Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Pictographs

    There are a significant number of pictographs around where I live. Not like Southwest numbers, but there are still quite a few. Some are well-hidden in the middle of nowhere, and others are quite close to "civilization".

  • 🔤SpellBinding: TEGIKNC Wordo: DROPS

  • Books of 2024

    (Incomplete) list of books I read in 2025

    It was not a year of a lot of reading, plus I did a lot of rereads. I'm here to have a good time.

• Politics and World Events

  • The 800 Pound Gorilla in US Politics: Non-voters

    Those numbers don't add up to 100%, obviously, because some people had multiple major reasons for not voting. I think it would surprise some people that apathy toward the outcome is close to the bottom on that list.

    The top reasons for not voting were that people feel that their vote would not make a difference, and that the non-voters disliked politics. Furthermore, I'd argue both are legitimate problems with the status quo, and that they should be fixed. I don't know how to fix them.

  • Despair.

    Lately I've been deep in a pit of despair about the internet and the world - and not really for the reasons you'd think, either.

    Everything, every word, has been watered down to the point of absolute meaninglessness. Every discussion on every topic has devolved into quips, one-liners, mantras, and absolute garbage hiding in a cloak of academic language.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Frustrations

    I lost my cool today. Video issues made me dump Linux on the Dell Latitude I had Debian on, and put Windows 7 back onto it as just a gaming laptop. I'm not giving up on Linux, but on that particular hardware, it's just not a problem I can really solve with satisfaction. As such, I'm doing things in my Debian VM on my MacBook Pro for figuring out my future workflow, and looking forward to getting a used/cheap Raspberry Pi in the future where I know the hardware solidly works with the OS.

  • Integrator Part 2 (publ. 2025-01-24)

    As mentioned in a previous post, I'm trying to dive into analog computing and differential equations. I would like to have the Analog Thing kit, but I cannot afford the $500 price tag right now.

    [...]

    That is a cool kit, though it lacks a few nice features like a repetitive run mode. But it is simpler to build, and the files needed for printing it and building it yourself are included in a repository.

    The only problem here is that the boards are of such a large design, that they are expensive to print, especially with minimum required quantities — OSHPark requires three minimum per board design. So, I'm just building the components on bread boards, using whatever similar parts I have on hand. Here is my first integrator, following the Grappendorf schematic: [...]

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Update · 🍀 gritty

      I'll be posting an update to Farkle today with two requested features: die-value selection input (vs position), and enable/disable of the logo and points table to assist smaller screens. If nothing breaks this should be up today...

    • First post

      Because the new web has been killed by all the companies wanting to centralize and control it, and AI will fill the void with fake users and fake comments. I could have created a site on any WordPress host but I don't want to encourage the bad practices that led us to this situation.

      Gemini feels like a mix of the very old web and the good old web, and that's something I might enjoy. As for "gemtext," despite its limitations, it is a good way to focus on the content itself. And if a feature is missing (like numbered lists, *italics*, or **bold text**), nothing actually prevents us from borrowing syntax from other languages like [reStructuredText] even if it's not officially parsed.

  • Programming

    • Devlog 1

      I've started work on a new project. Mostly, this is just an attempt to actually build something from scratch. Everything I've worked on previously has been either something very small like a script or an established codebase that I've helped out with. I thought it was probably time to see if I can work out a project end-to-end.

      As a bit of background, I'm currently unemployed. My ex-employer decided in their infinite wisdom that a product team wasn't a necessary part of a software company, and so fired us to instead piss around with ChatGPT. As a technical writer, the job market in Germany is pretty bleak. Many companies have never bothered hiring a technical writer, many more demand fluency in both German and English, and the rest seem to think that ChatGPT is good enough™ for their needs.

      So I decided to go back to programming and see if I can improve my skills enough to find work. The market isn't much better for programmers (well, junior/mid-level programmers), but it is slightly better.