty of Issues, Plenty of Censorship
The OSI is abusive on many levels!
EPO Staff Appraisals Apparently Benefit Kakistocracy, Including Cheaters Who Grant Illegal Patents and Punish Good Patent Examiners (Who Find Valid Reasons for Denials)
In prior reports the staff representatives said that rewards typically went to people who granted many patents, i.e. didn't do proper examination and instead just allowed many fake patents get enshrined as EPs, causing fiasco (from which some patent attorneys could profit)
As The Web Gets Drowned Out, Sinking in a Pool of LLM Slop, Real News Sites With Real News Become Increasingly Rare If Not Extinct
This is a real problem
Links 09/03/2025: Moderna Patents Thrown Out, Climate United Sues E.P.A.
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Lagrange 1.18.5 and Writing Mannerisms
Links for the day
Links 09/03/2025: FiveThirtyEight Killed by Disney, Nature (Journal) Chooses Suicide by Slop
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2025: International Women's Day, Software Patents Being Squashed
Links for the day
Hiding Problems Doesn't Work
transparent organisations will be more stable and sustainable
The Harder They Try to Censor, the Bigger the Scandal (and the Impact) Will Be
We don't plan to self-censor our coverage; sometimes we just delay publication a little
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Leasehold Derangement Syndrome, Raspberry Pi, and More
Links for the day
All-Time Low for Microsoft in Africa
it helps show how irrelevant Microsoft is becoming
French woman (frontaliere) trafficked to promote unauthorised cross border Swiss insurance
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
New York Times & Guardian reporting on Modern Slavery Act prosecution of Glodi Wabelua
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Diana & Adrian von Bidder-Senn, EVP, Palm Sunday & Debian death on wedding day
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The RTO (Return-to-office) Layoffs or 'Soft' Layoffs at IBM and Red Hat
There are certainly many layoffs going on there, but many are described as "resignations" or "retirements" after RTO or some other form of relocation
Under the Pen Name "John O'Donnell" (LLM Slop, Not Real Article or Author) LinuxLinks Pushes Spammy Page
it happened some hours ago.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 08, 2025