Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • broken car

    The day was a write off. I didn't feel good. I woke up at 5am. Start cleaning up, working on random stuff. The cleaning lady was to come today but already called in late.

    My daughter who said she would help, is too tired. She barely can wake up. I'm annoyed.

    The cleaning lady comes in even later than planned. The landlord who are supposed to come on Monday haven't confirmed yet. I wanted to go to my psytrance party in the wood, and because all of that, I couldn't go.

  • distance away

    I fall asleep holding you
    near where my fears live
    hoping the distance away
    I wake up with you holding me
    

  • Using Fleng in Anger

    This gemlog post turned out a bit like one of those those "using X-lang in production" articles, but with more sloppiness.

    I wanted to try evaluate some choices for softare engineering, experimentally which is unusual. It's unusual because it can take too long. But I found a nice, constrained problem--a library for managing hex grid maps for video games.

  • Upping my history reading

    I start the first class in pursuit of my Masters degree in American History a little over a week from today and my focus has been on gathering books that will lean into a couple candidates for my thesis. Also, I am actively reading the required reading for the first course "From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods" by Martha Howell.

• Technology and Free Software

  • devuan

    A while ago I installed Devuan on one of my laptops. It took a few tries, probably due to user error, but I got it working. That machine (which I'm currently using) is not my primary, but I semi-regularly switch between stretches on certain laptops. It's actually my newest laptop, but there's some really, really weird issue with the mobo getting tucked into a weird space or something to where I have to flex the thing to pop it out. I only noticed because some of my keys (QWERTY K especially) weren't responding. But I figured it was a good candidate to experiment on. And I started using it today because my primary Thinkpad is having real issues with the battery: it either doesn't charge at all or charges extremely slowly. I'm guessing there's some physical issue or the internal battery is toast.

    Anyway, one reason I quickly went back to my Thinkpad was because I got an error directly installing Vivldi, my preferred browser. I was able to fix it by looking at a StakOverflo post that basically said the PATH variable wasn't set for root/sudo. Anyway, I got it set up and thanks to saving my config, my copy of Vivldi is working as if I never left. Really good stuff. I just need to copy/link/edit some config files for Lynx and Links (I seriously wish NOPAUSE was default on Lynx, but I get why it isn't).

  • Internet/Gemini

    • The original global communications hobby

      When I was 11, back in the mid-1970s, my parents bought me a transistor radio for Christmas. It was a Benkson medium wave and longwave portable, made in Hong Kong, which fitted nicely in the hand, ran for ever on a PP9 battery, and with it I discovered (although I didn't understand the physics at the time) the wonder of over-the-horizon radio communications.

    • Thundermail

      Thundermail is (or will be) an email service operated by the folk behind Thunderbird, the open source email client under the Mozilla umbrella. It is currently in closed beta, with early access being offered in waves to people on a waitlist.

      I am a long-time happy user of Thunderbird on Linux. I think it's really important that we have an open source, performant and easy to use email client. Not everyone seems to have had as peachy an experience as me but I have never had any significant issues with Thunderbird.

      Currently I use Mailbox.org for email and I have no complaints with that either. The webmail isn't the best, but given that (as mentioned above) I am using email clients to access it, the webmail doesn't really impact on me. As such, I'm not exactly itching to move email providers, but the idea of supporting my favourite email client through my choice of provider is tempting. So I signed up for the waitlist and was recently given access. Below are some initial thoughts.