Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/08/2023: First Contact With an Antenna, Ben’s Gemcast Has New Episode



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Funeral Times

        Yesterday was spent at my Grandma's funeral. She died 2 or so weeks ago in a quiet manner after not really eating or drinking for the past 4 months. My Grandma had been suffering from vascular dementia for 6 or so years although managed to stay in her home thanks to carers until the last 5 months. The day I realised that the woman I loved had changed significantly was when she went grey. If she was well, she would never of not dyed her hair. I still have no idea what her natural hair colour was. I am not sure my mum knows really.

        My response to the call that she had died was very matter of fact and there was relief that she had stopped suffering. The last time I visited, she was just lying in bed in the dark. There was a response but she was not able to really concentrate. Luckily my brother was there and went into his work mode. He works as a pharmacist in care homes so is used to patients in her condition. Following that, there were tears but weird tears.

      • Re: I Want to Wear a Dress

        So do I! Or, well, probabably more likely a skirt. A skirt seems like a more versatile replacement for pants and shorts, and I would expect to have better luck finding a skirt that fits well. Lately I have been trying to improve my sewing skills beyond clothing repair so I can reliably make my own clothes. If anyone knows of some good skirt patterns, let me know.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: FSIKLOH Wordo: GRITS
      • Social Adulthood

        When I was a senior in high school, I was afraid of the prospect of my childhood ending and that I'd have to go out into the real world. I struggled with self-confidence for much of my life, and I doubted that I'd be able to succeed in anything I tried. I was also afraid of leaving the comfort and familiarity of home. When it came time to choose a university to attend, I gave up on my first choice because I was intimidated by how far I'd be from my family and friends.

        That trend continued in college. I didn't apply myself very hard, partially because I was lazy and partially because I feared I wouldn't do well even if I tried. I ended up graduating with a GPA lower than 3, and with no hope of continuing into graduate school--a goal I'd adopted by default because I was scared of entering the business world.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • First Contact with an Antenna Made in a Hurry

        I'm a radio amateur newbie and I've struggled to get on the air with my shortwave BITX40 radio and my 20m long wire antenna on my balcony. For a long time I've also owned a Baofeng UV-5R+ handheld radio for the VHF/UHF bands, but never actually used it. It's very cheap (about $25 when I bought it), doesn't have many bells and whistles, but still as a lot of bang for the buck.

        Compared to shortwave, VHF/UHF is much easier to get into. No need for a huge wire antenna. The tradeoff is that you only are limited to line of sight range, compared to the bounce-off-the-ionosphere action that allows shortwave to reach between continents. On the other hand you have VHF/UHF repeaters on hilltops that have powerful radios and good antennas (and this very good range). These allow people to talk to each other using the repeater as a hub.

        One evening I programmed the freqencies for the repeaters in my area into my handheld and listened in on a conversation. I thought I recognized one of the guys from an antenna day in Motala the year before. Maybe it was him... Another night I felt it was time to call CQ and see if anyone would answer. Lo and behold, the same guy answered my call! Well, he heard that someone was trying to call, but he said he couldn't read the call sign.

      • Doing and Making Things Myself

        I'm in the process of selling my flat. Therefore I've learned how to put up new wallpapers, and I'm using my amateur handyman skills to fix smaller aesthetic blemishes.

        I'm updating my OpenTTD mod Tea Tea Deluxe, adding custom train carriages for monorail and maglev. And tweaking smaller things, of course. Because why wouldn't I?

        I've done a whole lot of kit and scratch bashing lately. The kids and I are getting into Warhammer 40k (not playing, though, because that was just boring). Models are expensive, but a package will give you a lot more than it says on the box. Lots of extra arms, heads, and weapons for alternative builds. The sprues are great for bashing too. I scored an expensive box for half price because it was incomplete. Still a bargain compared to buying the included models separately. With fimo clay, extra bits, and select pieces of trash one can make pretty cool stuff.

      • Timely Fiction, Non-Eternal Fiction: A ramble on old stuff

        So I decided to rewatch one of the old flash animations from Homestuck today. Thanks, youtube Music algorithm for suggesting that activity. I guess.

        I remember being so hype about Homestuck back in the day, circa 2011-2012. Any time Hussie updated it was like an Unannounced Random Christmas. My then-boyfriend now-husband and I would freak the fuck out and go read or watch them with ravenous fervor. Like, to use the terms of nowadays for back then, we were positively *pogging* out our goddamned *gourds*.

      • foobucket.xyz is now redtermnial.org

        The old domain is valid until 10th of september 2024. Until this date it will permanently redirect all requests to the new domain to prevent broken links (status code 31). Hopefully this works good enough.

        Besides the fact that I didn't like the "foobucket.xyz" name (I'm not good at naming things), the new domain "redterminal.org" has the advantage that it's more search engine friendly (already got some "web creators"/"SEO" spam after 3 days). Search engines like wiby.me or marginalia.nu didn't accept the old domain. I'm not completely sure why, but I think these judge "xyz" TLDs as spam domains.

      • 50 Years of Text Games @Ruby_Witch suggested this book, and I could not resist.

        I really wish I could get the paper edition, but it was sold out. I got the digital version for $25 (pdf, epub and text), but... The book has tons of insets, photos, and graphics, and the epub, unfortunately, cannot keep up with it. CoolReader, my favorite epub viewer, does not break lines correctly in example text, and surrounds each inset with things like


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Trusting Microsoft is Foolish
Mr. Rossmann says they "gaslight customers" in their Web site, but it goes a lot further than this
SLAPP Censorship - Part 94 Out of 200: SLAPP by Garrett's Litigation Buddy Started 20 Months Ago, He Has Not Even Put in His Defence Yet!
This is what happens when one deals with incels and misogynists who promote slop and Microsoft
Gravitating Towards What Your Role in Society May Be (or What You're Truly Good At)
Many IBMers already realise that they spent years if not decades of their lives working on mostly meaningless products/projects
 
Links 01/06/2026: Irreversible GAFAM Bans and "The Pirate Bay Remains Resilient"
Links for the day
Running and Writing Sites for People, Not Bots (Including Search Engines)
Had those sites spent more time focusing on RSS feeds (not social control media "games") and less on SEO (trying to game search engines), they wouldn't be sobbing now
SBB, the Swiss Railroads, Want to Hear Richard Stallman
Can Dr. Stallman persuade key decision makers to adopt not only "Linux" but also Software Freedom (not the same thing), as he did in South American before? Or like he did in Kerala?
Resumes and Vanity Pages
Wikipedia is fast becoming a glorified marketing company
Techrights in a Nutshell, in Very Generic Terms
"for dummies"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 31, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 31, 2026
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Buckingham Palace Garden Party, TUI Annoyances, Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2026: Heat Wave Grips France and Edgar Morin Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2026: Backup vs. Mirror, Year of the Death of a Euphemism, Slop Makes Only Yet Another (Untested) Calculator
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat Has a Long History or Track Record of Misusing Trademarks to Send Lawyers to Try to Take Down Pages and Web Sites of Critics
Red Hat claims to own words; IBM thinks it owns names
Richard Stallman is Coming Back to Bern to Give a Talk Next Month
another big talk coming up
900 Days Later
900 days is a very long time (almost 1,000)
Cybershow Requires Free Software to Record Shows
Cybershow is run by people who understand that without Software Freedom there can be no sovereignty
Losses at Microsoft's GitHub Seem to be Deepening
How many billions of dollars has Microsoft lost by betting on the false prediction that it can somehow "monetise" public code by LLMs?
Links 31/05/2026: Slop 'Code' (Junk) "Increasingly Leads to Production Failures" and "Huge Slop Costs With No Clear Benefits"
Links for the day
European Patent Office Strikes Intensify Tomorrow, Huge Strikes Planned for June, 10,000 Strike Participations Registered
Campinos may well be ousted soon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 93 Out of 200: A Blueprint of Reckless Lawfare in the UK, Waged and Funded by Americans (in Another Continent)
Lawfare powered by slop companies (including Microsoft) from America, targetting British people who consistently oppose slop because it's objectively terrible
Links 31/05/2026: Watershed Moment, Traveller RPG Book Binding, and GUI Annoyances
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 30, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 30, 2026
IBM CEO Can Become a Billionaire by Laying Off Tens of Thousands of Workers (or Buying Companies Using Borrowed Money, Only to Lay off Thousands in Them)
Like he did Confluent recently
Reminder That Linuxiac is a Slopfarm or Hybrid of Bobby and His LLMs
LLM fetishist that claims to cover Linux
BetaNews is Still Publishing Fake Articles, Sometimes Fake News, or LLM Slop Disguised as 'Journalism'
Slop isn't yet a thing of the past, but hopefully we'll get close to that by the end of this year
Gemini Links 30/05/2026: Writer's Block, Evil GAFAM (Google), and Scepticism of Slop
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2026: Fairphone 6, China’s Rise in Drug Development, Slop Wastes Money Without Delivering Value
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2026: Alarm Over Large Companies Cancelling Slop Contracts, Ozzy Osbourne Resurrection as Slop Draws Ire
Links for the day
Red Hat Exodus or RAs (or PIPs) in 2026 Not Limited to China, IBM is Doing Well at Hiding Layoffs
All we need to know is, does IBM hand out lots of PIPs?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 92 Out of 200: A Spouse Cannot be Turned "On" and "Off" Like a Faucet
Today's part will be very short because we keep the parts shorter in weekends and summer is officially around the corner (June on Monday)
The Register MS Has Just Published Fake Article That Mentions "AI" 23 Times. "Sponsored by Arm." It Does This Every Day.
A lot of the time we see this term everywhere in "the news" simply because slop pushers are paying for it
SQLite Under DDoS Attack by Slop Reports or Fake 'Bugs' (Just Like cURL and Many Other Projects)
Even Linus Torvalds is starting to talk about this
IBM: The B Turns From "Business" to "Bailouts" to "Buybacks" ("IBM is the Next Intel")
Trying to shore up the falling share price/stocks while veteran workers and Vice President (with high salaries) are cut off
Links 30/05/2026: More GAFAM (Amazon) Mass Layoffs, Peter Schiff Warns of Trillion-Dollar Slop Bubble Waiting to Implode
Links for the day
Slop is Plagiarism
Trillions of dollars down the drain, invested in a dud
Gemini Links 30/05/2026: Rehabilitation and Taming Emacs Cache and Temporary Files
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talks and Secure Transmission of Private Communications in Formats Everybody Can Access With Free Software
Maybe the FSF should step up a bit the campaign to use Free software to communicate with one another
General Consultative Committee (GCC) Discusses Working Conditions of Employees of the European Patent Office (EPO)
On the agenda: Salary Erosion Procedure, Breastfeeding Policy, New Amicale Framework, Public Holidays 2027
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 29, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, May 29, 2026