Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 10/07/2023: Out-smarted by a ‘Smart’ Amazon TV and Making Keyboard Cables



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Excerpt From a Play

        The earth was sleeping, and the sky was asleep, And in this whole world, everything had fallen into a silent slumber, Only I, Azhdahak (the dragon), remained awake with my pain, And the reddest blood of mine, Was the only burning fire in this silent desert.

      • Week 26/27: Status and Photos

        We live in a small farm town, with fewer restrictions than the nearby suburbs. Our neighbors take full advantage of this by shooting off a phenomenal number of fireworks. This Independence Day, our house was surrounded with a constant display of lights and sounds in the sky. We invited a few friends over and fired a few pyrotechnic rounds ourselves. It was quite an experience.

        I'm planning on putting many of my electronics into a box for a while and reduce the number of devices I use to a minimum. This is because I find that I fret over them too much, and I try to use them all, which is wasteful. I think I'd prefer to limit myself to a few low-impact tools, and work on getting those to do as much as I can make them do.

    • Science

      • Veganism and Mi’kmaw Legends

        To this day tension remains within the anarchist milieu between vegan and anti-vegan radicals. The mere mention of veganism, animal liberation and anti-speciesism on social media or at radical gatherings often generates a backlash of hostile responses. A common anti-vegan response is one that attempts to use Indigenous identity as a quick way to shut down any dialog

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Old Computer Challenge 2023 - Day One

        My plan is to write a daily wrap-up of my experiences during the 2023 edition of the Old Computer Challenge.

        This is the wrap-up of day one.

      • Standard issue ineffability concealment

        Yesterday's winery performance went pretty danged well.

        Much yard work today.

        Fantastic chocolate shake.

        Writing is feeling foolish again: if conceptuality is what hides/masks an ineffable reality, then of *course* attending to words is the wrong direction.

      • How to install Kanboard on OpenBSD

        Let me share an installation guide on OpenBSD for a product I like: kanboard. It's a Kanban board written in PHP, it's easy of use, light, effective, the kind of software I like.

        While there is a docker image for easy deployment on Linux, there is no guide to install it on OpenBSD. I did it successfuly, including httpd for the web server.

      • occ_v3_day00

        The Ultra 10 has been re-assembled sans floppy drive. The case is still off and I have a DVD drive unmounted for the installation. I found a 10GB IDE drive in my stash. I think the original drive was 9GB or something. Only thing on it was a slackware install from 2004, which I plan on wiping and installing...something? The drive tried to boot on the laptop I used to check the drive via USB IDE cable. I forgot to disconnect the drive before rebooting the laptop. LInux LOader loaded, started boot sequence, then kernel panic.

      • occ_v3_day0

        OK, this is going to be more challenging than I thought. The drive runs fine, but I can't easily install much. Getting things to work seems so hard, like back in the day. All of these dependencies and missing software is taking me back to beginners mind. Kinda sux0rz when I just want things to work so I can do old computing and it's not. Then again, now that I think about it, this was how it was before. I think I just did not mind it so much then since I did not have a reference of the computing of now on now's technology.

      • Out-smarted by a 'smart' Amazon TV

        In my last post I briefly described my current quandary. To make my elderly in-laws happier I got them a giant voice-controlled Alexa TV... Size helps (vision issues); voice control helps (remote too complicated, too small to see, etc). It provides a minor amount of empowerment: "Alexa, TV off" instead of calling for help...

        As I also mentioned, idiocy is built-in: when voice control is on, purchases are no longer password-protected. Why? I don't know. Somehow it is tied into 'parental controls', which should do the trick, but instead, makes things even worse. It will not allow starting apps without a password, completely defeating the purpose of the entire project. So I just have to chat with Amazon every now and then and insist that the purchases were made because of their own technical problems. So far it works -- when they see someone renting a dozen movies and not watching...

      • Making keyboard cables

        I just shared on fedi the keyboard cables I made. I am really proud of how they came out so I thought I'd share here the process and justification for why I went the route I did.

      • Post non-reciprocity's a bitch

        It's kind of ironically funny that Geminuats easily in my top ten to read probably hate me.

        So I guess I'll just continue to read them from afar, as it were.

        Got some great sun, today. Didn't need it, as I'm constantly hearing people amazed at how tan I am this year. But it's kind of fun to see skin of mine a hue I've not since childhood.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • It almost happened, but not yet!

          This must have been the longest I've abandoned the gopher. I admit, I didn't even have time to even open the gopher client and read, let alone do anything myself. That's why this gopherhole looks terrible: some parts are broken, no one maintains the Bongusta list, etc.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 13 Out of 200: Abuse of Process to Make False Accusations of UKGDPR Violations
familiar barrister and same lawyers
What Puts the Brakes on GNU/Linux Adoption on Laptops and Desktops is Monopoly Control (or Monoculture) Over the Distros
Distros that adopt systemd are controlled by IBM and GAFAM
 
Gemini Links 15/03/2026: "Create Opportunities for Good Things to Happen", DOSbook, and Bitcoin Criticism
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 15, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 15, 2026
Pirate Praveen Arimbrathodiyil & Debian denouncing volunteers, hiding romances
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 15/03/2026: WB Games Montréal Undergoes Layoffs, "Swiss Reject Cuts to Public Broadcasting"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/03/2026: Messages in Bottles and Audio Streaming in Lagrange for Android
Links for the day
Thrown Under the Microsoft Bus
Microsoft wants disposable contractors
Quitting IBM and "Rumors of an Upcoming RA [Mass Layoffs] in April 2026"
Blue layoffs or "RAs" were confirmed upfront by the CFO
GNU/Linux Distro Builders Barely Paid Enough to Pay Basic Bills, Chief of "Linux" Foundation (Not Even Using Linux!) Increases His Own Salary by Over 50% in 5 Years
Salaries or compensation correlate with the ability to exploit people, not to create things
The "Zero-Sum" Fallacy
Fallacies like "zero-sum" - especially in the context of foreign affairs including war - are utterly ruinous
A Happy Birthday to Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman will turn 73
Jürgen Habermas is Dead, But the Politicised, Inherently Corrupt, Corporatised Court for Patents That He Inspired Is Not
In the news throughout the weekend
Mountains of Abuses of Process by Brett Wilson LLP on Behalf of Americans and Sometimes at the Expense of British Taxpayers
a virtual "limited liability"
linuxteck.com FUD by LLM Slop, ubuntupit.com Passes the Slop Baton
Unless they get back to doing long-form authentic articles, as opposed to slop, no good will come out of it
Links 15/03/2026: New Shortages, Lynx Populations Depletion
Links for the day
Sruthi Chandran & Debian Diversity, Favoritism, Hidden Conflicts of Interest
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
software in the public domain
Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
Links 15/03/2026: Slop "Bubble Driving Interest in Chip Alternatives" and Wildlife Erosion Reported
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 14, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 14, 2026
Layoffs in Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft's LinkedIn
There are silent layoffs at Microsoft this month
We Don't Depend on Google and Don't Care for Google
We have our own site search and we don't depend on Google to bring visits/visitors to us
Change of Address at the Hired Guns, Address Removed
Companies tend to alter their 'shell structure' in anticipation of major action
Facebook Layoffs Due to Enormous Debt, Nothing to Do With "Hey Hi" Slop
The lies about "hey hi" in relation to layoffs will only contribute to further public resentment towards: 1) the media and 2) all the slop.
The Good IBM Managers Have Flown Away, All That's Left is the Book-Cooking Loyalists
IBM is just cheating the SEC and shareholders. This seems to be the only thing IBM's management is nowadays good at.
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 12 Out of 200: Months Ahead of Serial Strangler From Microsoft Who Helped Double the Lawsuits (Funded by Third Parties) as 'Revenge' for Exposing Crimes
In 2024 I sat down and wrote about what had been done to me and to my wife
Crime Comes in Many Forms
apparently the SRA is OK with stranglers of women in America bullying the media in the UK
commandlinux.com, linuxteck.com, linuxiac.com, and linuxsecurity.com are Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Domain Name
once readers realise they read slop they immediately lose interest
Links 14/03/2026: Adoption of Slop Has Killed BuzzFeed, Russia Sees "Economic Gain From Iran War"
Links for the day
Patriotism is Conditional, If It's Unconditional, Then It's Like a Cult
My love for Software Freedom is only as strong as my love for Freedom of the Press
Links 14/03/2026: Mass Layoffs at Facebook ('Meta') and Sweeping Layoffs at Twitter (xAI), Social Control Media and Slop Are Only Debt
Links for the day
Wrong Time, Wrong Place (Digg)
Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian can relaunch Digg.com, but we doubt it'll work "this time for real!"
Universities Became Bad Places for Work
What happened to academia?
Reporting New and Suppressed Information is What Journalism is All About
In the domain of Free software, there are very few sites out there that offer exclusive coverage on community affairs and there are many gagging/censorship attempts
The Limits of Speech and the Rationale of Limitations
it seems to be part of an international trend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 13, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/03/2026: Goodness, AD534 Multiplier Module, and Extroverts Online
Links for the day