Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 02/07/2023: Independence Day and Consequences of Running Leftist Communities



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

    • Politics and World Events

      • Independence Day

        It's around 11pm, the dog is trying to stand on the table and we're anxiously watching the baby on the monitor as the sounds of *pops* and *booms* are all around us.

        We grilled up some burgers on the patio and watched our town's firework display for Independence Day here in the US. Great show, and we could see it clearly from our house. We flew the drone up to capture most of the show. I noticed a few other blinking lights in the sky marking my neighbors doing the same. Unfortunately I wasn't as prepared as them, as I ran out of battery before the finale.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • The Consequences of Running Leftist Communities

        Today, the administrators of kolektiva.social, a Mastodon instance that bills itself as a "free, non-corporate platform for anarchists and anti-colonial content producers looking to circumvent Google, Facebook, and other surveillance capitalists," announced that an unencrypted copy of their database circa May 2023 was seized by the FBI as part of an unrelated raid€². The main content affected as part of this is all user account information and all posts, regardless of the post's privacy level. It should be noted that direct messages on Mastodon require a copy to be stored on both your instance's server and the target server, so the availability of these types of data is not unique. However, the failure to adequately handle potentially sensitive user data and to quickly communicate this breach shows me that kolektiva is falling prey to the lack of meaningful concern for its users that plagues most leftist spaces.

        [...]

        To be clear, this is no worse than corporate social media, which is often more than willing to hand over your unencrypted DMs to any government agency that asks for them. However, spaces that advertise themselves as places for activists to gather and work are essentially creating large databases of leftists that can be easily scooped up by the feds if that data isn't secured.

      • Old Computer Challenge: Preparation

        The Old Computer Challenge 2023[1][2] is coming up in little over a week and I've planned this weekend to get things set up for it. The idea of the challenge is simple: to use a computer with maximum 512m ram, 1 core and the lowest cpu frequency, for one week, and see what happens. The challenge runs from July 10th to 16th and this will be my first OCC, as I (regrettably) had never heard of it before. But let's get started!

        [...]

        So far, the first steps into setting up OpenBSD made me both really excited but also very aware of the limitations of the device. I already had to reinstall the OS once after the /usr partition was full due to me setting up ports. Speaking of... extracting the ports.tar.gz file took a whopping 30 minutes (for reference, this takes about 15 seconds on my M1 mac).

      • Internet/Gemini

        • striping things down

          I stopped hosting fedi. Deleted my alt account as well. i'm going through my phase of not socializing a lot anymore, or at least, trying something different.

          right now i'm only hosting gemini and xmpp over a dynamic dns. so please, if you wanna reach out, xmpp is my preference (i can email too, though!)

        • AmiGemini and GCC

          Had a horribly distracted morning again, but just couldn't let this one go.

          The final thing on my todo list for my AmiGemini setup was getting a comfortable line length, without excessive window decorations.

          Being the odd little duckling that I am. I'm not really a fan of anything more than 10-12 words per screen width of text.

          Without excessively large fonts. AmiGemini when in full screen mode therefore is quite uncomfortable for me to read in.

        • domains

          There are many projects, most of them only designed, which domains have been bought for. Being sensitive, these were reserved where original personal member domains were reserved. Unfortunately, this was very convenient, because we used Google Domains.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Evri (HermesUK) is Now Run by Bots and Hallucinating Scammers
Years ago they virtually removed support and tried chatbots instead
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
 
GNU/Linux in Ecuador and Colombia: Growing, Still Below International Average
locals turn away from Windows and try GNU/Linux instead
IBM is Dead or Dying. Now It Asks Workers to 'Resign' Voluntarily.
To save face, to pretend no layoffs are happening (as it might alarm shareholders) [...] We keep hearing more and more stories like that
Links 18/08/2026: Sergey Brin Controlling State Policies, "Dario Amodei's (Anthropic) Wife Is Closely Linked to Jeffrey Epstein"
Links for the day
SBS News Interviews Daniel Pocock
The locals say this PR stunt (by the bigot, Farage) was a waste of money
Clownflare Sees One in 7 Web Requests in Libya Originating From GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has taken a (foot)hold there
Openwashing and Manifestos Composed in Private by Dictators With Deliberately Addictive (and Subsidised, Bundled) 'Tech'
It's long, so make a cuppa first
SLAPP Censorship - Part 153 Out of 200: Decades of Debt, Weaponising Borrowed Money to Try to Put Their Critics in Debt
they've always had a financial report by now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 17, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, August 17, 2026
Gemini Links 18/08/2026: Solar Power, Kipple and Impermanence, Catastrophe Ethics
Links for the day
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
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
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