Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 11/07/2023: Old Computer Challenge and Mastodon Blog Comments Automation



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Chorale

        Except it isn't really a chorale, more like four voice harmonic practice, except it isn't really harmonic practice as not much attention is paid to chord progressions nor are fancy chords used (except in passing). What is going on here is some counterpoint, Dorian mode (-ish), vague modulation to dominant, and a some harmonic sequences, in particular the ground bass from Pachelbel's Canon which is a -4 +2 sequence though can be modified with inversions so the bass line is somewhat less jumpy and not so bleedingly obvious.

      • Sinclair A-Bike

        I once owned this thing [1]. It was around 2008, I think. It was the second, updated model with larger (inflatable to 90 psi) wheels.

        If I remember correctly I was very unsatisfied with it - it wasn't as small as I expected and it was rather uncomfortable when carried in its dedicated backpack. But as a bike it was quite a disaster. It rode well only on ideally flat surfaces (like corridors in buildings). And I wasn't able to climb anything (there are no ideally level surfaces in the real world). The final problem was that one of plastic parts broke after a few weeks of use. So I sold it.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Abdullah Öcalan, And All the Other Political Prisoners Must Be Released!

        Abdullah Öcalan, also known as Apo (“uncle”), is born 4 April 1949, in eastern Turkey. He is a founding member of the militant Marxist-Leninist “Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)” in 1978, which was based in northern Syria from 1979 to 1998 as a sanctuary, and led part of the Kurdish political movement from there.

        During the 1980s, the Turkish state began a program of forced assimilation of its Kurdish population. In protest against this fascist act, the PKK began an armed rebellion against the Turkey, and in connection with it began attacking its military forces.

      • Why I am an Anarchist

        Like so many others, I used to think that anarchists were violent pricks who enjoy throwing Molotov cocktails and destroy property. As usual, the propaganda machine _reverses_ reality completely.

    • Science

      • Agfa Click II

        I have got this old film camera. It wasn't expensive. Actually it is an interesting piece of German engineering. It's fairly simple, it's made mainly from plastic materials (including its faux leather case) yet if produces relatively nice images [1].

      • Thinking about how to teach logic

        I'm starting my full-time teaching load in a little under three months and while I was full of confidence and vigor before now a lot of the self-doubt is creeping in.

        I'm teaching multiple sections of the intro to computer science class, CS 160, and CS 250 the intro to math/logic for CS. I'm also supposed to work on revising CS 205, the intro to C and assembly programming class so I can start teaching it the following term. That one is the one I'm weakest on in terms of practical experience but, I mean, I still know this stuff I just need to practice specifically x86-64 programming instead of risc ISAs used in teaching compilers classes such as MIPS. I'm rusty on C but not incompetent at it, if you get what I mean.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Going online forward

        That reminds me of how as a kid (roughly 50 years ago) I'd hide notes/messages in library books: sometimes in the cover flaps, sometimes in the spine, sometimes just between pages. It would surely be nice to know if any were ever found.

        Makes me wonder if I can shift my posting motivation from "to meet and interact with interesting others" to "to bless others with serendipitous finds"? Because the former seems essentially impossible.

      • I give you: Serendipitous Finds

        Since I obviously suck at being texturally edgy in ways engendering interaction, I'm shifting my motivation for writing to reporting on placing messages on paper scraps, 3x5" cards, etc. in somewhat hidden public places, making such messages what I want to call "serendipitous finds".

        I'll likely post their content, and then go on to report on whether or not a message has been found. That'll be obvious if/when a message is gone. But I suppose I should place things in ways recognizable to me as having placed by me in case people carefully re-place them. So I should also log the details of their placement to make evidence of having been found unambiguous.

      • Christina's 5 questions

        written on GPD Win 1 via PuTTY as first daughter mumbles herself to sleep: "this a-way, this a-way" (from the song 500 Miles)

      • My Computer Challenge

        I am not actively participating in Solene's "Old Computer Challenge"^ this year--I only heard about it yesterday evening and am not in a position to go all in at the moment. However, I do want to follow the spirit of the challenge this week by reducing my energy and technology footprint.

        There are two ways I'm approaching it. The first is using a smaller machine with more limitations and requiring more active configuration, and the second is reducing the amount of content I passively consume.

      • OCC Update

        All my notes regarding the old computer challenge are now here...

      • Day 2

        I'm a bit busy today celebrating my birthday so I won't have time to do anything for the challenge, but I'm writing this from the old computer.

      • (No) Old Computer Challenge

        I just have spent a nice half of hour by reading of other people' Old Computer Challenge Entries [1]. Pretty interesting but some computer - while really old by today standards - dot's seem to be old to me.

      • Pin-Bored

        Some weeks ago, I submitted a support request to change my Pinboard username. I still haven’t heard back!

        And today, I happened to run across people on HackerNews (yeah, I know) talking about how Pinboard has been broken for them, how their paid archival functions haven’t been working (I don’t have an archival account, so I didn’t notice that), how the owner, Maciej, has been completely incommunicado on the Pinboard blog for *years*... And yet every time someone makes a complaint on HN, he’s right there in the comments with some snarky response.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Announce: OMG [dot] Pebcak [dot] Club certificates changed!

          This is a brief announce to let anyone know that for a colossal pebcak I deleted my VPS, and therefore I had to create a brand new VPS and to create new self-signed certificates.

        • Server updates and Gemini with lowdown

          What I’ve been up to since the last blog posts in this server? Not much, but there’s been changes. Notably it’s running off some old bottom-tier Intel Celeron laptop from ~2007 now instead of the Raspberry Pi 2B as some minor-ish enough updates has been causing it to no longer boot properly, and this issue wasn’t even new, I’ve known it since the last 2 years when trying it with Alpine Linux and wondering why that happens also. This time it’s Debian so I guess better to just throw in the towel with that hardware and just use the laptop I had laying around instead. It was already having troubles anyway before that and giving “illegal instructions” errors when just trying to setup some files for some few packages during apt install. It’s probably the SD card issue, or maybe armhf architecture is too niche and left underlooked, or both, but for sure I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I can at least say that laptop was able to do a major upgrade from Debian 11 bullseye to 12 bookworm sucessfully, so it certainly doesn’t have that issue. I did managed to hastly move some services and datas over to the laptop, only leaving out setting up a Gopher server mostly because I still haven’t bothered to have my site generator setup to do Gopher yet, and the Debian repository, cause I somewhat can’t be bothered to set that back up.

        • Mastodon Blog Comments Automation

          When I post here I usually also put the link out on Mastodon where people will sometimes comment. I've always done this by hand but, since I know just enough bash to be dangerous, I recently started thinking of ways to automate this step for me and also link back to the Mastodon post from the original blog post while I'm at it.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

This is What the Slop Bubble Popping Can Look Like
Maybe not an overnight collapse, but getting there gradually
If You Don't Want "Linux" to Become "Windows", Then Follow GNU
GAFAM isn't a friend of Linux; it's only a user in the same sense clients are "users" of a brothel
More Confirmatory Rumours Regarding "Massive" Red Hat Layoffs
Ecosystem and sales said to be targeted
Office Meetings Are Most Useful to the Least Productive Workers
In my "office life" days I really didn't like meetings
Claim That the Board of Directors at IBM Isn't Happy With How the Company is Run
IBM tries to project an image of strength to the whole world, especially to its clients
'Cancel Culture' Doesn't Work (in the Long Run)
Despite all the attacks, I'm enjoying life, I'm keeping productive, and our audience continues to grow
 
Links 19/01/2026: ChatGPT’s Defects and The Guardian on Why So-called "AI Companies Will Fail"
Links for the day
IBM Quiet About Its Plan for Red Hat Amid Accelerated Bluewashing
Something is going on at Red Hat
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part V - It Seems Like Some People Are Already Leaving "The Mafia"
they have a rough idea of what's coming
Microsoft Means War, Microsoft is on the Side of ICE
Microsoft, people-ready
Proprietary UNIX is What We'll Have If IBM Red Hat Gets Its Way
IBM Red Hat wants to control everything, even if that means killing everybody
Free Software in Times of Peace (and Times of War, Too)
GAFAM and IBM are war companies
Founder of GNU/Linux (RMS) Speaks in US University (College) This Week
The auditorium has very high capacity and this is his "college comeback" talk in the United States
LinuxSecurity and Linuxiac Are Still Slopfarms, Even Anthony Pell Does It
We suppose waiting another month or another year won't change a thing
Links 18/01/2026: Legal Trouble for xAI, Climate Concerns, Data Breaches and More
Links for the day
'Vibe Coding', Chatbots, and Other Bots (e.g. "Agents" Disguised as "Superintelligence") Aren't Saving You Time
False marketing, FOMO marketing tactics
Gemini Links 19/01/2026: Analog Cameras and Plucker in 2026, US Losing Acceptability in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 18, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, January 18, 2026
Links 18/01/2026: The "Deepfake Porn Site Formerly Known as Twitter" and Turkey to Block Kids' Access to Social Control Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/01/2026: Against English as Language of the Net, "Symposium of Destruction"
Links for the day
You Would Expect This Kind of Misleading Narrative Shortly Before Microsoft (or GAFAM) Mass Layoffs
misleading PR
FOSDEM 2026: democracy panel, GNOME & Sonny Piers modern slavery experiment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Pump-and-Dump With IBM Shares, Courtesy of People Who Stand to Gain From the 'Pump'
"3 Reasons to Buy IBM Stock Right Now"
IBM: Spying on Staff Like Never Before and Implementing Silent Layoffs This Month, Say Insiders
what we heard from whistleblowers seems to corroborate
IBM is Not a Free Software Company (It Never Was)
Red Hat's main product, RHEL, is full of secret sauce and has 'secret recipes' (it is basically proprietary)
IBM Turning Up the 'RTO' (Stress) and 'PIP' (Fear) Heat on Workers, Rebellion May be Brewing
Sometimes it feels like today's executives at IBM view IBM workers as a liability
Links 18/01/2026: Indonesia Against Comedy, Media-Hostile (Censors Comedians) Convicted Felon in White House Defecting to Opponents of NATO
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Still up (statCounter Says to 6%) in Bosnia And Herzegovina
Let's see where it is at year's end
Making Layout Changes
Feedback can be sent to us
Behind an Economy of Fake 'Worths' and Fictional 'Valuations' or 'Market Caps'
They normalise white-collar crime and say "everyone is doing it!"
Links 18/01/2026: "South Africa is Running Out of Software Developers", Companies Spooked to Find Slop is a Major Liability
Links for the day
Eventually the Joke (and Financial Fraud) is on Microsoft, Stigmatised for Slop
Is Microsoft trying to commit suicide?
GNU/Linux Leaps to All-time Highs in Virgin Islands
it seems to have started around the "end of 10"
Place Your Bets: Who Will Die First? Microsoft or IBM?
Not even joking; make a guess
Making and Keeping the Sites Accessible
Sometimes less does mean "more" (or "MOAR")
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IV - How Europe's Largest Patent Office Recruited Drug Addicts, Antisemites, and People Who Absolutely Cannot Do the Job (But Know the 'Right' People)
To better overlap industrial actions we might delay/postpone/pause this series for a bit
Restoring Professional Pride in the Tech Sector
Rejecting slop isn't being a Luddite
Benefiting by Adding Presence in Geminispace
As the Web gets worse, not limited to bloat as a factor, people seek alternatives
Google News Recently Started Syndicating Another Slopfarm, Linuxiac
Even if Google is aware that there is slop there, it's hard to believe that Google will mind
Slop Bubble "Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble"
Edward Zitron Says It like it is
Software Patents and USMCA (or NAFTA)
We recently pondered going back to issuing 2-3 articles per day about patents and common issues with them
IBM Sued Over PIPs
PIPs are "performance improvement plans"
Sites With "Linux" in Their Name That Are in Effect Slopfarms and Issue Fake Articles
We try to name some of the prolific culprits
Gemini Links 18/01/2026: Raising Notifications From Terminal and Environmental Sanity
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 17, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 17, 2026
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 17/01/2026: Internet Blackout Normalised, Russian Attacks Civilians by Causing Massive Blackouts
Links for the day
Microsoft Lunduke Keeps Distracting From the Real Problems With Rust
Microsoft Lunduke is stigmatising critics
Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm, Calling Them Out Isn't Fixing That
What a shame. A once-decent site about "Linux" bites the dust.
Luzern Lion Monument, Albanian Female Whistleblowers: Swiss jurists were cowards
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Splinternet is Already Here, Owing to the Militarisation of Technology (Slop, Social Control Media, Back Doors, and More)
you know what's gonna happen next...
Stack Ranking Against IBM/Red Hat Staff and a Signal of Mass Layoffs (RAs) Justified by Red Hat and IBM as Poor Performance/Misconduct/Other
Working in an atmosphere like this sounds like a nightmare
Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
Links for the day
Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
Indeed
The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
It's always ending up this way
Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
In short, avoid slopfarms
Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
There are risks they don't like talking about
EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
it's never too late to join
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026