Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • ahole

    I'm sometime reminded
    of being an ahole.
    
    
    A good friend
    of mine once
    told me
    
    
    You know of
    a true friend
    when they can
    call you
    an ahole
    

  • Beautiful boy

    He was a beautiful
    Chilean boy
    Dark hair
    Strong eyes
    
    
    He had left behind
    a collection
    of books in my home
    
    
    The complete
    writing of
    Che Guevara
    
    
    I was hoping
    that I could
    keep his books
    

  • 🔤SpellBinding: DHWLNOI Wordo: SUETY

• Politics and World Events

  • Distrusting US arms dealers

    Well, I'm assuming that a NATO full of bootlickers would be great for Trump as he and Putin divvy up Europe.

    I bet every European country that bough US equipment is super angry right now.

    I am super angry because Switzerland, after a long fight against the new fighter planes, after considering Swedish and French fighter planes, decided to go with the planes that are the most expensive, the most unreliable (based on my uninformed opinions), and the most untrustworthy: the F-35.

    From a country that bullies its allies and betrays its friends, that switches off the satellite phones, the intelligence sharing, and whatever else it damn pleases in order to force a settlement. Which is within their rights, of course. But also disqualifies them as a friend for a generation, if you ask me.

  • Chainsaw politicians

    To put recovery from DOGE into perspective: In tiny Switzerland we elected prime right-winger Blocher into government and he ran the justice department for a handful years. And he fired a lot of people for efficiency. And the institutions are still struggling twenty years later. People fired find new jobs, new careers, early retirements. People staying work hard, burn out, are angry, work on projects and switch tracks before the projects run into walls. The institutional memory keeps shrinking as the new recruits are younger and younger. Suddenly the seniors have been here for just four years. It’s a disgrace. A festering wound. All the jobs are overwhelming and people are drained when they take these positions and they leave again or burn out or struggle or backstab.

  • Steven universe: vCJD edition chapter 2/ Enrtry for side B of vCJD

    In the 1990s a cow in a cattle ranch in Sussex England, was inflicted with a type CJD called sporadic CJD (sCJD).

• Technology and Free Software

  • Proprietary Software Hell

    The last few days have really shown me how the process of flying, staying at a hotel, starting new employment, etc., has become so inseparable from proprietary smartphone-based spyware that it almost doesn't even seem worth it.

    I'm on a work trip and initially I was pleased that American Airlines let me board the plane without their app - I was able to generate a code and get a paper boarding pass. However, the TSA now takes a photo of you and uses AI to determine if you are the person in your ID photo, which is just dystopian. Technically, a sign told me, I was able to opt out of this. However, I didn't even see this sign until after the TSA agent took my picture.

  • Relocation and localization

    Suddenly it turned out that my version of the game has mods with German and Spanish localization. Quests from them were immediately extracted and added to the capsule. German and Spanish rangers are invited to participate in the unbridled fun.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Using Bubble for gemlog comments. Is this Crazy?

      Last evening I was just thinking about some barriers that exist in gemini that kind of prevent people from interaction. Thinking of the web of (and this is weird to type) decades past, when we would read blogs and forums, and if we had something to say relative to the conversation, there would be a way to add a comment.

      Some blogs would not allow comments (and that’s ok, not everyone wants to deal with moderation / internet a-holes). Other blogs would “outsource” their comment system, as James Hague said[a].

    • A simple comment system for commenting on gemlogs

      1. Post a gemlog commenting on and responding to the original post. Be sure to link back to the OP in the post.

    • [Old] DANE and TLS

      Last year I wrote a post on gemini about gemini (ICK) musing over ways to improve TOFU trust and lend some extra credibility to TLS usage as an actual protective mechanism and not just security theater. I shared thoughts based on my experience with SSHFP which did something similar. Some recent gemlog content has brought this back top of mind, so I thought it appropriate to expand and follow up on the idea.