Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 03/07/2023: Go Start a Blog and RIP, World Wide Web



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Missing what point?

        I've lived a life of poverty and persecution, and then making something from nothing, hiring people and worrying about how to pay their salaries; I take care of my broke parents, and children, some queer and trans (and I am completely supportive). My life did not include such privileges as choosing pronouns or gender, getting voluntary medical procedures and hormonal treatments, or deciding that other people should bow to me and my lifestyle choices. I was too busy surviving. You are the privileged one here.

        [...]

        That is just so offensive. It is precisely the kind of alienating behaviour that, well, alienates certain groups and gives them a bad name. And it looks like you prefer it that way, so you can bitch "those people just don't get it".

        This is what happens when you stew in the same soup - you start normalizing horrible behavior. Aside from the name-calling, do you honestly think that you are clearly communicating yourself to anyone? You can hi-five your buds but as an ambassador for your chosen letter, YOU HAVE FAILED, MISERABLY.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: AESKNRF Wordo: TRAPS
    • Politics and World Events

      • Really?

        I wasn't planning on posting today. I have a programming related task that I would rather be doing, something that I find interesting and exciting, but my previous post apparently stirred some things. I'm not going to even link to the replies. You know who you are. But if I ignored what was said I couldn't live with myself.

      • Coffee, 2 weeks later

        I was heavy drinker of coffee for 20 years. I started to drink coffee at college. It tasted horrible. But I learned it is less unappetizing when milk is added. So, I stopped drinking it 2 weeks ago. From 6 double cups a daný to 0. First day was ok. But than I got heavy headache for a day, when I took a painkiller. And then it was ok.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Docker (RPi3B)
      • Bash alternatives to cloud products and platforms

        Most web products from file hosting to chat to banking software are made up of a tech 'stack' within a large software ecosystem. These are built for 'scale' and designed to be administered by a company providing you a more or less turnkey product at various levels of services. You pay for increasing levels of convenience, either with your private information being tracked, or with recurring expenses. This could mean paying annual fees for a 'creative editing suite', downloading and running a health tracking app that invisibly sells your data to data brokers, or accessing a social media account that sells your data to advertisers. And there are many more examples you can imagine or read about in the news.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Go Start a Blog

          It sure feels like the big tech platforms that people have relied on for years are starting to rot away. There's lots to be said about X adding rate limiting, Y getting put behind a login, Z killing their API, and one of those things I've often seen said is that it feels like the internet is dying.

          I'm sure it does feel that way if platforms are the main way you interact with the internet, even more so if the companies behind those platforms' driving force is only valuation. I believe the truth is that in some ways the internet has in fact never been healthier than now. The reason for that is how stupid easy and cheap it is for someone to set up their own space on the internet to do and say whatever they want. And there's no need to worry about some random executive messing everything up because of their obsession with infinite growth.

        • Advertising

          Does gemini have advertising? This boils down to how one defines advertising, which like spam, porn, or bears depends on "I'll know it when I see it". A narrow ruling may mandate an advertising company, that is, a commercial involvement with intent to sell. This would exclude other senses such as public notices (road closed due to sinkhole) or promotions: book reviews, great gadget geekouts, the latest game addiction, etc. Gemini has very little of the first sense, but does have the second and especially third. One can, typing in vi, also do product placement. Some placements are less clumsy and more relevant. For instance, the Psi Corps advertisement in Babylon 5 followed a regular advertising block, to the point that you might not realize at first that the show was back on.

        • Mew151

          Mew151 has a series of artistic posts titled “Antimoon”, a collection of articles titled “Cyberspace” which are “dedicated to the World Wide Web, programming, and other techy things”, a gemlog, and “Natalie’s Accordion Corner” — a section of the capsule dedicated to accordions, which can even boast its own “Squeeze Blog”. I can hardly wait until after I finish writing this post before reading all of it.

          Mew151 is also the Gemini capsule of an interesting website. That may seem like something that shouldn’t qualify for the CCOW, but it actually does speak to Gemini’s strengths.

        • RIP, web
          It's official! The Web is dead!

          i'm exaggerating, of course, but the demise feels imminent. for too long now search results have been near useless unless you append "reddit" to the end of your search. otherwise you get useless clickbait articles which never get to the point, bombard you with requests to give you push notifications and to accept cookie upon cookie. and the reddit trick is dead, along with reddit! many communities are still locked down! the owners are at odds with its userbase and i can't see the animosity ever properly clearing. when it comes to websites like this, things only get worse. deterioration and collapse are inevitable.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late)
GAFAM was never trustworthy
Maintenance Reminder
We'll carry on publishing
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
 
EPO Strike a Week From Now, After That Strikes Can Become Permanent
A week from tomorrow there will be another strike
The Only Non-IBM Staff in Fedora Council/Leadership Attacks Booting Freedom (Just Like the Master Wants)
Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
Just Like a Founder of XBox Said, Microsoft XBox is Collapsing, Management Continue to Jump Ship
Nowadays Microsoft tries to promote this idea that Windows is XBox and XBox is Windows
Links 22/03/2026: Slop Triggers Emergency at Meta, Energy Prices Rise Sharply
Links for the day
Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds"
Links for the day
Racism Dressed Up as "Choice"
Racism is rampant at IBM
Probably an All-Time Record
Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security
Women are like kryptonite to them
Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
Many companies fake their health and their size
Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
Techrights Was Always a Community Site
The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
Remember what happened to Skype last year
Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
"just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News
There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
"HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026