Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 29/07/2023: All Software is Made for the First Time, Disk Failure



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Saturday.. in a post.. I think it was the 29th of July

        My wife led three female-centric-themed songs, I led a couple Beatles, and then the host said, "Y'all got one more in you?" The right song came immediately to mind. Given we were the final performers, I felt that although we'd only played it only once together, that one time was just a few hours before at the senior living facility. So I said, "As a matter of fact, we do!", and got us going on KC and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight".

      • A Dying Profession
    • Politics and World Events

      • Hitchens and the Myth of Socrates

        He correctly realizes that it’s worthwhile to discuss the philosophy of Socrates without getting bogged down in the historicity of the guy.

        Yet when it comes to the lilies parable in Matthew 6 a few centuries later (which is the verse he quotes), he gets hung up on census data and specific time and date.

    • Science

      • The Bible and climate change

        We need to recognize that for the past three hundred years we’ve headed down a dangerous path—the fossil-driven economy—that’s dangerous to stay on and difficult to get off of.

        There’s nothing in recorded human history and scripture, in the past ten thousand years or so, that can prepare us for this situation.

        Clinging to old commandments like being fruitful and multiplying is something we need to think twice about.

        The United States is, per capita, one of the worst greenhouse emitters on the planet and part of the reason for that is, of course, conservatism. A short-sighted and cruel ideology that aims to gilt the prison bars. From Buckley’s racist “don’t immanentize the Eschaton” to today’s senate-floor snowball-throwers, it’s the politics of molasses, of getting stuck in the quicksand as the tide is coming in. They’ll have the least immanentized Eschaton on the cinder.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • keyboard with a screen

        The other day I started poking at the old code I had for drawing stuff on the screen my keyboard has built into it. I'd had a basic, control the pixel with some buttons and it'll leave a trail, but I'd left it with a bug preventing sleeps less than a second. Which made it really annoying to fiddle with. I figured that out and promptly threw most of it out anyway. Then I wanted to be able to use the screen as a tiny display that could do terminal stuff. Using some of the code from #g15stats and #hackvr_term I was able to get a program, which I named #g15term, that let me pipe stuff from stdin to the screen. Which works good enough for me. (While writing this, I found that menelkir wrote their own thing named g15term. I should probably pick a different name.)

      • All Software is Made for the First Time

        One of the things I like about working as a developer is that all of the problems are being solved for the first time. Outside of the realm of writing software for educational purposes, very rarely is a piece of software written to do exactly the same job as an existing program; the client will just go download the existing one instead. The marginal cost of distributing software is so small that it doesn't even come close to even a few hours of dev time. This means that the majority of devs are working on interesting, novel problems; very little development work is grunt work. It makes everything more interesting for sure.

        There are some downsides, though. Most pressingly, it is very difficult to know how long any given task will take. It is very often the case that it is impossible to say whether a bug can be fixed in just a couple of hours or will take a few weeks or more. This is inevitabling creates some friction between the developer team and the rest of the org who, somewhat rightfully, demand more concrete timelines.

      • Disk failure

        This week I had ran into a proper disk failure, which was an interesting experience. This was actually the first time I've had to deal with a failing disk in a RAID1 array and I don't recall encountering other disk failures with BTRFS before this one either.

        But yeah, I keep a RAID1 array of 2 hard drives for storing my livestream VODs. It started out as my general video production array back when I was still doing YouTube, but these days it pretty much just stores livestreams I've done over the years.

      • Players creating quests for players
      • nostalgia-land

        This machine is almost 30 years old (and it's still working!), yet it runs a current version of OpenBSD, even software that I wrote for my usual workstation. I like this a lot. Judging by the performance of this old machine, I might not need to replace my current workstation (which is already over a decade old) for another 10 or maybe 20 years ... ? Crazy.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

LLMs as Attack Method Against Free Software and Programming
DDoS in "hey hi" (slop) clothing
Google as a 'Bullshit Generator' Disguised as Intelligence
It'll probably cause Google to get sued a lot, both by individuals and companies
As Expected, Google in the UK Now Experiments With Slop Instead of Web Search
At this point more people ought to stop and think: Does Google's search engine deserve trust?
Sabotaging Linux on Behalf of Microsoft With UEFI 'Secure' Boot (De Facto Remote 'Kill Switch'), Then Defaming, Stalking and Harassing Critics of 'Secure' Boot for 12 Years, Then SLAPPing Their Spouses and Them
The sorts of stubborn lunatics we've been dealing with
 
Links 01/08/2025: Health, Conflict, and Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Microsoft's Debt Exploded by 15.4 Billion Dollars in the Past 9 Months Alone (Despite All the Layoffs)
As of minutes ago, at 6PM on a Friday, the numbers are made public
Meeting (Webchat) With Maria Arranz Gomez, Florian Grundies, Jürgen Janda and Konstantinos Kortsaris Confronts EPO Management About Breaking Promises and Crushing Workers
The lack of consistent messages suggests plans other than what's advertised and the lack of consultation (secrecy) likewise
Links 01/08/2025: "The Great British Firewall" and U.S. Army Sponsors Palantir
Links for the day
For Second Day in a Row, Top Story in The Register MS is "Microsoft Says"
The editor in chief exercises control over everybody else
Stability and Reliability, Backward Compatibility
I don't fancy relying on social control media as "sources"
What "the News" Looks Like in 2025
The "says" (or "sez") phenomenon
History Will Be Distorted, Sometimes Intentionally, Under the Guise of Intelligence (Manipulated/Curated Slop)
Militarised misinformation or military-grade chaff is a national security threat, even domestically
Financial Engineering Companies: A Company Worth 4 Trillion Dollars Would Not Borrow 100+ Billion Dollars at Interest Rates Like Today's
Many headlines perpetuate the lie Microsoft had just 2 waves of layoffs
Microsoft is Googlebombing "Linux" While Paying Former News Sites to Publish SPAM
How much lower will IDG sink?
The Data You Don't Give Away is Your Advantage
stop sharing data that does not need to be shared
Being Obedient or Doing the Right Thing
The world always changes for the better because of people who think "Outside the Box", not the cogs
Gemini Links 01/08/2025: Happy Hacking Keyboards and New Gemini Arrivals
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 31, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 31, 2025
Moving on in Techrights, Geeks Gonna Geek
In the coming weeks we plan to focus (as we explained last week) on patents, GNU/Linux issues, and the occasional philosophical essays
Slopwatch: Google News Has Lost the Plot
Almost the majority of articles returned for "Linux" are fakes
Links 31/07/2025: Australia Restricts YouTube Access, Personal Privacy at Risk
Links for the day
Links 31/07/2025: Spotify Collapses and Spotify Now Forcing Some Users to Undergo Face-Scanning
Links for the day
A Lot of Supposedly "Successful" Businesses Are Just Debt-Racking Vessels Without Any Prospects of Financial Sustainability
The probability of bankruptcy of any business is more than 0%
theregister.com: The Voice of Microsoft US?
It basically sold out
Yes, You Can Love and Adore Things Whilst Also Criticising Them
Is society being divided and groomed/primed to be resistant to constructive criticism?
Links 31/07/2025: War in Ukraine, Security News, and Cyberattacks Against Journalists on the Rise
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/07/2025: Fake Money and Gemini Diaries
Links for the day
An Illusion and Cult Worship of Magnitude (Ubiquity as "Victory")
GNU has been around for over 40 years and it'll likely continue to exist for another 40 (in some form)
Google: From Pointing to Relevant Sites to Pointing to Social Control Media to Actually Parroting Social Control Media as "Facts"
Google has become a misinformation company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 30, 2025
How to Report Apple Layoffs Without Saying the "L" Word
don't look for the "L" word
Wall Street Does Not Care About Microsoft's Impending (August) Layoffs, It Believes Lies From Microsoft, Whose Debt Grows Rapidly
If Microsoft is doing so well and swimming in money, why so many cuts (about 29,000 layoffs so far this year)?
Wayland Considered Harmful (to GNU/Linux Adoption)
it's not limited to games
My Experience With Judges Has been Positive, But We Must Still Pursue SLAPP Reform in the United Kingdom
We believe it'll be a "feather in the cap" if we can help change laws in the UK to better protect investigative reporters
Slopwatch Makes the Web Better
Remember what happened to BetaNews?
Slopwatch: Google News is Pumping in Lots of Web Traffic Into Fake Sites That Say "Linux"
somewhere between 30% and 40% of today's "news" about "Linux", as seen by Google News, is LLM slop
Links 30/07/2025: Climate Calamities Highlighted, Kyrgyzstan Crackdown on Expression/Freedoms
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Watson’s List of Limits, Lysenko 2000
Links for the day
Riot for peace & Love: Catholic Influencers and Digital Missionaries welcome Jubilee of Youth
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Some People See What Others See... But Only 40 Years Later
When people deviate from "the norm" they typically get ridiculed and dismissed as "crazy"
Links 30/07/2025: Tea Class Action and Google Killing the Web With Slop
Links for the day
Last Month Our IRC Community Turned 17
Funnily enough we never missed a single day when it comes to logging
"The Unix Kernel"
Linux was inspired by MINIX
The Register Relays Microsoft Marketing, Dubs That Marketing "Research"
Hours ago they did a "Microsoft sez" piece
Dealing With Sociopaths, Liars, and Cranks
A dysfunctional society such as this would never develop
Not Owning Mobile Phones
It's not about resistance; it's common sense
Google 'Search' is Fast Becoming No Better Than Social Control Media Infested With Bots
Google emerged almost 30 years ago as a company looking to organise the Web and direct people towards informative pages. That Google is dead.
PCLinuxOS Had Functional Backups Before the House Fire, the Site Will be Restored in New Webhost
This is the direction we want for GNU/Linux, not some IBM sales strategy
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Two Sides of Me and "Hooked on Cosmic Voyage"
Links for the day
Microsoft Will Continue Resorting to Crimes in Order to Keep GNU/Linux Usage Down
It is a real problem and we'll revisit it later this week
GAFAM 'Revolving Doors' at The Register and a "Bribe Price List"
"an analyst at Microsoft"
Microsoft Rapidly Shrinking (No, It's Not About Efficiency, It's About Unbearable Debt)
We'll soon see how much debt grew in the past quarter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Corruption is the Standard Operating Procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The EPO is a dictatorship that stains Europe
Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) at the European Patent Office (EPO) Requests an Urgent Meeting to Avoid Abolishing the Office
This is dictatorship led by the most corrupt
Slopwatch: Fake 'Linux' 'Articles' and Spamfarms/Slopfarms
at least 5 fake articles in one day