Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 23/05/2023: Bubble v2.0



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Big gold medal 🏅

        I once heard on a podcast about Brian Schmidt's experience with a Nobel prize medal. It's a nice story which you might enjoy reading.

        But mostly I had trouble finding it, and that will be easier next time if I post a link here.

      • Into the Odd

        Into the Odd Remastered by Chris McDowall, published in 2022, is horror dungeon- and hex- crawling with swords, guns, and strange magical artifacts, stripped down to the minimum of rules, set in an unmappably large weird world full of strangeness and inconsistent technology (an abandoned pier of amusement rides is mentioned, but weapons are single shot), and dominated by one huge city, Bastion. It is a complete game full of weirdness and danger in 144 pages.

    • Technical

      • Nwg shell for Sway

        As a follow up, I found a pretty cool project called Nwg Shell which provides a lot of the functionality that you might miss from a full blown desktop environment, but for Sway specifically.

      • Lo-Fi Machine Learning

        And we don't entirely know yet but part of the hope is that by starting with a stripped down library that's not built for Big Machine Learning but is, instead, built around being understandable and extensible and implements as much from scratch as possible: everything from markov processes to baby's first automatic differentiation library

        It doesn't have to be super efficient if we're focusing on small datasets and intentionall janky uses of ML for artistic purposes.

        So I've been brainstorming a lot of demos and collecting resources the past few days and we're going to be writing a grant to help support our work as faculty members at the college basically all of next month.

      • Science

        • Male contraception with a ring

          And here we are 3 months later, after a new test at the lab and I am at 700k/ml, which is considered infertile. So I'm on birth control, woohoo!

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Bubble v2.0: Fundamentals

          GS.org has been updated to Bubble version 2. There is a bunch of new features and some bugfixes to improve the fundamental features of the system.

        • Server was broken

          Apologies to anyone who made the unfortunate mistake of attempting to view this capsule or otherwise make requests of it any time from Sunday through to just now today.

        • A hiatus for ^Z, and other things

          The zine, Ctrl-ZINE (^Z) is taking a break. It's been monthly for three issues, but despite people saying they will send in content, it never hits my inbox, so I will let some entries "pile up" (if they do) and go from there.

          But it's still around

          Also, someone put on their blog a list of other blogs they like to read, and some of them are daily logs, and I think "I remember when I actually *liked* doing that stuff!". I suppose expiration dates come for everyone, especially if they have been doing the same thing for so long.

        • Summarizing HTML: a quixotic and questionable quest with an overly long subject that has excessive alliteration

          A foolish errand might be to try to parse HTML, wherein one may experience (again) that HTML can and does omit closing tags, which may cause your most elegant parser to pear. Also the fancy and clean Object Oriented parser... the code is maybe pretty, but it takes pretty long for it get through the 340,239 characters of the random page linked from some RSS feed.

          A not terrible option might be to pipe the HTML through w3m, as w3m does a pretty good job of textifying HTML. This still has problems, as there is no content on the first page of the display, and the handy "skip to main content" link takes you to a "trending" section which, again, has no content. Lucy, with the football. Another page down or three there is the actual content to be had; this is actually not too bad as web pages go. For something like github or reddit I often start paging, my eyes glaze over from all the noise, and suddenly I'm at the bottom of the page having missed what little content there might have been. Also w3m can render things too far indented and unwrapped if there's some table insisting that the text be like that.

        • Re: Exploring Federation and Public Communication On Gemini

          I had promised myself that I would write at least one non-technology-related article before writing a techcetera one. Which is why I haven't posted in two months. Breaking my promise, there's this.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Estimates That IBM to Lay Off Close to 10,000 Workers in 2026 (Not Counting People Pushed Out)
There's still chatter about Confluent mass layoffs
Sophie Brun, Raphael Hertzog & Debian sexual conflicts of interest
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 15 Out of 200: Background and Particulars of Truth Regarding Techrights and Tux Machines
the basic facts (this has aged well, except the times/ages/numbers)
A Slopfarms Survey for Today (linuxteck.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com)
Not only did Google news link to a slopfarm; it linked to three run by the same team!
Links 18/03/2026: "Venture Capitalist Warns That It’s All About to Come Crashing Down" Due to Slop Bubble, "Birdwatching for Fun and no Profit"
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat is Still Promoting Restricted Boot Which Restricts Users' Control Over Their Computers
Red Hat under IBM is a total catastrophe
Arvind Says... Something Something "Hey Hi" (the State of Today's Media)
Look for news about IBM and most likely it'll boil down to some sound bites from an executive and nothing else
New Post Has Just Explained How IBM Gets Robbed by the People Who Fail IBM
Their plan for IBM is a personal plan
Slop-Spewing GAFAM LLM That Knows Nothing and Understands Nothing, It's a Stochastic Parrot That Cannot Even Figure Out Tux Machines is a Community That Started in Tennessee 22 Years Ago
RMS rightly calls those things "bullshit generators"
Cusdeb Makes New Presentation About Where GNU Hurd (Still a Possible Linux Replacement) Stands in 2026
coming from a generally RMS-friendly account
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Librarians, Phone Anxiety, Growing 'Small' Net, and Slop Versus Software Engineering
Links for the day
Smug Threat by Garrett to Put My Family and I in Prison Doesn't Prove We Did Anything Wrong, It Only Proves He's Truly Desperate to Stop Further Publications That Embarrass Him
his reputation is poor in the United States
systemd Increasingly Microsoft Project, Controlled by Microsoft and Slopware
Cannot allow choice
What IBM Meant to Red Hat: "Proprietary Bundling, Restricted Source Access"
Anyone or anything that joins IBM likely shortens its lifespan
IBM Thrashing Confluent Upon Arrival, Based on Rumours
We deem it a bigger issue that investigative journalism perished, not that one must rely on hearsay online or mere "rumours"
Slop Is Plagiarism, Not (Vibe) Coding, and It's Not Automated, It Doesn't Save Money
Reject misnomers, explain what's actually happening
UPC is Still Illegal and Unconstitutional (Kangaroo Court for Patents, Manned by Corporate Staff), Federal Court of Justice of Germany Receives Belated Complaint About It
What is happening to Europe???
EPO Demonstration Happening Right Now, Later This Week Things Will Only Escalate Further
The SUEPO The Hague Committee wrote to staff this morning
Links 18/03/2026: Commodore's Hedley Davis Dies, Apple Not Good Enough, Cheeto "Floats Treason Charges for Iran War Coverage"
Links for the day
A Step Close to Shutting Down the European Patent Office (EPO)
Not going to work all month long
EPO Staff Demonstration Today
The demonstration will be live-streamed for those thousands of colleagues who don't live in Munich
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Brazilian SYN Attacks and BGP
Links for the day
LibreLocal Also Coming to Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Spain
It helps raise awareness of Software Freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 17, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: Men Who Strangle Women (and Worse) Trying to Force Us to Write Public Apologies to These Men
For those who never before saw a SLAPP, they basically make many demands
Instant Bluewashing at Confluent: Mass Layoffs Alleged at IBM
So the main question is, did IBM just fire 800 people?
"Vibe-forking" and Why It'll Ultimately Fail (Hype on Top of Hype)
Code made with LLMs sucks; converting solid, human-tested code into slop only complicates matters and increases risk
Updates About Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation
After all those years (a decade) and in spite of phony scandals many people out there still respect him
LLM Slop With "Linux" in the Domain Names
This is becoming a pain and a problem also in the arts and in software engineering
The EFF Has a Bug, Fixing This Bug is Likely Not Possible Anymore
"the EFF's continued existence impairs the arrival of a replacement organization, one which will actually champion digital rights."
Links 17/03/2026: Microsoft Windows Broken by Samsung, Afghanistan-Pakistan War Escalation
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/03/2026: Newcomers and False-Positive 'Slop'
Links for the day
Héctor Orón Martínez & Debian shadow candidate pressure on Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 17/03/2026: American Fentanylware (TikTok) Investors Implicated in Kickbacks, "Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast"
Links for the day
For Third Time in a Week The Register MS Runs Google SPAM That Paints Google as an Ally of Women (Which is False, They're Womanisers)
What does that make The Register MS to women?
British Justice Minister Sarah Sackman Blasts Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The "legal industry" is due for "some reckoning"
GAFAM Deprecating Old Videos ("Content") by Removing the Support for Their Format for No Good Reason
"Security" is not a valid excuse
Credit/Debit Cards Have Long Been Called Plastics, Over Time They're Becoming More Like Pure Plastics
They cost less than a dollar to manufacture
The European Patent Office (EPO) Holds a Public Demonstration Tomorrow and It'll be Live-streamed
The EPO's workforce was meant to be capable of speaking many languages and have extensive experience in the sciences
People Who Attacked Techrights Also Attacked My Mother
Picking on old ladies because you don't like Free software advocates is never OK
Little Community Element Left in CentOS
CentOS, unlike Fedora, was meant to be long supported and solid
Social Control Media is Cancel Culture (Companies Like Facebook Also Punish/Ban Accounts for Mentioning "Linux" and Lobby for Anti-Linux Legislation)
The masters of Social Control Media decide what ideas can and cannot be expressed
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 16, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 16, 2026
Someone at Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is Censoring the Birthday Greetings to Richard Stallman
Some people remember
The European Patent Office (EPO) Illegally Transitioning Into 'Gig' 'Economy' Equivalent (a Shop for Patent Monopolies in Europe)
for scabs aka SEALs
At Least Six EPO Strikes Next Month (Yes, Six!)
The pressure intensifies over time
Several MPs Blast Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Inaction and Ineffective Action This Week
"Four MPs have written to the SRA"
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: The Abusive Cases of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft and His Litigation Buddy Garrett Did Cause "Serious Harm"
claims were de facto abandoned at the trial
Today's Discussions About How IBM Pushes Workers Out
The corporate media keeps trying - baselessly and in vain - to paint everything that happens with the "hey hi" brush
Linux Teck (linuxteck.com) and Ubuntu PIT (ubuntupit.com) Are Botspam
now they just keep experimenting by trashing their sites and reputation
Links 16/03/2026: Moscow Experiencing Cellphone Internet Outages, "Salman Rushdie Is Tired of Talking About Free Speech"
Links for the day
Links 16/03/2026: Arctic Security and 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin'
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/03/2026: KN95 Skins and CSS Surprises
Links for the day
Debian is Dying for Some of the Same Reasons IBM's Fedora is Rapidly Dying
Prioritising CoC censorship, not communities
The Register MS is Again Femmewashing GAFAM (Which Makes Widows) in Exchange for Money
This is a moral issue because they betray or harm women and prop up authoritarian regimes
Gemini Links 16/03/2026: AB 1043, Lagrange Android Beta 47, and Poetry
Links for the day
"Slop-forking" or "Vibe-forking" as the New 'Noble' Plagiarism
New Cloudflare Slop Project?
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VII - Cult Mentality, Mobbing, Nepotism
Does the EPO actually believe in the law?
2026 Microsoft Layoff Rumours
Surely if we had properly-functioning media, then someone would investigate this rather than rely on official statements from Microsoft and WARN notices
EPO Strike This Week
contact your national representatives about it
Gemini Links 15/03/2026: "Create Opportunities for Good Things to Happen", DOSbook, and Bitcoin Criticism
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 15, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 15, 2026
Pirate Praveen Arimbrathodiyil & Debian denouncing volunteers, hiding romances
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock