Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 03/05/2023: Scepticism of 'the State of Modern Computing'



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Sunrise and Bird Song 2023-05-03 (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

        This morning I went back to the same spot on the east side of the UAF hill and took some more sunrise photos. This time I did not get as much of that purple twlight effect, owing I think to the clouds being at a lower altitude. But I was still able to get a good number of nice photos from twilight to dawn.

      • Yretek - It seems I have fallen off the wagon

        Fear your wishes for they might become true, they say, or something of that sort. In my case I've got two: a promotion for which I had worked for so long and, on top of that, it seems I'm a game-master again. The curse with the first wish is that I have to go to another office. This came unexpected as there's actually a lot of work to do where I'm currently stationed. [...]

        It's that I've been posting less often. Not a big deal, to be honest, I don't want to be a slave to the Gemini, but it makes harder to come up with ideas for a new post. So, you see, that's the main reason for this one.

    • Technical

      • P E R M A C O M P U T E R

        I've ranted quite a bit on my phlog on the state of modern computing and the direction we're headed. And now with LLM being a fad, things have gotten so much worse yet again. A few weeks ago the Washington Post released an article (1) with therein a widget that lets you look up whether your website has been scraped by AI or not. I was dissapointed (but not surprised) to find out that they had scraped, not only my websites (ignoring robots.txt), but also gopher proxies, and presumably gemini http proxies as well. What this means is they likely slurped up all of gopherspace and gemspace as well. I do not consent to this. Anyhow,...

      • Gobs and gobs of gobs and gobs

        My bookmarks situation - across a variety of readers/browsers on a couple devices - is already an unknottable tangle of URL entropy. No time to go through it all, and possibly organize. And it goes without typing there's likely plenty of link rot therein. We're talking several hours of wading, renaming, deleting, nesting, becoming dissatisfied with organizational choices along the way, forgetting initial nesting guiding principles, etc.

      • The "Technological Futures" Letter

        Going back to 2010-2012, I was new in the industry, and I was so, so proud to be a programmer. In a time where a lot of rough things were going on in my life, I latched on to being a software hotshot as a core part of my identity and my self-worth.

        [...]

        It's all fucked up. I don't want to live in the future that Microsoft/Alphabet/OpenAI/Meta are selling, and I'm scared that many people will be badly hurt by it. Those companies are trying to push a narrative of inevitability so they can manufacture public consent for developing and releasing these things. I don't really know what I can do about it, but ever since I first read the small things manifesto, I've felt strongly like I need to do something. The truth is, I'm badly disillusioned by computing in general, and I'd like to accomplish at least something toward making computing work for people, not just companies. I'm just a person, not terribly bright and with a large number of regrets, but if I can, I'd really like to help work toward the right thing.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October