Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 18/06/2023: Division, remainder, mod...



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • 🔤SpellBinding: BKLYRUO Wordo: CURDY
      • Coffee

        I drink too much coffee. Any time I pass coffee machine I get a double cup. Maybe 5 or 6 doubles through the day until evening.

        I will try to take a break from coffee for 2 weeks starting today.

      • Alan Kay's Dynabook

        I recently stumbled about a PDF file detailing the "Dynabook", a sort of personal mobile computer envisioned by Alan Kay in the seventies... and oh boy, what he envisioned was lightyears away from todays locked town and "appliance-ified" smartphones.

      • Face Blindness

        I don’t remember when I learned about face blindness—but I was glad I did, as I learned it’s not just me.

        Face blindness is a condition in which the ability to recognize familiar faces—to identify people by their face—is impaired.

        According to Wikipedia the prevalence in the general population is 2.5%, so it’s not particularly rare.

      • Soylent Tea is People

        I follow the youtuber The Spiffing Brit, because he is a fellow gamer and tea drinker with a good sense of humour and lots of fun game exploits.

        He also likes OpenTTD and recently held an event where community members could participate in a match like no other.

        The game had (it's just been removed) a system for buying shares from other companies. This was rarely activated in multiplayer games because of how broken most players found it. In this case another community member had modded that system and much more of the code to allow for an experience never before possible in OpenTTD.

      • Father's Day

        Today marks my first Father's Day as a day. Father's Day has been a day I've struggled with in the past, but I'm thankful that it's now a day I celebrate.

        A little warning, this isn't my most uplifting post, my apologies for that. But it's something that's overdue for me to get onto "paper".

        The relationship with my own father was one that got worse with each year since high school. My dad choose to leave the family and move to North Dakota for work. This led to my parents growing further and further apart. I started to dread the weeks he would come home and visit. Inevitably the distance led to my parents getting divorced when I had just started college.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Capitalism Comes in Many Flavors?

        In so doing, though, he greatly exaggerates the difference between these flavors. Pearlstein’s first major variant of modern capitalism — robber-baron capitalism — was characterized by the large-scale economic power of big business. It was succeeded by the managerial capitalism of the New Deal and post-WWII era: “Competition tended to be gentlemanly and the power of big business was held in check by the federal government (big government) and unions (big labor).”

        The “State capitalism” of the European social democracies and Japan is just a more extreme variant of American managerial capitalism.

      • We are not afraid of ruins

        This zine is a collection of texts written by people associated with the Syrena collective, which was evicted from an occupied building at 30 Wilcza Street in Warsaw by people associated with the Przychodnia "squat"*. The conflict inside the Syrena squat with Przychodnia involved in it had been going on for months, if not years. We are writing about the day of our eviction - 5.12.2021, and what this house and social center was to us.

      • Not Being an Asshole

        I've been posting less and less... Not that I've been writing less - I just look over my posts and delete them because it feels that the world would not become a better place because of my post.

        I used to not care at all. Then I cared a little but it felt like I was shouting into the vacuum anyway. Now it feels just pointless most of the time.

        For a while I kept the unpublished posts -- first as .txt files that my indexer ignores, then in an 'attic' directory, still thinking I might rework them later. Now I just delete them, and feel a little better.

    • Science

      • Division, remainder, mod âž—%❓

        I'm not qualified to say if that's true (and I don't really care) but I have some relevant observations because I came across this while implementing a Whitespace interpreter.

        Whitespace was originally implemented in Haskell, and I wrote an interpreter in Java. These two languages disagree on what the operator % means for negative inputs, so I read...

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Riot Medicine

          I just added a page to my archives [0] area of this gopherhole for Riot Medicine [1], an open source medical guide for street medics.

          Riot Medicine is a full-length textbook that covers everything you need to become a medic. The 466 pages include organizing, medcine, equipment, and tactics. It is written for those with no medical training and no experience at protests, but medical practitioners and seasoned protesters will still find it useful.

        • Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow

          I'm still getting used to getting my info from a wider variety of channels. I used to get a lot of stuff via Twitter, some things from email (from my family), some things from bookmarks and from search. Now I've added geminispace, Cohost, Mastodon. I'm reading more. Where am I finding the time? I'm scrolling less.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Clown Storage Without Backups
Setting up several reliable copies of the data, plus several off-site backups (this data is nowhere as sensitive as medical data), should only cost a few grand
FreeCAD is Becoming Slop-ware, Use LibreCAD Instead
It has regular releases and "Qt5 is mandatory" now [...] they at least audit what they add
GAFAM Loyalty Has Come to an End, Morale Low, People Whose Future is Uncertain Choose to Become "Lifers"
morale is low and there's no loyalty anymore
SLAPP Censorship - Part 152 Out of 200: Injunctions Do Not Cover Criticism, They Have Scope
self-incriminating communications
 
Evri (HermesUK) is Now Run by Bots and Hallucinating Scammers
Years ago they virtually removed support and tried chatbots instead
Less Technology, More Life
Technology is being associated (sometimes rightly) with physical and mental problems
Google Search Has Gotten Worse (a Lot Worse)
getting worse
Birthday in 80 Days
we'll start decorating and party online with our community
Loans and Massive Debt at Microsoft, This Won't End Well.
Microsoft running out of money to pay salaries (to the point of paying people for 'voluntary' layoffs) is a positive sign?
Gemini Links 17/08/2026: Life in Plain Text, Mimicking KARL, Release of Jugulans, Avoiding Slop
Links for the day
Cuba and Venezuela High in Adoption of GNU/Linux
some of the "communist" nations
Links 17/08/2026: Myanmar’s Cholera Outbreak, China Sends Commercial Vessels Through Arctic
Links for the day
Clownflare Sees About Quarter of Web Requests in Ireland Coming From GNU/Linux
Well, in Ireland it seems like many people adopted GNU/Linux
Clownflare: In Australia and New Zealand GNU/Linux Peaks at Over 10% During Working Hours
That right there is interesting in its own right
Slowing Down by Intention
At the moment we have 6 or 7 ongoing series
Gemini Links 17/08/2026: Chamboree, Partial Solar Eclipse, Lady Macbeth
Links for the day
Links 17/08/2026: "Bluesky Is Down Again!" and "Anti-Social Media"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 16, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, August 16, 2026
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
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?
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
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
GNU/Linux is a Platform for Work (Usage Surges in Daytime)
GNU/Linux 15% in daytime
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
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
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
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