Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Stuff; Dogs and Writing

    It's been more than two months, and I still want to put things onto this gemlog, so I count that as a positive. I also often wonder what to actually write. I'm at home because of disability. (It still feels so weird and imposter syndrom-y calling it that.)

    So, my life's not exciting, really, is it? Would I be repeating myself? Even now, I feel like I'm doing the same meta-talks about blogging here…

    So —I do like starting my paragraphs this way, don't I?— Soooo, my dog's curled up on the couch beside me after a day at the lake with fellow dog people.

  • RE: show respect - name things correctly

    A while back, Ava wrote a post that I enjoyed (as always), but at times offered a perspective that didn't entirely sit right with me. Ava's issue of concern is a lack of precision around labeling, using "vegan", "almost vegan" and "basically vegan" as examples.

    If you haven't read that post yet, definitely go do that. Ava is a great writer, and the post is well worth reading. I'll wait.

  • Re: Worth the wait

    "In an age of instant gratification" waiting, saving your pocket money, taking on a side job, working towards that goal with patience and sometimes impatience, with tears, with unexpected help from grandpa or so, with joy, with desperation because the path seems unsurmountable at times ... this shapes the way for a new guitar, or camera or whatever it was in my youth. To be honest: I sometimes miss this, because now I can just go out and pay for whatever I have decided to spend my money on. In the past I have put some money into a box every month and called it "Bastelkasse"[a]. So whatever I bought from this money I did not have to justify much. Of course, I ceased doing this at some point.

  • Pokemon Rejuvenation

    It's been a a few days since I've been playing, but recently I had a look at Pokémon fan games and picked Rejuvenation to give it a try. So, let's reminiscent about the first impressions.

    My little worry about: Can I get used to pixel graphics again after years of smooth, pretty and grande graphics, thankfully was unfounded. But then, Hades might not be pixelated, but it's also quite limited in it's maps, if that makes sense? And I've been playing that so much. Not as much Hades 2, because sitting with a controller in front of a MacBook Air is surprisingly not as much fun as craddling your Switch while reclining on the couch.

    But, Pokémon Rejuvenation.

  • The middle-aged Latin student

    When I was at school everyone was taught French from the age of 11, along with English language, English literature, maths, physics, chemistry, biology, history and geography. When you were 13 you had to decide whether to add Latin or German to that list of subjects, and drop two of them to give you eight to study through to 'O' level[1].

    That's quite a decision to make at a fairly tender age. My Dad was an engineer and he suggested that German would be the more practical choice, but he assumed that I'd follow a similar career to him and that I'd meet German engineers and perhaps even be able to work there if I could speak the language. This made sense, so I picked German, but I didn't become an engineer and although I met a lot of Germans over the following decades, every single one of them spoke almost perfect English.

    That youthful decision wasn't exactly wrong, it just didn't take into account that I was better at history and literature than anything technical, and I didn't predict how useful it would be useful to be able to read 'the mother tongue'[2]. Years later I realised I'd missed an opportunity, but I decided it would never be too late to start and so learning Latin went on my retirement bucket list.

• Politics and World Events

  • Of Course, Oklahoma

    Of course Oklahoman Republicans voted for the Trump nominee. Of course Oklahomans voted to put voting requirements in the constitution despite them already being in law and voting being safe and secure here.

    Every vote gets me hopeful for positive change in Oklahoma and I am so regularly disappointed by the voters here. They are indoctrinated to harm themselves and their community and do so on a regular basis. What an embarrassment. What a shame.

  • Two nations divided by a common language

    The sad passing of Dolly Parton puts me in mind of the only time I visited Tennessee.

    Even calling it a visit is an exaggeration. What I was actually doing was driving through, on my way from Atlanta to Louisville, KY in 2004. At the time, there was no reason linger and so we didn't.

    What we did need to do was stop for fuel, so we pulled off the highway into a gas station. Quite a rural affair, if my memory is being reliable. I've got no idea what the place was called.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Revive old computers with Haiku OS

    The idea was simple: don't throw away an old laptop just because Windows has decided that it is now a decorative object. Install Linux, put something lightweight like dwm on it, and suddenly that 10 years old machine has a purpose again.

    There is, however, a small problem. That tutorial is followed by another tutorial on how to install a window manager called DWM. Not everyone wants to learn dwm. And honestly, I can't blame them.

    DWM is great. I use it. I like the fact that I can spend an unreasonable amount of time configuring how windows behave instead of actually doing anything with those windows.

    But if you're trying to rescue an old computer for someone who isn't particularly technical, handing them a bare window manager and saying "don't worry, you'll get used to it" probably isn't the best strategy.

  • I have got my Game Bub fpga

    Game Bub is a completely open source FPGA platform by default it is configured with the Game Boy. It can run games on cartridges or on sdcards. There is a user interface to select the game to start.

  • AI and the Digital Resistance

    AI companies are laying off thousands of employees while promising a better future with less work. This article traces how the 2026 layoff wave, broken trust and digital resistance fit a pattern already seen with Keynes' 15 hour work week and the computer era, and asks where this cycle is actually heading this time.

    [...]

    Almost a century later, this rhetoric repeats itself almost word for word. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, tells his children to expect a three and a half day work week. Elon Musk claims that eventually no one will need a job at all. Leading AI companies publicly promise their tools will empower workers rather than replace them. At the same time, 2026 is seeing some of the largest layoff waves in recent tech history, at companies posting record profits, of all places.

    [...]

    Not every voice sounds this uncritically optimistic. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2026 about a concrete risk. AI, he said, could do to office workers what globalization once did to industrial workers. He therefore called for a credible plan for broader participation in the gains from AI development. This concern is not new, since economists voiced it already during the automation wave of the 1980s. Back then, it had little lasting effect on how productivity gains were actually distributed.

    [...]

    These numbers reveal something notable: the layoffs are not primarily driven by economic hardship, since most of the affected companies report growing revenue and profits. Officially, corporations usually justify the cuts with consolidation or efficiency gains tied to AI transformation. In practice, however, a significant share of the freed up money flows directly into building AI infrastructure. Oracle, for instance, estimates that its workforce reduction frees up 8 to 10 billion dollars for AI investment.

    [...]

    Whether today's AI investments in the tech industry are subject to the same kind of delay, or whether they form a lasting bubble, cannot be conclusively assessed at this point. What stands out, however, is the simultaneity of three developments: record investment in AI infrastructure, high valuations for the companies involved, and large scale workforce reductions, all while solid evidence of a corresponding economy wide productivity gain remains absent. Historically, this pattern is more the rule than the exception for new general purpose technologies, since high expectations paired with a lack of measurable benefit have shaped earlier introduction phases as well.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • limiting internet - week 3 update

      considering a tweak: what if i did all my selecting for the day - reading, music, videos etc - in the morning, moved those tabs to my "offline" account and treated that as if it's stuff i've downloaded for the day? these are the "allowed entertainments"? on one hand it would further validate having the laptop open, so that's a negative. on the other hand - it might prevent me from Random Backgammon or reading fanfiction on the phone? just having something more substantial to engage with instead, while not sucking me into algorithms... i can also simply practice keeping the lid closed and only opening it when i'm noticing a seeking behavior. (and then the evening hour of internet could be more free-form, just for relaxing?) not sure yet, seems like a lot of planned screen time. but maybe it's better to have Quality time on the laptop, than bullshit time on the ipad? might try it next week.