Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 01/08/2023: ClockworkPi and Splitting the Web



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • 🔤SpellBinding: BEHIVRO Wordo: AXONS
      • Jorge Sanz: July 2023

        July was mostly a month in between the conferences and summer holidays for me. Next week we will go out so July was a month at home, enjoying the local festivities of Valencia (*Gran Fira de València*) where the city was busy every weekend with many different activities. We had also national government and senate elections that as before, are leaving the country in a period of politics and very likely repeated elections.

      • Aestate summa

        According to the calendar it should be high summer outside, but the thermometer shows 17 degrees C and it has been raining all night and all day long.

        We are in a hotel near the Hessian-Bavarian border as after visiting family we needed some time for ourselves. Clearly we picked the worst week weatherwise. On the radio they are constantly babbling about the need for security measures on sizzling hot days as we'll have plenty of those because of the climate "catastrophe". Yeah, look outside you fools.

      • How to start cooking

        I think it's hard to start from nothing. After all, I'm standing in my kitchen and want to cook something, so I start with the ingredients I have at hand and the ingredients I have at hand are based on vague notions of existing recipes. It is extremely rare for me to get a book with a recipe and shop for the ingredients.

      • Living under the shadow

        Recently I've been thinking more and more about life and stuff, and I realised I've been living under the shadow for my entire pre-18 life.

        I've been wanting to do things by myself, especially things that I'm interested in, but life tells me that I'm not allowed to do that because imagine seeing me looking at the screen and putting the books aside, that will make me "fail", so because life doesn't want me to fail even once, I've instead become a puppet of life.

        I've been trying to fail, find ways to do it my own way, so that I can understand what I should improve, but life always gets into my way and say "don't you dare", so the most that I did during these days were to grind out subjects like Math, because that's what I was interested in, and at school, in which life doesn't intefere me yet, it was my biggest motivation to actually make improvements, it was something that I was passionate about.

    • Politics and World Events

      • On Direct Democracy

        To defend direct democracy, to oppose it as ‘real democracy’ against the false political democracy of the State, is to believe that our true nature will at least be revealed if were to finally be freed from the constraints which the system imposes on us: but to free oneself of such constraints supposes a transformation which at end of we would no longer be ourselves, at the very least we would no longer be what we are under the civilization of Capital.”

      • On Democracy

        After a lifetime of thinking that I live in a democracy, I was horrified not long ago to see how it really works. In the US, people's votes don't really count to elect a leader (except to occasionally break a tie). People do not elect leaders - it is the mysterious 'electoral college' that elects presidents.

        It is the equivalent of the 'dark web' of politics. Do you know who the electors of your state are? Does anyone? How does one become an elector? Is it a paid position?

        These people are not responsible or accountable to anyone for anything. They can vote any f***ing way they feel like, for anyone they want. In some cases if they vote against the wishes of powerful people, they may be removed and replaced, repeatedly, until the desired vote is cast -- which is even worse, because you see, someone in power has a way of getting the vote they want, regardless of what the elector wants, which is already decoupled from what people want.

    • Games

      • Mixed-level parties

        @andy@dice.camp asked me about playing with mixed level parties. I'd say that compared to my days as a D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1 referee running Adventure Paths I feel that old school games like B/X and AD&D running sandboxes like mega-dungeons and hex-crawls are more carefree for me.

        Players determine the difficulty level by deciding where to go. This is made possible because mega-dungeons and hex-crawls are sandboxes in the sense that there are multiple ways to traverse them with no clear progression in difficulty or plot requirements. All this requires is for the players to be able to make an informed decision. Rumours about monsters provide warnings, and the implied treasure provides enticement. Dungeon level depth provides both.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • zshbrev

        zshbrev allows you to mix zsh code and brev code. Not for polished li’l “eggs” but for your own duct tape and chewing gum hacking and automation. Quick and dirty♥.

        The default directory is .zshbrev/ but you can change it with the --dir flag to zshbrev.

      • Did anyone else get a Beepy, aka Beepberry?

        I just got one a few days ago and it's pretty cool. Kind of like a smaller PocketCHIP. I'm using a Pi Zero W in it for now because I already had a few on hand but would like to try the RISC V MangoPi MQ Pro eventually. I wrote up some first impressions on my gemlog.

      • Internet speed, Media computer, File server: Setting up Samba, river Wayland updates



        Still needs a lamp or something. It's too dark in the evenings. Other than that I think I like it here. Depends on what happens in the living room, I suppose, if we suddenly get a teen invasion or something when #3 brings friends that want to use the living room, but that has yet to happen.

        I also re-routed our home network a little to get rid of the cable salad I had made next to the fucking DOCSIS modem. Instead, I have connected a single Ethernet cable from it all the way behind our bookcases to this desk and keep the rest of our network equipment neatly on my desk. The cute and noiseless little PC Engines apu2 which works as our combined router and firewall is my favourite computer in the household and sits just under my monitor now.

        This also means the workstation now gets real Ethernet instead of the Powerline thing it had before. Yeah, I know, I should just give up on the Powerline things already and just wire real Ethernet to every room in the flat.

      • ClockworkPi DevTerm Thoughts

        At the end of March, I received a ClockworkPi DevTerm UMPC. I didn't have much of a chance to play with it in April or May, but since about the end of June, I've been using it as my primary mobile PC. After about five weeks of consistent use, I have a number of thoughts about the platform.

        My model is the DevTerm Kit RPI-CM4. The kit itself is a set of computer components: screen, keyboard with integrated trackball, main board, and peripherals, along with a shell. The kit is very simple to build: no soldering or screws are required. Swapping and upgrading components is extremely easy. Best of all, the hardware is open-source, and schematics and 3D-printing files are available on ClockworkPi's GitHub page. Assembly took only a few minutes.

        A Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is not included inside the kit itself, but Clockwork does include one in the purchase. Two 18650 lithium-ion batteries are required for mobile use but are not included at all. Fortunately, I had a few left over from a much earlier project.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Splitting the Web

          There’s an increasing chasm dividing the modern web. On one side, the commercial, monopolies-riddled, media-adored web. A web which has only one objective: making us click. It measures clicks, optimises clicks, generates clicks. It gathers as much information as it could about us and spams every second of our life with ads, beep, notifications, vibrations, blinking LEDs, background music and fluorescent titles.

          A web which boils down to Idiocracy in a Blade Runner landscape, a complete cyberpunk dystopia.

          Then there’s the tech-savvy web. People who install adblockers or alternative browsers. People who try alternative networks such as Mastodon or, God forbid, Gemini. People who poke fun at the modern web by building true HTML and JavaScript-less pages.

          Between those two extremes, the gap is widening. You have to choose your camp. When browsing on the "normal web", it is increasingly required to disable at least part of your antifeatures-blockers to access content.

        • Append Write Corruption

          Someone on the #gemini IRC channel had guestbook code up for review; the results of malloc and fopen calls were not checked. These calls can and do fail, folks!


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
 
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day