Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 10/06/2023: Cob(WW)Webs, Client Certificates in Gemini, and Zig



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Cob(WW)Webs and the New AI Sheen!

          If you've ever been a kid (most of us have) then you remember how awesome a New Thing was. The toy under the tree, the birthday gift, whatever - new things have a nice "sheen" to them. The niceness of them being new. Which (at the time) seems like an "add-on" to the current things of niceness one owns. Time and energy to enjoy BOTH things, right? Until more time/energy gets allotted to the New Thing, then the old thing becomes mostly JUST that - old.

          I think the WWW will suffer this folly. AI will become so beneficial, so useful, so enthralling and (dare I say it) utilitarian, that the Web (itself) will seem like a protocol that acts as only that - a protocol (not even the Web, but the Internet protocol, pre-dating the WWW by many years). Why? Because what becomes "old" before anything else? Where is obsolescence more obvious and expected, other than technology? It sort of what a/the thing (laptop, phone, watch) has going for it - it's the "latest tech"!

        • Writing my HTML minimizer in half a day

          This Saturday, I got too bored and decided do some long overdue housekeeping on my website. I wanted to minify the HTML files, one because this website runs on Drogon's template engine, which is just like PHP and won't collapse whitespace and indentations, and two because I dislike that the HTML I'm sending out looks like a mess. Yet I can't find a HTML minifier for C++ on GitHub. I've known that HTML is difficult to parse. Espically the fact that HTML, like Markdown, does not have a BNF grammar. The best anyone can do is a simple `.*`. But I looked into HTML's parsing rules. And thought to myself, this isn't that hard if I don't want to maintain it. Espically the HTML5 standard is very clear on how to handle out of spec HTML.

        • Client Certificates in Gemini

          It's been longer than I had anticipated since my last entry, I am surprised that my last entry was almost 3 months ago. My first tutorial is a continued work in progress and I remain steadfast in my desire to write more and eventually write daily. Blog posts may not be daily but I would like to write daily for content to be contributed to this capsule. Since my last entry, I've been browsing gemini and even Gopher much more than the general http web.

          A major project that I've been working on is making the ultimate terminal computer using a Raspberry Pi 400. This can be thought have as a more modern dumb terminal but much more capable. While there is a window manager in the form of i3, all the applications are terminal based. I plan to do a write on it in the future when I've completed it but for now you'll have to contend with your imaginations as to what I could possibly be running. Well lynx is my web browser and neomutt is my email client so that should give you come clues when I say that every app used is a terminal app.

      • Programming

        • zig napping

          Approximately every six months, I approach #zig - a language in its pre-release stage, so there's constantly something new emerging in it.

          This time, I wrote `nap` - an "analog" of the `sleep` utility that takes a string in the format 1h15m and then prints the remaining time until the command execution is completed every N seconds.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
 
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Links 11/06/2025: More Vulnerabilities Found in 'Smart' Phones, China Extends Reach in the Pacific
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/06/2025: Grain and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Links 11/06/2025: "Quantum" Hype From IBM, US Closer to Martial Law, and “The Nation” Celebrates Milestone
Links for the day
IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric