Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 23/07/2023: Publically Accessible GNUnet Hostlist and New Arrivals



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • The Summer-So-Far in Review

        Most of this year we've been having supper with friends on Sunday. It started off with them coming here (their house wasn't finished yet, and the apartment they were renting was small, dark, crowded). The last couple months, we've been taking turns hosting. Some weeks, it's felt like a lot (children require active Entertainment). Other weeks, something to look forward to. Regardless, people moving here from Toronto is not the usual migration destination. We're very glad they did, and thankful to be able to see them regularly and often, rather than every year or two.

        So this has been a regular fixture of the summer, one less meal to plan during the week. The arrangements always that they cook, we bake. I say "we". This is a lie. My partner, it's understood by everyone, an exceptional baker. In the fridge right now: strawberry macarons, made with another friend, this particular batch delicious to me, unloved by them. "We wanted to try out a new filling recipe," my partner said ruefully. "It didn't set the way I wanted." I stress again that they taste amazing, but I'm probably a poor judge.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: DEFTISG Wordo: LIGNE
      • Pen shows and such

        So a little over a week ago I attended the PNW Pen Show, a revival of an old event that used to happen pre-pandemic. I don't think I've talked about it here before but I'm a fountain pen nerd. I wish I could say I constantly journaled but it's more like a feast and famine thing.

        I'll write through a 400pg a5 notebook in two months and then take a year to finish the next one. That's probably pretty normal, though, but I'll say that I'm probably at my best in basically every way when I'm journaling more. Is it symptomatic or causal? I don't know.

      • Discovering new music the old-fashioned way

        I was at my favourite independent bookstore this afternoon, and picked up a CD by Tigran Mansurian. I'd maybe (maaaaybe) heard the name before, but I'd picked it up because it's part of ECM's New Series, and it's basically a disc full of music I've never heard. For various configurations of strings and occasionally piano.

        I picked it up because Kim Kashkashian plays viola on it, and she's one of my favourite violists. I'm a poor player, and her sound and musicality are things I wish I had, even in the smallest quantity.

      • This week - sick and food

        I want to write about interesting things, but I was sick last week. I'm still getting over it. Not covid luckily or the recovery would be even slower. The worst part was I was so cranky it was hard to relax and sleep it off.

      • A Rubbish Rant

        I think there are people out there who genuinely don't understand where their trash goes. How it's handled.

        They can't possibly understand because then they'd care. Ugh.

        I bought a house recently. My first true home. And I keep having to clean up stupid problems that the last homeowners left for me. Like their trash.

      • whale fall 2

        i love charseraph's style and spec bio. this piece is actually from may but i came across it yesterday and couldn't not share it. the title itself is extremely evocative on its own, and paired with the nearly clinical drawings of these entirely unknown life forms? it's just beautiful.

      • The Self

        I am a set of continuous processes in motion, interacting with each other and the world around me, with its historical and societal aspects. There is the saying, "I feel like a completely different person," and it did happen to me a couple of times. Our selves go through small, imperceptible, changes which we gain by interacting with the outside world, or its reflection, our inner world. Eventually, a big leap is reached, a qualitative change, where we feel we're completely different from the older "version".

    • Politics and World Events

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Internet/Gemini

        • The Misfin messaging protocol

          There's more details on the official capsule, but the short version is that it's essentially 'Gemini email'. If you've implemented a Gemini server then it should be pretty simple to refactor that to support a basic version of a Misfin server too. (I say a basic version, because implementing certificate verification is a bit trickier and I feel that the spec could do with some clarifications in that area).

          Misfin uses gemtext (text/gemini) as its message format, so once you have a functioning Misfin server, it's simple to set up a 'webmail'-style interface on your capsule for reading messages.

        • Hello, Smol World!

          I've made my foray into the smol net. Hooray! But who am I?

        • New Public Service: Publically Accessible GNUnet Hostlist

          Quick announcement. I'm running a publically accessible GNUnet hostlist at `http://clehaxze.tw:9876/` due to me failing to bootstrap 3 new nodes today. I was experimenting and this issue really annoyed me. I don't know what happened with the default one. `https://v15.gnunet.org/hostlist` is down. But `https://gnunet.io/hostlist` is running correctly. That should be enough for nodes to botostrap.

          Anyway, for GNUnet users seeing this post, you can point your hostlist daemon to use my server. **I understand this is unencrypted HTTP**. But a) that should't matter as bad actors will get stopped by GNUnet's crypto anyway and b) I'll fix it later.

        • Questions about verification

          I'm slightly confused by the verification flow on the receiving side for misfin(B). Apologies if some of these questions are already obvious in the spec/best practices/reference examples and I've just missed/misunderstood!

          I'm specifically trying to implement the case where the server's certificate is a self-signed CA and there may be multiple mailboxes (each with certs signed by that CA).

        • One Year of Writing

          It has been about one year and two months since I've written my first post, not only on here, but in general. It's definitely interesting to read my old posts, they give me a glimpse of how I thought in the past, and how much my opinions differ now, being more refined in some aspects.

          I've thought about deleting some of them. Perhaps editing. In the end, I left them up because I think it represents fairly well my evolution. I can certainly say I write better now than I did the year before. Writing is an unique medium to not only sharpen your opinions, but to have rather meaningful debates with others. It's a rare medium that is omitted nowadays for the audio-visual, but it's full of knowledge that we wouldn't otherwise get.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

GNU/Linux Rises to 6% in Mexico
Did the soccer (football) matches have some impact or just the "unknowns" being deciphered (or omitted) by statCounter?
The Slop Presumption Rule
Tainting oneself can take one day
August 2026 Microsoft Layoffs Are "Secret Layoffs" or "Silent Layoffs"
It's all about secrecy, isn't it?
 
statCounter Observes GNU/Linux at 10% in Libya
this month statCounter finally sees GNU/Linux approaching "double-figures" there
Thailand: GNU/Linux Approaching 15%, Windows in a Freefall
It makes perfect sense for Thailand to adopt GNU/Linux for technical reasons, not just political reasons
GNU/Linux in Bulgaria Back Up
part of a trend in Europe
Cuba Sees Leap in GNU/Linux Usage, as Reported by statCounter
For the ordinary Cuban it makes sense to reduce a dependence on GAFAM
Gemini Links 02/08/2026: Drift, Crawlers in Gopher Space, Purpose, and Python
Links for the day
Links 02/08/2026: Some Large Slop Investors "Crumbling", Russia Intensifies Bombing of Kiev
Links for the day
IBMers Discuss Who Killed IBM (It Impacts Red Hat)
Fedora is fast becoming like another CentOS
GNU/Linux Leaps to 8% in Asia
In Asia, is it a bit higher because of GAFAM distrust? Maybe some other factor/s?
Clownflare Web Usage Survey: About 10% in North America Use GNU/Linux, Worldwide 6.7%
surveyors that showed GNU/Linux growth
SLAPP Censorship - Part 137 Out of 200: Discovering That Spending a Million British Pounds (1,348,250.01 United States Dollars) on Lawyers Cannot Take Down One's Critics
just outright bullying and criminality
Steam Survey, analytics.usa.gov, and statCounter All Point to GNU/Linux Gains (Again)
This must be very annoying to Microsoft
GNU/Linux Exceeds 6% in Spain
In recent years the "market share" steadily grew from 3% to over 6%
Brazil: GNU/Linux Record High, 5%
On average, GNU/Linux has evidence of growth in many countries this summer
Amid 2026 Bing Layoffs Microsoft Share in Search Collapses
How much longer before Microsoft throws in the towel or rebrands again?
United Kingdom: GNU/Linux up to 7%, ChromeOS Another 5% (Total 12%)
further significant gains for GNU/Linux this month
Links 02/08/2026: Cheeto "Blurted Out Vile Plot to Censor ABC"; New York Times Fights 'Intimidation'
Links for the day
Why Techrights Will Still be Active a Decade From Now
Techrights will carry on for many years to come
We Are Witnessing the End of IBM
IBM cannot find growth by moving downwards, by lowering standards
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 01, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 01, 2026
Gemini Links 02/08/2026: Older Books, Esperanto Music History, and Slop Making Things Worse
Links for the day
Sharing and Empathy
Be more like Stallman, not Linus
Fedora 'Community' Became 100% IBM Staff, Drawing Up Policies Like CoC and CoI (Where the IBM is Excepted From Conflict of Interest Policies)
IBM has in effect killed Fedora
Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Planner Season is Upon Us, Slop "Apocalypse", and USENET
Links for the day
Cuts at IBM, Allegedly More Shutdowns to Come, CEO Visits Complicit Media to Promote Lies and Products That Will Never Exist (Misleading Shareholders)
IBM is collapsing
Links 01/08/2026: GAFAM Falling Deep Into Trillion in (Secret) Debt to Keep the Slop Bubble From Popping Already, Anger Over "FIFA’s World Cup Privatisation Plan"
Links for the day
Newer Not Better: Treadmill Updates Cause Problems
after 2 years the un-updated machines still fine
The Cyber Show on the Slop Bubble
new article about the implosion of the slop bubble
Links 01/08/2026: New York Times Trying to Inflate the Slop Pyramid Scheme (at Cost to Its Own Reputation) and "Iran Appears to Be Blasting Amazon Data Centers Off the Map"
Links for the day
Positive Political Momentum
Daniel Pocock is taken seriously by many people who contact us privately
Google "AI" is Plagiarism, the Case of Richard Stallman (RMS)
Why would anyone choose LLM slop over the originals, curated and fact-checked by domain experts?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 136 Out of 200: Lawyers That Get Paid to Mess About
They were already outnumbered and understaffed
Explaining That Software Patents Are Neither Legal Nor Desirable
Many of our readers work in the legal sector
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 31, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, July 31, 2026
Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Retirement, Bike Trips, Quake Stuff, Usenet Reborn
Links for the day
Links 31/07/2026: Microsoft Now Says Slop is Bad (LinkedIn Cracks Down on It), LinkedIn Narrows Down Size (No Expansion)
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: From Alicante to Munich: Another Smooth Ride
Campinos is intent on transforming what was originally envisaged as a temporary public office into his own permanent personal feather-bed
Daniel Pocock and the Important Observation About Threats of Cult-Like Behaviours (No Rationality, No Reason, Just "Mob Rule")
It's a threat to Europe's sovereignty
The "PIP Parade" of IBM's Lousy Management, Which Said "Blockchain" Was the Future
In a healthy company such a CEO would be punished for utterly wrong visions and predictions. Not at IBM...
SLAPP Censorship - Part 135 Out of 200: Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) That Does Not Disclose Financial Activities Before August
It certainly looks like they keep losing the remaining women that still exist in the firm
Links 31/07/2026: "Climate Cover-Up Continues" and Pesticides "Cook the Planet"
Links for the day
Datacentre 'Boom' Sceptics Aren't Luddites, They Recognise a Threat to Human Survival (Not Limited to Climate Change)
Archaeologists very well know that no species will survive forever
Microsoft's Claims Are Based on a Big Lie
the bubble is coming to its hard limits
Don't Lose Sight of the Impact of "End of 10" (Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has taken off fast
Microsoft's Debt Continues to Steadily Increase, Not Counting Hundreds of Billions in Secret/Hidden Debt
The mass layoffs will carry on, maybe labelled LITE
IBM is Circling Down the Drain, the 'Growth' Comes From Beancounting Tricks and Salary Cuts
IBM was down 2.17% yesterday
Microsoft's "Headcount" Distracts From How Big a Cull It Had This Month
It also speaks of numbers "[a]s of June 30" though the "buyouts" were effective July 1 and since then well over 10,000 workers have vanished
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 30, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, July 30, 2026
Gemini Links 31/07/2026: Music, Journaling, and Longing
Links for the day