Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Maybe there are different kinds of lifters

    This was the question i finally asked myself today, and i'm both delighted and surprised to report that the answer appears to be "yes".

    In fact, not only are there two "sorts" of lifters⁰ but there appears to be a significant amount of genetic control expressed over this form of "specialisation". There are twin and family studies¹ which appear to show that muscular strength and power phenotypes are anywhere from 30% to 85% heritable! It seems reasonable then to think that this genetic contribution explains why some lifters excel at single-rep, high-force efforts ("burst") while others tolerate repeated sub-maximal efforts ("sustain") more effectively.

  • Rebuttal: Coffee and Tea and the Java and Me (by nytpu)

    Living here, you're somewhat accustomed to drinking tea (by parents and relatives). I've never liked strong tea. When I was at the uni, I started drinking roiboos - which by any definition is *not* a tea. It took me few more years to realize what I've stated: I *HATE* black tea. I can sometimes drink green tea - although I *REALLY* prefer water in such case. I can drink white tea - but then again, why bother? I simply don't like tea. Period. I am happy to drink "fruit" teas - but only if they do NOT contain addition of a black tea.

  • Having a kitchen that doesn’t suck makes cooking less unpleasant

    I wanted to agree with and amplify “dual-tub sinks are bad”. If you’re redoing your kitchen, get a ginormous single-tub sink. You want one big enough to easily wash your biggest pan in. Maybe, if you can swing it, one deep enough to easily wash a half sheet (like you’d bake on) in. Cleaning big things is way less unpleasant if you can just stick them in your sink and wash them yourself.

  • Dryer Repair Revisited

    Previously, I had written about fixing my dryer.[1] Well, I've had to open her up again a few more times, order some parts, and watch some videos. I think I have determined root cause, after a couple broken belts and swapping out the rollers and idle pulley. The motor pulley was worn out and had broke into 2 pieces. [2] Ordered cheap parts online, swapped out the motor pulley, and replaced the broken belt, and it works again for now. Hope it lasts. Not interested in replacing the appliance right now.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Well done Debian team

    I upgraded my VPS from debian 12 to 13 by

    * clearing enough space for the download (this was the most difficult part)

    * running "doas apt update && doas apt dist-upgrade" (my sources.d was set to track "stable")

    * rebooting

    and you know what? It just worked™.

  • Throwing barely-used features out of the web platform makes Andreas Kling’s job easier, and that’s a good thing

    Apparently a bunch of people are mad that they won’t be able to tell people about feeds on their feed URLs. Browsers can do this themselves, as one of the GitHub Issue commenters mentions. At the very least these feeds can have a comment in them — you know, <!-- … --> — explaining what’s going on, what a feed reader is, why you might want one, and how to add a feed to it.

    That seems like the only in-use use case. It’s cute, and it’s the kind of thing I’d do, but if Google and Apple and ESPECIALLY the Ladybird Browser Initiative can save some engineer time by jettisoning it, I’m enthusiastically in favor of throwing it out the airlock.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Mobile-indifferent design: refusing to design for phone-sized screens makes it way easier for a site’s personality to shine through

      You may have been exposing yourself to “you should make a website” propaganda, many of it linked to from this very capsule.

      You may be mulling over what your website will look like. Could look like. Might look like.

      I have a suggestion:

      Refuse to design around the limitations of a phone-sized screen. Be OK with visitors having to scroll left and right and maybe have to rotate it 90° to read anything if they visit your site on their phones.