Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 09/06/2023: Thoughts on Flatpak and Apple Cultists



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Ashamed of My Penmanship

        I have a confession to make: I'm ashamed of my penmanship.

        My handwriting isn't particularly bad: on the contrary, it's quite legible. I dislike it not because it's unreadable, but because it's so utterly generic.

        I grew up in the last few decades that cursive and other forms of advanced penmanship were still widely taught in schools. Of course I was first taught how to write in print, and to this day I still form letters using the exact same movements taught to me in my preschool spelling books. We learned a standardized form of cursive around my second year of elementary school.

      • Butterflies and Roses 2023-06-09 (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

        A few more pictures for the collection, from the trails near the Tanana River. This was from last Wednesday.

      • The Porklet and the Ash

        The springtime had finally come to the little forested valley in Vermont where the young ash tree stood. After another long winter and a rather surprisingly short and uneventful mud season, the slender tree was starting to unfurl its new leaves in the pleasant warm rays of sunshine beaming down over the hills that rimmed it on all sides. For a few days...maybe even as long as a week, the sparsely branching tree let its tiny feather-like leaves grow and spread like the wings of exotic birds. It was a good time in the valley.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • My thoughts on Flatpak

        I have been chatting about this with people who know more than I ever will about Flatpak.

        Soo I have added few edits here and there.

        If I seem frustrated, most of my frustration is aimed at the unnecessary shit slinging over packaging formats.

        *We all want the good stuff, why the hell are we fighting?!*

      • Rambly rant about my Apple fan boy coworker and tech illiteracy

        So, I had dinner with other people in my company today (as of when I started this post). One of them are absolute Apple fan boys. He knows that I piratically a VR resident. And the topic of Apple's new Vision Pro headset showed up. I expressed my view that I don't like it and it does nothing what current VR users want. And that I'm not their target audience. Also what Apple is doing is nothing new. We have it for ages. The Quest 2 have vision hand tracking. Quest Pro/Vive Pro eye/Pico 4 Pro have eye tracking. There's external mouth tracking addons have existed for a long time. And talking through an avatar is what the entire game of VRChat is about. Go get a VR headset and hop into VRChat for even an hour. See what the frontier is like. That's where innovation and new ideas are. Guess the reply "I don't care about innovation. It's not Apple and it's not a convinent package".

        I wanted to facepalm myself immediately. I asked myself. Seriously, this man wants to wait for a 3500 dollars headset that does nothing new. Just.. argh!.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Mastodon

          I am a microblogger now! Decided to finally try out Mastodon, even though I still rather dislike the involved technologies. But to avoid interacting with them too much directly, as well as to setup a separate communication channel, I registered at emacs.ch and tried to use an Emacs Mastodon client, mastodon.el. Quickly discovered that there is a memory leak in my Emacs version, related to images, so now using the usual Mastodon's web interface. It is okay: somewhat buggy and awkward, but there are many worse ones.

        • Yesterday’s Posts

          Another day, another proof-of-concept server.

          [...]

          I’ve no idea if this works in practice, let’s see. I plan on adding aggregators and otherwise tweaking the output until it matches what I like to read, then trying reading everything this way for a while to see if I prefer the forced slow cadence to the “live” versions.

      • Programming

        • Shell Script That Runs Forever

          Critics will point out that this script will not run forever due to e.g. the heat death of the universe, the hardware running the script failing, the human getting bored, etc. However given a running system this script will (probably) run forever, the lite version of forever that ignores our daystar going all red giant.

          The script does need a bit of help to run "forever". One lever is that shell scripts take pains to operate line-by-line, to ape an ape at a terminal. Either shells read single bytes to find where the next line is, or they read chunks and use lseek(2) to scoot the file pointer back to the start of the current line. This can be observed under ktrace(1) or similar, which is a great way to learn what system calls a process makes while going about its business. Especially if there are too many lines of code to easily follow what some too complicated shell is doing.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Karen Melchior Fought the Good Fight
stay tuned for Part 29
We Need Less Gadgets, More Humanity
If people are being honest with themselves, many of the gadgets they claim they "cannot live without" are just excesses and distractions they could definitely leave behind
Daniel Pocock in The Guardian This Morning
There is an opportunity here to spread a message, even if Pocock won't win a seat
 
Canonical Staff Acting Like They Aim to Receive Job Offers From Microsoft
There are moreover allegations that Debian will do the same, in the same way Mono boosters infected both distros in tandem or in turn.
Worsening Staff Affairs at Microsoft
Microsoft is managing to piss off many of its own workers
Czech Mate for GNU/Linux on the Way
Czechoslovakia is having none of that "peace for our time" with Microsoft
Nobody Will be Left Who Trusts IBM Anymore
The common theme is, the management must be completely replaced as soon as possible and truth needs to come out
Wall Street is a Bubble and No Company is Worth 5 Trillion Dollars
It's not hard to see which stocks will crash the hardest (or fastest)
The Corrupt Have Historically Tried to Paint Their Exposers as the Real Problem
As usual, there are efforts to shoot or muzzle the messenger
Search Engine Market Share in Italy: Microsoft Falls to Third in Many Countries Including Italy
Expect more layoffs in Bing
Links 20/07/2026: Spotify Drowning in Slop, Expiry of Software Patents in MPEG-4
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/07/2026: Another Step Towards Owning Personal Data and Gemtext2 Envisioned
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Public Missions and Private Ambitions
Despite the French government's strong formal pushback, the lobbying momentum generated by Campinos and Negrão proved unstoppable
"DOOM" and "Bloodbath": the State of Microsoft and XBox
Way to piss off fans
Links 20/07/2026: Notes on E-mail Encryption, Torvalds and His Employer Paid a Lot to Promote Slop (Pyramid Scheme)
Links for the day
What a Difference Six Years Make...
We are also beta-testing a new feature for the site; we plan to announce it some time soon
When It Comes to Slop, Richard Stallman is Opposite of Linus Torvalds
When it comes to computing, Dr. Stallman has long been a voice of reason
Daniel Pocock is in Mainstream Media This Week
Pocock's haters will absolutely hate this
In His Departure Post, Poul-Henning Kamp (phk) Explains Why Linus Torvalds is Full of "Hot Air" and Slop Bubbles
Having lived through previous bubbles as a UNIX geek, phk cannot be ignored
Whistleblowers Keep Flowing
Later today a police investigator should phone us regarding death threats we've received
Technology and Gadgets Got Obese, Just Like Their Users
They now sell us so-called 'phones' for slop
"Samsung Recently Projected a 19-fold Surge in Second-Quarter Operating Profit", Now There Are Mass Layoffs
In a 9-month period Samsung's debt rose by about 80%
Gemini Links 20/07/2026: Dungeon Meshi/Undertale Crossover, "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Dark Web and Beyond"
Links for the day
IBM's Control of the Media "Just Showed What Taking Accountability Does Not Look Like"
It is no secret that IBM pays the media
Microsoft Loses XBox Lawsuit, But There Are More
The collapse of studios continues
GNU/Linux Approaching International Average in Djibouti
One can envisage further gains for GNU/Linux, seeing Microsoft is in such a bad shape
Daniel Pocock "[t]he Australian Taking on Nigel Farage — from Down Under"
This can help raise awareness of some issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 19, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, July 19, 2026
Misleading Coverage in Slashdot Promotes and Openwashes Slop
Piggybacking RMS for the headline seems like a PR stunt of sorts
As Envisioned, a Rebellion and Many Whistleblowers at Microsoft
Whistleblowers ensure Microsoft has totally lost control of the "narrative" (face-saving PR)
Microsoft is a Right-Wing Company
Just remember that when people call Microsoft "woke"
GNU/Linux "Market Share" Rises to About a Quarter in Sudan
Can anyone explain to us why?
Gemini Links 19/07/2026: Visiting Ethiopia, Two Dreams, and Price of Skinnerboxes
Links for the day
Tears in IBM, Company Falls Apart While Management Fakes "Performance" to Take Bonuses
Wall Street is a naked emperor
Telling Our Story
In the coming years we'll have some high-impact stories to share and generally tell without fear of reprisal
Microsoft XBox Studio Leaders Upset at What the New CEO Did
From what we can gather, in 2024 XBox was already entering what's known as a "death spiral". Now it's literally moving down the drain/pipe.
IRC Started in Finland, GNU/Linux Did Not
History is like that
GNU/Linux Rises to 8% in Bhutan, Same as the International Average
Taking note of estimated GNU/Linux share in that country, we see it hovering around the international median/average this month
Links 19/07/2026: "The Voice of Google" and "Chinese Surveillance Tech a Threat to Privacy"
Links for the day
Keep Both Eyes on the Ball
At the moment we have six series running in parallel; two of them concern the EPO
'Journalists' Who Help IBM Cover Up Fraud
Journalistic malpractice
The "Modern Linux" Song
Join us now, make the kernel
XBox Layoffs Vastly Bigger Than Microsoft Told the Press, Microsoft Keeps Trying to Change the Subject
Many so-called "XBox fans" are no more
Microsoft Lost 1,200 Billion Dollars in "Market Value", Take a Look at What Happened to Windows
while Windows continues to fall unstoppably GNU/Linux is surging
Links 19/07/2026: People in China Are Buying Feelings and 404 Media Has Third Anniversary
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/07/2026: Camping, Health, and Hardware
Links for the day
The State of Slopfarms
Slopfarms or LLM slopfarms are a menace and a problem on the Web
GNU/Linux Rising to 6% in Brunei
seventh in the world for GDP (PPP) per capita
Free Software is Like an 'Activist Movement'
People who argue strongly in favour of something (even very good things) will attract the wrath of those whom they oppose
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 18, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, July 18, 2026
UKIP TV (GBNoise) Covers Challengers to UKIP Nigel, Daniel Pocock Mentioned
Way to get noticed
Links 18/07/2026: Chinese State Media Depicting Neighbours as Monkeys, US "Stocks Sink on Anxiety About Tech and Hey Hi (AI) Spending"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/07/2026: "Business Idiots Everywhere", "The Siren Song of DePIN", and Entering Geminispace
Links for the day
GNU/Linux in Lithuanian Desktops/Laptops Climbs to 8%, the Global Average
For its own national security it would be wise to abandon Windows
This Bubble is Bursting, Piecewise
It's nice to see Wall Street getting some reality checks
It's Not About XBox, Microsoft is Already Firing Hundreds of People Who Do "Security [sic] Engineering" [sic]
The official reason/excuse/lie told is something about slop, but no sane person would buy it (not even insiders who are impacted)
Can We Finally All Agree That UEFI 'Secure Boot' is a Sham That Harms Security and Gives Microsoft Remote Control Over All PCs and Servers (Even Those That Don't Run Any Microsoft Software)?
Cui bono?
Bolivian People Adopt GNU/Linux (They Have a Domestic Distro Too, PluriOS)
Notice Windows falling to an all-time low
No Technical People Write About UK Parliamentary Elections
Almost none of them work in the media, which seems to favour parrots, slop, or parrots that use slop
"But Stallman is Scaring Away Women..."
Such dishonest projections (projection tactics) needs to be called out and refuted
First Female Debian Project Leader (DPL) Affirms Low Profile and Inferior Status of Women in GAFAM
3 months ago Sruthi Chandran was elected as Debian Project Leader (DPL) for a period of 12 months
After 5 Years Vista 11 Still Adopted Less Than Its Predecessor (Orphaned, End of Life Since Last Year)
Notice Windows going down to 40%
We Don't Depend on Google (or Search Engines in General)
there's a lesson here and it extends beyond sites
Only "Torvaldos" (Linus Torvalds) Can Use the F-Word, CoC Does Not Apply to the Enforcer, and Richard Stallman Punished for Using the Other F-Word ("Freedom")
"Linus Torvalds tells AI haters to fork off"
Explaining the Culture of Bulletin Board-Style Chat
Only desperate detractors would try to present something (cherry-picked) from IRC as some sort of official statement for Techrights
Independent, But Not Fringe
"Daniel Pocock is an Independent Candidate."
In Free Software, Nobody Gets Fired
Way to own one's code and project
PIP-Styled Mass Layoffs Allegedly Coming to Microsoft by 12 August 2026
Microsoft has been doing "silent layoffs" (PIPs and more) for quite some time
Daniel Pocock's Candidacy (Election of Member of Parliament) Mentioned in BBC and Over a Dozen News Sites Since Yesterday
Funnily enough, albeit not surprisingly, the same people who attack Pocock also attack us
Links 18/07/2026: Spotify Uses Slop Song Descriptions, "San Francisco Demands Removal of Nudify Apps"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 17, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, July 17, 2026
Gemini Links 18/07/2026: A Manifesto by The Dissident, Shokz Headphones, and Gemini Tinylog Reader (GTL)
Links for the day