Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • cd collection

    Around six months ago I swore off streaming services and started moving to a personal, curated music collection. This is mostly a digital library, but also involves collecting CDs.

    CDs are a great medium to build a collection of: cheaper than vinyls, more tangible than FLACs. Acquiring the CD for an album is a level of commitment that builds a real relationship to the collection. I couldn't name every album I've purchased digitally but I bet I could tell you every CD.

    I'm going to start documenting new pickups here with a little background on each as an easy discussion topic. I'd love to hear if any readers have a relationship to the music I talk about here.

    The focus will be more on my connection and the story around the CD rather than the content of the music itself. I think those stories are part of the magic of a physical music collection.

  • Ascetic consuming

    At the start of 2025, I made a resolution to only buy things that were already on the island of Oʻahu (where I live). It went pretty well! I agonized over violating the rule and ended up a) buying a lot less and b) convinced that the things I did have shipped here will be useful to my family for a long time.

    In 2026, I'm not being strict with myself about it anymore. But the practice generally remains in place. (And I've talked about it enough that my wife also factors this idea into her shopping habits as well.)

  • gundam 2: the gundamning

    So far, I've spent around three or four hours meticulously cutting pieces of plastic out from the sheets (I think they're called "gates") and carefully trimming away any plastic nubs with a craft knife. This much commitment has provided me with a torso, a head, and one arm.

    I'd say I'm definitely hooked. It's a very pleasant high-focus activity that my distraction-riddled brain is craving. It's also very easy to put down at any point and pick back up, so being interrupted is not particulary annoying, unlike something that requires a lot of engagement like making music, playing a game or similar.

  • finals week

    I wanted to drop by the pub, it's been a bit I think. as I've said in my last post, I'm about to graduate now. I had my final finals' week, all results seem to be in order. this is it. four years of university, just like that. the road ahead seems to be more unpredictable than ever. I wonder how leaving my friends will feel like. well, I'm not quite leaving them, I'll most likely stay in the same city as them still. this does not make anything easier, of course.

    this is a journey that started ~16 years ago, possibly more if you include kindergarten. sixteen years of 3-month summer breaks, and 9 months of whatever you needed to learn. usually an exam week per semester. usually a break in the middle. and now comes the time we break this cycle. almost. not really, since I'll most likely stay in academia but, close enough. I guess the roles switching is enough of a cycle-break.

  • Unexplainable things

    Today i read Divarins phlog and wanted to follow up on his question: "What is the least explainable thing you have witnessed?"

    Well, there are two encounters that come to mind:

    The first happenend when i was about ten years old. But let me explain, that i live in a house that is old... i mean really, really old. Definitively older than the United States and older than some states in the EU. For years we thought it was about 200 - 300 years old, but recent discoveries show that at least the stone foundations are about 900 years old. The half-timbered parts where surely rebuild multiple times, but the heavy stone foundations remained the same. Well, lets just say: I am sure this house is haunted in some ways. Most things never have bothered me, even as a child (you grow up with the weird stuff and for its normal to you), but one instance simply was weird. My parents where out for a dance in the community centre nearby, it was late (perhaps 22:00) and suddenly our dog awoke from her slumber, moved to the living room door and growled. The dog always was friendly, even to total strangers but this time she absolutely was not happy. I opened the door and heard footsteps from the lower level of the house, heavy, scratching steps and a door open and close. I mustered all my courage and went down to the ground level (the living room was in the first floor) but there was nobody. Even today, as a 42 year old man, the memory make the hairs at the back of my neck stand up.

  • Boxing journal: Note on boxing

    Focus on the knees power and legs flexibility.

    Squats daily. Focus on dropping down as quickly and smoothly as possible. Come back up slowly to build strength.

    The back leg carry most of the weight. One leg balance and squat.

    Push the feet away from each other. As soon as you raise one foot, the tension will push the foot away making it faster for the movement.

  • Mindfull

    I enjoyed reading keyboardan on mindfulness(1). I too find the mind-full expression to be unclear, and would tend to prefer a mind-less living.

    Where the mind goes, so the energy. It's particularly evident in dream practice. If you mind slip toward something else, the dream also slip in that direction. Giving the dreamworld this slippery, uncontrollable feeling.

• Technology and Free Software

  • The Steelport AI data centre(s) in Hamilton Ontario: what we know so far

    On March 2nd, Canada's National Observer reported on proposed data centres in Ontario that would total 2 gigawatts of new load on the electrical grid.[1]

    One of the reported data centre proposals is from Slate Asset Management, owners of the 800-acre former Stelco lands on Hamilton's waterfront, a site the company has branded "Steelport".[2][3]

    Slate's original 2025 application to Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) was for a 180 MW connection, and the request explicitly specified "data center" as the load type, according to my conversation with the journalists at the National Observer who broke the story.[4]

    Slate's connection request has since been updated to 400 MW, but no longer specifies a load type.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • SSL / TLS Certificates

      Do you already run a web server?

      If so, your server has probably already issued and used Let's Encrypt.

      (I like to use Caddy for this)

    • A Geminaut's View of Nostr

      In the mid-2010s, I was quite active on several social media sites: Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on. I began leaving them in 2017, and by 2021, I'd closed nearly every social media account I had. My focus turned to the small Web, such that in 2026, the majority of my general Internet browsing (not including YouTube and direct-messaging systems) happens in Geminispace.

      At the least, however, I'm still interested in the concept of social networking platforms and protocols. I haven't joined the Fediverse, but I sometimes scroll Mastodon for tech news and information. GNU Social intrigues me, as does Secure Scuttlebutt, AT, and Diaspora. So this week, I decided to give one such decentralized protocol a try: Nostr.^

      I've heard about Nostr for quite a while. It enjoyed significant popularity within cryptocurrency circles, but it currently seems to be steadily expanding to a larger audience. There's even a Nostr subspace on BBS.^^ The protocol has a straightforward architecture: clients create posts of various kinds, sign them with private keys, push those posts to relays, and the relays propagate the posts as far as possible. I love such simplicity, and I wanted to learn more about it.