Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • illusion garden

    Daughter sick with covid. Woke up uncomfortable, asked for more blanket, went for a shower at 4am. Cat is now awaken, walks on me to make sure I know she wants to go out.

    I'm not in the best of mood. I had a drink Wednesday. Yesterday I though it would be nice to have some wine with spaghetti. I woke up fine, but with a tad of sadness and depressive feelings. I really don't like that side effect of alcohol. Why is it so noticeable lately? Is it worth feeling like shit for a couple drinks? I really have to keep that in mind next time I'm telling myself it's just a drink.

  • Electra twice; an opera, a play

    I had the excellent fortune to experience Electra's story in two renditions! First: the German-language opera "Elektra" by Richard Strauss. It's musically intense—well, I haven't developed a critical ear for music, so perhaps it's safer to say it's aurally intense—throughout.

    Electra's story is a revenge tale, a long-incubated protracted revenge that seems brimming-over until the deed itself. Spoilers necessarily abound from here on out.

  • new office chair mat

    You know that plastic mat that people use under their office chairs so the chair with wheels can roll around? I have an old one of those that sits on a carpeted floor at my desk. I have had that mat for quite some time and has cracked and gone under several iterations of duct tape repair. It has also lost chunks of plastic and patched again with the application of hillbilly welding. The situation has finally gotten to the point of disturbance and when I am disturbed, I gotta look at myself and see what's going on and seek for the next indicated action.

    In its current state, the chair looks pretty nasty, with all the cracks, black gummy adhesive residue, dried up spilt coffee, and whatever dust that sticks to it. There are also potholes where the wheels get stuck and now, has shards of plastic that cut into my legs when the wheels go underneath. Well, I got sick of this and thought about replacing it...but was directed to a different course of action.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Spooky sloppy contractors

    My over-the-range microwave stopped heating food all of a sudden. So I took it down to poke around and see if I can fix (or replace) it.

  • My Quest For Image Sanity

    Long ago when getting on the internet meant tying up the phone line, images on the web were simple. You would upload a jpeg or gif and move along. Webpages took forever to load. Things were simple, but insanely slow.

    Later on the png appeared and compressing images server side became popular. CMS tools like WordPress began creating different sizes for each image. And/or, as you uploaded the image it would be sent to a third party to compress, then sent back to your server.

    Today, people still compress server side and/or use a CDN like Cloudflare to serve the appropriate type of image depending on the situation.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Ineptness saved my evening 🍴

      After a few days away, we decide that we'll eat out when we get back. And as we're still on holiday (kind of), let's book that fancy-ish place we've never been.

      They take bookings on their web site, which is handy, but I always wonder if that gets through to the person handling the actual tables with pen and paper, especially if I booked close to the time. Well, it's not a problem, there are plenty of other choices if we don't get in.

      Friday night is busy and we have to park quite a way away. But there's time, and we walk past several other packed restaurants. Everyone's out tonight. Good thing we booked.

    • Lagrange 2

      A new major version means major changes. Lagrange 2 supports user data syncing, paginated view mode, and Tinylog feeds. Reading Gempub books is greatly improved, taking cues from e-readers. The UI appearance has been refreshed and fits better into modern OS design.

    • Lagrange 2 released 🎉

      A new major version means major changes. Lagrange 2 supports user data syncing, paginated view mode, and Tinylog feeds. Reading Gempub books is greatly improved, taking cues from e-readers. The UI appearance has been refreshed and fits better into modern OS design.