Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Arolla

    We drove nearly two hours to get down from our side of the Vallais and up the other side, into the Val d’Hérens, to Arolla. I hate cars so it was not a great experience, but it was nice to be there. With my father in law, hiking was out of the question but we still saw some beautiful mountains.

  • Reclaiming Clarity and Presence in a Complex World

    Modern life keeps asking for more of our attention than it returns. News feeds, device updates, and policy debates frame what “responsible” looks like while quietly extracting the time, emotion, and surplus that keep us steady. As the **Business & Conquest Dev manual** reminds, demand rarely disappears—it is redirected. When we do not guide that pull ourselves, someone else channels it through outrage cycles, platform dependency, or moral narratives that excuse harm as “necessary.”

    The **Active Business Tracker** names these draining constellations “monstrosities,” because they feel larger than us. Spotting them is not drama—it is due diligence. Each time a conversation asks you to be less present with your own priorities, or shames you for questioning who benefits, it is shaping a demand-pathway away from your household, clients, or recovery. Guarding the container—your health, relationships, solvency—is not selfish; it is the structural maintenance that keeps you capable of serving where it matters.

  • Navigating the Pressures of Modern Life

    Modern life often pulls us in directions that leave us feeling disconnected and uncertain. The systems around us—economic, digital, social—shape our habits and expectations, sometimes in ways that conflict with our own values. When the pressure to keep up becomes constant, it’s easy to lose sight of what actually matters to us, and to feel a growing distance from ourselves and others.

    Much of this tension comes from the way power is organized and enforced. The structures we live under often rely on force, whether visible or hidden, to maintain order and privilege. This can create a quiet sense of guilt or frustration, especially when we notice the gap between what we believe and what we see happening around us. The selective way society reacts to harm—condemning some acts while excusing others—can deepen this discomfort and make it harder to trust our own judgments.

  • Analog Updates

    I think this THAT analog computer order is going to fall through. When I placed the order, I did not realize that the De Minimis rule, which exempts items $800 or less from tariffs, had been revoked only a few days earlier. Now it looks that there will be an (approx.) $1500 tariff fee, and I know I can't afford that. Personally, I'm a fan of tariffs, and how President Trump is using them, so I'm not upset about that. But it is lame I did not know about the change in the De Minimis rule, which I had researched only a week or two before placing the order.

    I am continuing my studies in op amps, and learning some mathematics in the process. I discovered, with great disappointment, that the op amp book I was looking at, the 2nd edition of the Roberge book, is an incomplete project and has only two chapters in it. So I've had to revert to studying from the old scans of the 1st edition.

  • get the gunk out

  • Fall Outdoor Updates

    Continuing to do my jogging out by the Tanana, once every few work days, when it isn't raining. The temps are still warm enough that I can jog without any gear on. Except, I wear a hat, because the inside of my ears and eardrums are very sensitive to cold for some reason.

    I still enjoy going down by the ponds and the river. There is something about water and the movement and sounds of water that a find mesmerizing. I can become lost in the sight of so many ripples moving in unison across the surface. And likewise, the endlessly varied bubbling and crashing noises of water rushing through a rocky creek.

  • Relearning Connection: Practices for a Humane Online Life

    Numbness is protective—until it becomes the habit that shapes a life. After distance, upheaval, or feed-induced overload, connection takes practice. Balance isn’t a destination; it’s a cadence you rehearse.

  • When You're Feeling Fragile

    When you're stretched thin..
    like one more broken piece could collapse it all
    You might feel like exerting control..
    Yet there's a simpler move.
    

• Technology and Free Software

  • The Antique Phone Experience

    In furniture antique means at least a hundred years old but in the world of phones I’m seeing the word “antique” being used for all pulse dialing phones. Mine is 50 years old, it’s an Ericsson Dialog rotary dial phone.

    How? Via Bluetooth to a cellphone.

    Is this eco friendly? Nope, it’s another wallwart + the electronics in the Bluetooth box itself.

  • Comfort, Cost, and Complicity: Seeing the Systems Beneath Ease

    Much of modern ease is built on what we don’t look at: extraction masked as convenience, “neutral” platforms that tune our behavior, and the quiet drift toward harm we’d never choose explicitly. Seeing that gap hurts—and that sting is useful. It clarifies the tradeoffs and returns agency.

  • Finding Clarity in a Fast-Paced World

    Speed has a cost. The more our days fill with alerts, deliverables, and performative “catching up,” the easier it is to forget the simple fundamentals that keep a life or venture solvent. The **Business & Conquest manual** keeps reminding me of those fundamentals: *stable base first, aim by truth not wish, keep the moves small and repeatable, guard the container, channel demand consciously*. Without them, even bright opportunities become noise that diverts energy away from what is actually needed.

    Working through the **Active Business Tracker** is a practical antidote. Start by noticing the real drain—identify it plainly, map what is being siphoned, and give the pattern a name. When the system you’re in pushes you into reactive cycles, slowing down to observe, name, and trace the demand flow lets you choose a different route. Instead of forcing outcomes, you can follow the “flow over force” principle and steer momentum that is already available.

  • From Drained to Deliberate: Repairing Attention Without Rejecting Tech

    Tech isn’t the enemy; drift is. Our days leak through a thousand tiny seams—push alerts, frictionless feeds, “just one more” refresh. Familiarity makes it feel normal, which is why so many of us miss the cost until we’re running on fumes. The aim isn’t to go Luddite; it’s to restore choice.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • I Accidentally Wrote A Gemini Server

      A couple of weeks ago I moved my Gemini game SpellBinding to my own VPS server.

      For context, my games are absolutely minimal CGIs, under 40Kb written in C binaries. I wrote them that way because I am a minimalist, and my plan was to run them on a tilde I had an account on; as a good neighbor I wanted to use the absolute smallest amount of resources.

      Unfortunately, not all tilde users feel the same way (or realize that running their Python script is eating a sizeable chunk of the CPU). And tildes are run by people doing other things, who often don't notice (or care) that the Gemini server is down or that system utilization is way out of control. And sometimes they just decide to shut it down.

  • Programming

    • Custom servers with Fornax

      You can also provide your own buffer using wbuf_external. The buffer must survive this call; you must manage it separately.

      See time.c for a simple example.

      More complex situations may require adding states to the state machine. See serve_file and associated code in fornax.c for an example of how to load 4K at a time and send it using an additional state..

    • Generating C headers

      It is possible for the build system to recognize that "hello.h" didn't actually change, and skip re-compiling of "main.c", but most build system don't for performance reasons. Check for file modification time is one stat(2) syscall, check for file content requires open(2), read(2), close(2) and also some kind of hash calculation. It is inherently slower.

      I don't know if header generation is good idea for your project or not, I am just sharing my experience. I thought I've found a free lunch; there is none.