Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 22/05/2023: Smolver Security Hole Fixed



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • 🔤SpellBinding: EILXPSM Wordo: LOXES
      • Music Index!!!

        This isn't really warranting an announcement... But I decided to carve out some of my music related posts into their own page. I often cite these posts and its nice to have a quick place to find them. I want to do more music related writing (even though I am bad at it) so I figured if I carve out its own page then maybe this can incentivize me.

        Every post I make is going to show up in my gemlog regardless - so I'm keeping my RSS feed the same. It'll just act as basically a "Tag filter"

      • Duolingo, Long Weekend

        Two weeks into Duolingo and I'm now in the Gold League (there's like, five or six tiers). Do enough lessons/get enough points each week, and you move up. So I have. I won my Bronze League by the skin of my teeth, then Silver last week pretty easily. I assume it will just get progressively harder. But, I'm sort of impressed. So many achievements! Gems! Shiny things! Challenges, and practices! The product managers have absolutely mastered the gamification of language learning, holy hell. Incredibly slick, engaging, no rough edges. And even a wicked sense of humour. One of my old online friends, much more fluent in Irish than me, started up again after a few months away. The first sentence Duolingo gave her: "I don't have time for five minutes a day."

    • Technical

      • Games Showcase: Hogwarts Legacy

        Hogwards Legacy, released this year, brings to life a world that many of us already know well.

        I’m not, I should say up front, a devotee of the series. I read and enjoyed some of the books, I watched and enjoyed the movies; and I think I understand why it’s been hugely successful. The world of Harry Potter is a fun, colourful place to allow one’s imagination to spend time.

        Still, it took me by surprise just how much I enjoy playing Hogwarts Legacy.

      • Sleepy morning

        Ah, okay. I'm typically in Amfora, and some related documentation seems to get me in the right ballpark. Thanks!

      • Internet/Gemini

        • One Week on Bubble

          The first week has been very useful for testing and bug fixing. Developing a multi-user system locally is a bit challenging, so many issues will only pop up when things are running live. I got up to v1.4 during the first week with some days seeing two upgrades.

          [...]

          Using Bubble for issue tracking is promisingly fast and slick. All the cross-referencing and social feature (when they work...) are as useful as expected. Perhaps this will indeed be a viable choice from a developer's point of view, and maybe Gemini users will prefer this to going on GitHub or some other web interface? I can see myself preferring this.

          The search feature will need some improvement: it shows issues as regular posts...

          Issue trackers are hidden from All Posts so their activity is a bit hidden from view, but that is probably for the best. One can always follow the issue tracker subspace for more visibility.

      • Announcements

        • Public Service Announcement - smolver Security Hole!

          I have found a security defect in v1.1.0 or later in smolver: if you have client certificate authentication configured, client certificates (.pem files) could potentially be served if a URL request for the file is received. This is worsened by the fact that per-directory config files, .smol.json files, which may contain authentication configuration data, are also serveable in the same manner.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM May be Sued for Mass Layoffs Via PIPs
Some whole threads (with all the long comments in them) recently got nuked by thelayoff.com
GNU/Linux is a Platform for Work (Usage Surges in Daytime)
GNU/Linux 15% in daytime
What I Learned in London
some ministers still help us in our fight for press freedom in the UK
At IBM, Workers 'Expire' Early ("Next Step" is 'Voluntary' Layoffs Decades Before Retirement Age)
It seems like the "new normal" is layoffs not existing or barely existing because companies hide them
 
Falkland Islands: GNU/Linux Elevated to 6%
GNU/Linux usage seems to have increased a lot there
Links 16/08/2026: Reading Outside, Going Offline More, and Art of Computer Programming
Links for the day
The Question of Patience
Is there a lesson here somewhere?
Links 16/08/2026: Ceuta Reports Social Control Media Used as a Weapon
Links for the day
Links 16/08/2026: Europe in Crisis of Droughts While Energy- and Water-Consuming, Pollution-Emitting Chatbots Are Spread by GAFAM (US) to Keep a Ponzi Scheme Going
Links for the day
We Need Rain, Not Chatbots
There's no "anti-AI" (it's not even AI), there's opposition to fraud, to plagiarism, and to companies that profit more when there's global warning (caused in part by their business activities)
SLAPP Censorship - Part 151 Out of 200: Dealing With Sleazy People and Companies That Steal (While Employing These Sleazy People)
we offer a quick summary and we're reflecting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 15, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 15, 2026
Gemini Links 16/08/2026: Sterrenkijker Releases, Solar Gemini Server
Links for the day
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XVI - The German State Does Not Enforce the Law Against European Patent Office Officials
It's not acceptable that Europe's second-largest institution can get away with crime time and time again
Germany's National Broadcaster (DW English) to Air Julian Assange Film This Coming Week
It seems rather sad that we live in a world where rich thugs can get away with so many horrible things
WordPress is Bloatware and Bloated Software Guarantees Security Incidents
This site turns 20 in about 11 or 12 weeks from now and it was never cracked, not even when it ran WordPress
Too Many Chiefs (or Chefs) at IBM, They Don't Know How to Run a Company (With a 100+ Year or Century-Old Brand Recognition Advantage)
It seems like a consensus opinion; some line managers or middle managers are too selfish or self-deceiving
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on Gym Equipment Can Endanger Several Parties
Joy oh joy! Give us more "smart" things
Microsoft Silent Layoffs This Month (PIPs and More "Buyouts", Driving Out the Workforce), According to Insiders
They know it's happening because they see it and fellow workers talk about it, even if the media keeps mum
Clacton's Election Was a 'Show Election'
At least some people squeezed out some "free press" out of this charade [...] That the media kept boosting parodies as the alternative/s to the bigot is a topic we wrote about a great deal over the past 3 weeks
Omarchy is Already Dying
Same as the life cycle of slopfarms
A Vortex of Beacons (or "Bluetooth Everywhere" Vision)
If someone (or someones) calls you paranoid for taking about "beacon"-like functionality, there will be no lack of authoritative citations (e.g. Web links) they can be provided to prove them wrong
Windows is Burning
Windows is the "burning platform" of the year
Gemini Links 15/08/2026: Stress, Jetlag, and GPU Hype (Waste of Energy for Amusement, Fake 'Currencies', and Now for Mass Plagiarism)
Links for the day
Links 15/08/2026: XBox Rotting Further, "France’s Top Court Strikes Down Ban on Social Media for Children"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 150 Out of 200: Always Independently Verify What People Claim to Be (or Find Yourself in a Jason Arday-Type Moment/Dilemma)
I'm not a cardiologist and Garrett was never a security expert
Links 15/08/2026: "There Is No A.I." (Slop Plagiarism Isn't Intelligence) and Its "Impact on the Environment Is Absolutely Horrifying"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/08/2026: Gratitudes, "Microflier" Drones, and Literate Programming
Links for the day
IBM's PIPs and RAs (Layoffs) Going on, Interns as 'Scabs'
It seems like a consensus (also in Reddit, we took a quick look)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 14, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 14, 2026
Gemini Links 14/08/2026: Slower Internet, Logging Off Made Easy, and Human Code
Links for the day
Links 14/08/2026: "Mystery of Dark Oxygen", People Despise Slop, and Backlash Grows Against Fake Currencies (Energy-Wasting Scam Like Slop)
Links for the day
Free Publicity
They say there's no such thing as "bad press" or that every publicity is good publicity, sometimes free publicity
Farage's fears, media hijacked by-election, what really happened in Clacton
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
It's Friday. A Ton of People Departing From IBM and Red Hat.
A mere subset of people who announce this in public at Microsoft's LinkedIn
GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Beyond 11%
Combined with ChromeOS, it's already past and beyond 11%
Chatbots/LLMs Are the Next "Clown Computing", Pure Hype, a Serious Mistake
Programs that scan text and emit something similar (but full of errors)
Links 14/08/2026: Slop 'Music' Causing Problems, Slop Data Centre Contractor Unpaid (Massive Debt), and The Cyber Show Says We're "Colonised By Wankers"
Links for the day
Fake Growth of Social Control Media is Misleading
nowadays people look for alternatives - ones not controlled by MElon, CPC, and Kapo-Berg
statCounter: Windows Down to All-Time Low of 25%, Android Leads the Pack, GNU/Linux About to Leapfrog Apple, Overtaking MacOS
The situation was very different in past years
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (Including 'Voluntary' Secret Layoffs) Take Their Toll on Seattle
How much longer can they hide their crises?
Planet Fedora ("Fedora People") is Just IBM Staff, Former IBM Staff, and LLM Slop
this is what Fedora boils down to now
Explanation of What Will Happen to Red Hat (and Other Acquired Companies) After August
In short, a lot will be scuttled; history shows it happens over and over again
SLAPP Censorship - Part 149 Out of 200: It Took a Long Time to Show What Jason Arday (at Cambridge) and Harvey Weinstein (in Hollywood) Really Were
Really bad when society endures abuse because the abusers silence their exposers
Gemini Links 14/08/2026: 32-bit RISC-V and BlackBerry
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 13, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 13, 2026