Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 12/07/2023: IM Nostalgia and Goodbye Manjaro, Hello Debian



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • The sound of music

        The day got off to somewhat of a slow start, but we eventually wound up visiting the municipal band so my wife could rehearse with them for a hometown (her hometown) music event in a couple days. Got some good recordings so she can continue to rehearse her part. It was fun to exercise the good 'ole "Zoom H4" device to accomplish the recording. Can't say enough about it. Can't remember how long I've had it, prolly at least half a decade. But it's simplified a lot of sound-related things for us over the years. It's a rare tech winner in my book.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: ABDILZR Wordo: MISSY
      • A really hot Sunday

        It was really, REALLY hot on Sunday. Looking back at the weather report, it said the RealFeel was 39c, which is 102f. Also the UV Index was 11: Extreme. That is probably why I got burned - again - despite putting on sunblock, wearing protection and so on.

      • Depressing Summer

        The RealFeel today after lunch, was 42c / 107f. The news said 20 of the 47 prefectures of Japan raised Heat Stroke warnings. Western Japan was battered by heavy rains which unfortunately took lives. Here in the East it's very hot and very humid. We are baking here in Tokyo.

        It's turning into a depressing Summer. A/C all day and all night, the drone of cicadas all the time, a loss of appetite.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Annotation and Commentary on Marx’s Gothakritik

        “Free State — what is this?

        It is by no means the aim of the workers [..] to set the State free. [..] [T]oday [..] the forms of State are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the ‘freedom of the State’.

        The German Workers’ party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society [..] as the **basis** of the existing State (or of the future State in the case of future society), it treats the State rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases.

      • Quick peek at The News

        - Opinion: Biden made the right call on cluster munitions for Ukraine - CNN


        But CNN, you say Biden made the right call regardless the call, so what's your assessment worth? Except to True Believers, of course....

        Speaking of which:
        - Opinion | Why liberals protesting cluster munitions for Ukraine are wrong - The Washington Post


        What? Liberals not agreeing on ways that it's okay to kill others? Whodathunk?!!!

      • Beyond Free Banking

        In my previous article “In Lieu of Free Banking,” I outline the mutualist and individualist anarchist arguments for free and mutual banking, its potential ability to empower labor, and, briefly, some immediate proxies available via credit unions and alternative currencies. But I also point to Laurance Labadie’s assessment of Benjamin Tucker’s (and later his own) belief that wealth and property “concentrations had reached such a pass that even if it could be inaugurated, free banking alone would not be sufficient to break the monopolistic power of capital.” I ultimately conclude then that…

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Tribal Voice PowWow

        Did anyone here use PowWow back in the late 90s?

      • Mirabilis ICQ

        Did anyone here use ICQ back in the 90s? I was shocked to learn my UIN actually still works today 🤯

      • Old Computer Challenge 2023 - Day Two

        Recently I switched to Honk, a ActivityPub server written in Go. It is mostly without Javascript.

        This means you can use any browser to view the time line.

        Honk doesn't support external clients like toot.

      • Goodbye Manjaro, Hello Debian

        I have been running Linux on my personal computers for some time now, probably between 10-12 years. I started using Linux after I worked with it as a Post-Grad, it was love at first site, how can you not love the SPEED?!

        I first tried Scientific Linux, then some weird Ubuntu/Debian derivates like Elementary, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Voyager linux etc; I had no idea what I was doing and what I was looking for. After a few breaking of install by adding dodgy PPAs I discovered Manjaro XFCE; it was amazing and everything I was looking for! I went full Manjaro, even printed those little stickers to stick on my laptop after I removed the Windows ones. After a few years on Manjaro I got that itch again and went down other Linux rabbit holes (ArchLabs Ricing etc). One of which was the systemd-free one, but that for another time.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Christmas Music Project: Back to When Music Was Music
now Canonical (or Ubuntu) says we should make available tens of gigabytes of disk space
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Some people say it's not possible in 2025, maybe in part because they depend on very bloated software
Gemini Links 25/12/2025: Hibernation and TV Detox
Links for the day
The Right to Repair (Especially When Products Are So Poorly Made)
Many electrical appliances fail often/quick and are nearly impossible to repair
The Register MS: Don't Use Linux
That really says a lot about The Register MS
 
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Suffice to say, as far as we can gather nothing came out from the empty (false) promises of GAFAM's "data centers in Kazakhstan"
So Simple That You Can Touch and Feel It
In light of recent experiences
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Under Attack by Cross-Network Spam Floods
So far we've been spared (our network has not been targeted at all) [...] Let's hope the spam won't discourage the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who still use IRC
An "AI-Infused" Windows
Microsoft Windows isn't becoming a worthless pile of garbage by accident
Microsoft Laid Off Over 30,000 People This Year, Coders Are "Too Expensive"
Go get some popcorn. Microsoft "slopware" is about to get real!
Critics Have Long Said Microsoft Produces "Slopware", Microsoft Wants to Prove Them Right
Slop instead of code is a step in the right direction?
The Top 8 Innovations of IBM in 2025
What innovations will come out from IBM in 2026?
And as the Year Turns...
The significance of new years isn't based on geology or astronomy or anything like that
Appliances Versus Computers
Replacing a computer inside an object of some kind or inside an appliance (which nowadays includes "modern" cars) isn't simple and isn't cheap
A Dark Side of Europe
They try hard to silence people who speak about these issues
Why People Love Techrights (and Also Loved "Boycott Novell")
I will continue to publish for many decades to come
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, December 25, 2025
A Tribute to Richard Stallman
It's about knowledge and sharing
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Links for the day
Canonical is Making the Cost of PCs Very High, Due to Unnecessary Ubuntu Bloat
They say the reason for the price surge is LLM hype/frenzy
Canonical's Ubuntu is Bloatware
How did Ubuntu get so fat?
The EPO is a Very Vicious Organisation You Neither Wish to Join Nor Stay in for "Too Long"
Consider what the EPO thinks of its own workers, the staff that actually does real work
2026 Will Hopefully Turn Out to be Slopless
we seem to be starting the post-Christmas period on the right footing
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Links for the day
The Register MS: All I Want For Xmas is Microsoft
they actually put effort into it
How to Win Nobel Prize for Peace
Do you get to Heaven (or peace platitudes) by sleeping with 72 virgins?
Links 25/12/2025: Ample Cover-up Found in Jeffrey Epstein Files; ChatGPT Causes Psychosis, Not a Good Use Case
Links for the day
Giving Money to Free Software
In life, people must make sacrifices to do what's right and just
EPO People Power - Part XV - EPO Cocainegate to Resume This Weekend
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Microsoft: XBox is Going "Online", "Cloud"...
XBox as a console is pretty much dead
The Year of the Bubble
We hope that in 2026 the marketing liars will find some new buzzwords to latch onto and quit calling everything "AI"
Mozilla Firefox is a GAFAM Browser With Slop, Move to a Free Software Web Browser
on mobile the options would be more limited
libera.chat Was Under Attack Last Night
Several months from now libera.chat turns 5
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Raises Over $300,000 Before Christmas
the FSF made it past $300,000
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Sounds Like Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' (Slop) Ran Out of Money to Borrow
Maybe in 2026 slop will be scarce enough that eventually, maybe by year's end, we'll manage to just ignore it.
In India, Staff Works on Christmas Eve, Becomes Unemployed (Last Day)
The company fires based on how "expensive" workers are more often than based on their productivity
Links 24/12/2025: US TACOs on "China Chip Tariffs Until 2027", Russian Snickers in U.K. Convenience Shops
Links for the day
Links 24/12/2025: Cheeto President "Accused of Rape in Jeffrey Epstein Files", Windows to be Replaced by Slop?
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/12/2025: Tea, Love During Pain, and Gaming This Year
Links for the day
GAFAM is a Bubble, Nothing is Free in This World
Nothing is free in the world
My New CD Player/Stereo Didn't Even Last a Year, My CD Player/Stereo From the Early 1990s Still Works
That helped reaffirm what I said in recent years about production/manufacturing standards of "modern" things
GitHub Isn't Free, Microsoft Subsidises It (Losses) to Entrap You Inside Proprietary Software, Now Come the Fees
GitHub was never free
XBox Console is Dead, "Microsoft is Rethinking What XBox is"
So XBox is now "cloud"
IBM SkillsBuild: Teaching Slop to People
What skills does that give? Making more slopfarms?
Maybe 2026 Will be the Last Year of António Campinos
Europe's patent system is run by thugs and it serves thugs
2025: The Year LLM Slop Rose to Prominence and Then Fell
the slop hype is bound to end
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Links 24/12/2025: Spotify Surveillance and Shadow Over Rule of Law in Hong Kong
Links for the day