Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: ACHYSTK Wordo: PLASH

  • Injuries, and Furry Art Gallery Sites

    So, I've been meaning to write something, but after a couple of incidents online, and insanity at home, I finally ended up with a bit of a medical issue that's been getting dealt with since around the 25th. /Edema/, fluid retention in my left foot in this case, led to some issues, and while dealing with that, I wound up with a rather large blister. That's been driving my partner that I live with up the wall, freaking out that it's infected after it burst, and I had to reassure him that it's trying to heal, and all the things he thinks are signs are actually natural for wounds like this.

  • The Stranger by Albert Camus

    This is something I’ve been wanting to read for a while if only because people around me kept bringing Camus up as someone to explore at some point. He helped to introduce the idea of absurdism, that the universe is an uncaring place and that there is no meaning to our lives. This book really explores the idea through its main character, Meursault, who is utterly detached from the world and people around him. Eventually he commits a murder, yet continues this attitude much to the shock of everyone. He very much believes that life has no meaning and nothing really matters, acting as the vehicle for Camus to explore this idea.

• Politics and World Events

  • On the recent escalation of anti-trans politics in the United States

    A lot has changed since then. Between 2020 and 2024, state legislatures have introduced hundreds of bills aimed at enshrining discrimination against trans people, and even to prohibit any legal recognition of them. Conservatives have stolen the talking points from fringe radical feminists (who were almost universally marginalized and were never taken seriously just a decade ago) and successfully coopted both their messages and their public figures to advance the "Christian" nationalist agenda that would ultimately destroy both gay rights and feminist gains of the last 60 years.

• Technology and Free Software

  • take that, windows!

    I wanted to try some distros on my pc today, but apparently I don't have any USB sticks at home. None with more than 1 GB of space at least. Because of this, I acquired the most cursed USB drive in my possession. I've found an old windows 10 installation USB stick. One of those official ones. APPARENTLY, they have some really annoying write-protection going on. Like, not even just a "oh, let's give the volume a read-only attribute" type of thing. The firmware straight up forces the volume to be read-only. I had to go *flash* the *flash drive* firmware through some shady software I found on a Russian website. Hopefully didn't get anything problematic from it.

    On the upside, I now have a USB stick that says "windows" which boots up Debian :p

  • well. let's Moto

    ahhh there we go

    I spent the day setting up my Moto G Play (2024), as well as organizing tool component drawers, and other things of "to do".

    Phone is nice. Identical to last phone, minus warped screen

  • All the Terminals Left on Campus

    In my last post I said this one was going to be entitled "Some Old Computers I Found on Campus, 2016-2024", my intention being to present an inventory of treasures I've culled from dusty storerooms around the university where I work. But I found I was not able to really get a narrative handle on that topic, and just making a big list seemed rather pointless and uninteresting. So I'm doing what I often do when my initial ideas prove unworkable: scaling it back a bit.

    (Before I launch into my main topic, I should note that I do not typically spend my days scouring the campus for these relics. Instead, I work with the university's Surplus Coordinator, who sends me email when he comes across something he thinks I might be interested in.)

  • The ultimate weather apps

    One of the most fun aspects of being a Linux user is all the cool tricks one can play in the shell (or, command-line interface). Once you get a hang of it, it becomes your second nature like learning a second language. And it's fast! No bloated GUI or slow internet connection to worry about.