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

They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
 
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025