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

No Noticeable Libera Chat Exodus After Code of Censorship (CoC) Scandal Earlier This Month
Libera Chat pissed off some people by unmasking the CoC's real purpose
The Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Speaks of Deterioration of Working Conditions at the European Patent Office (EPO)
"At least 3 days per week in the Office for an allocated office"
IBM's Anderon is Like Theranos, But Will Anybody at IBM or Anderon Be Imprisoned for This Billion-Dollar Scam?
Will anyone ever be held accountable for it?
 
IBM RAs: "It's on Me"
IBM has no respect for the workers and it tries to hide the layoffs
Gemini Links 15/10/2026: Literature, Funerals, and Devices
Links for the day
The Efforts to Criminalise Opposition to a Ponzi Scheme Sold as "Super Intelligence" (Plagiarism Engines, Disinformation Generators)
Cops are becoming combatants for slop bros, i.e. they use power to promote a Ponzi scheme
Clownflare Sees Most Requests in Africa Coming From Android (Linux)
Android is the dominant platform
IBM's "RA Season" is Nearly Upon Us, But Tens of Thousands Are Already Marked for Removal With PIPs (as "Low Performers")
IBM is a dying company
Microsoft Has Confirmed It Had a Plan to Cut Azure (or Azure Costs) by 20%
So basically... yes! Microsoft did have a plan to slash Azure.
Red Hat Silent Layoffs Seem to Carry on Throughout This Month
How much longer will these silent layoffs (e.g. PIPs) carry on for?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 14, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Netflix and Its Newest Rival Carry 100 Billion Dollars in Debt
What sort of economy is this?
Egypt: GNU/Linux Still Measured at About 5%
Egypt is a prominent African nation and economy
Gemini Links 14/10/2026: Time Allocation, English as a Fourth Language, and "Reading News Sources" in Geminispace
Links for the day
DRM Giant Announces Giant Layoffs (Netflix’s Debt is Huge)
It's not like operational costs are decreasing, they're climbing fast.
Intercontinental Brigading - Part III - Reporting Harassment From America to British Police
Why are they so hostile towards (and afraid of) cops?
Gemini Links 14/10/2026: GemPub, Randogoth Forge F-Droid Repo, Oddμ, and Kolibri
Links for the day
Bluewashing as Silent RAs: A "journey that began at Neudesic [...] and continued as part of IBM" inevitably came "to a close"
IBM can be antagonistic and reckless with whatever it buys
Links 14/10/2026: Houthi Attacks on KSA and Airstrikes Near Sudan-Egypt Border
Links for the day
No Coronation for 'Cocaine King' Campinos (Not Yet Anyway)
A flash update suggests perils exist and we must all wait until December as the position for EPO President may open
In Reddit, Moderators of IBM Subs Are Allegedly on IBM's Payroll (IBM Can Censor Discussions About IBM)
There also seem to be PIP layoffs in India
If Worthless Companies Are Valued at a Billion Dollars in the Slop Industry, Then What Is the True Worth of 'Trillion-Dollar' Companies?
Definitely not a bubble!
It Sounds Like Microsoft Plans to Lay Off Over 2,000 Azure (Microsoft) Workers as the Datacentre Business Brings Nothing But Epic Debt
Trillions in losses is not a solid business plan
Microsoft XBox Won't Survive, Microsoft's CEO for This Perishing Business Turns to Slop
What the founder or father of XBox said about Asha Sharma earlier this year turns out to be accurate
Links 14/10/2026: So-called 'AI' Giants Go Bankrupt, "Military Will Hack the Election"
Links for the day
Indoor Season
we have more planned in order to improve navigation, accessibility, and workflows
Microsoft Demands That Staff Keeps Silent About the Mass Layoffs
Way to cause anger and ensure whistleblowers will go to the media
Microsoft Has Had Mass Layoffs in Azure Every Year Since 2020 and the Bleeding Continues Because It Misreports Earnings There
This is a bad week for Microsoft
Microsoft's International Mass Layoffs (Asia, Europe, Africa), Now Vietnam
A crisis that Microsoft is unable to hide
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/10/2026: Ceiling Fan, Fascism, Democracy, and Slop Being a Huge Bubble
Links for the day
Reports of Stress and Layoffs at Microsoft, Some People Laid Off Under the Guise of "Ban" (Gift From the Administration) and Many Sacked in India
"pip and gvsa" layoffs in India
ITwire Became Slop and Spam
The site still exists, but it's not what it used to be
W3C Died 20 Years Ago, Now We Live in a Post-W3C Era. Linux Foundation is 'Slop Bros', Now Linux is Becoming Unfree.
Torvalds is on the same side as Epsteingate
We're Way Past the Point Where Companies Announce or Declare Mass Layoffs
Layoffs are becoming hidden
Linux Kernel to Hide the Slop to Avoid Backlash, Suggestion Made by Former Microsoft Employee While Another Former Microsoft Employee is Worst Slopper/Culprit in Linux
Did Torvalds listen to slop antagonists?
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Besieged by Blind Justice UK, Politicians Increasingly Involved
"Today we have written to Members of both Houses of Parliament"
Vance Has Helped Microsoft Implement Secret, Silent Layoffs
Nothing excites Microsoft more than means by which to discard many employees without an obligation to tell shareholders about it
To The Register MS, Microsoft is the Only Brand That's at the Main Menu!
Consider that the Editor of The Register MS is a longtime faithful Microsofter
Microsoft's Collapse Will Continue, It's Drowning in Debt Now
Expect many more mass layoffs
Legal Self-Sufficiency
The more impact our work has, the more legal bullying will come our way
Plans for Winter in Manchester and London
From many perspectives, we're satisfied with the certainty and robustness of UK hosting, it's just that we're not yet robust/resistant enough to DDoS attacks
Customer Support Experience in 2026
Because the customer is never right
Microsoft Shutdowns in Africa, Mass Layoffs Also Reported This Week
further shutdowns
Links 13/10/2026: More Plagiarism Lawsuit Over Slop and AirAsia Needs State Help
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part II - An Outline of This Series
What's to come
Gemini Links 13/10/2026: Dopamine Nation, Planner and Fatigue, and Moderators
Links for the day
Links 13/10/2026: Norway Fines Microsoft and Cops Can Creep on Airbnb
Links for the day
When Computers "Expire" Because Certificates Expire
People who promote Restricted Boot are liars. They lie for a living.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 12, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 12, 2026
Gemini Links 13/10/2026: Modern Science, Joplin, Luddites, and Lots More
Links for the day