Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 25/08/2023: Old Computer Challenge Tools, Internet Appliance



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Wow, this is really happening

        This week it's actually hit me that I'm starting this full-time faculty job in almost exactly a month. I had to have official copies of my transcripts sent over to the school, do some other paperwork for the start of the term, &c.

        I spent today writing the first week of text for my online intro to logic class and I'm starting to write lecture notes for my in-person classes.

      • 🔤SpellBinding: AEOLMNH Wordo: ZOOEY
      • Competence — A new approach to story

        Pop culture narratives, such as movies, spend a lot of time on conflict, but whenever they do give us a few crumbs of competence, people tend to think it’s really awesome. So maybe, just maybe, it’d be pretty good if they threw out the screenwriter’s manuals and started to give us a li’l more of competence.

        One of the most memorable and quoted moments from the biggest blockbuster movie of 2012 is a guy talking about how he successfully copes with his emotions and anger. I’m into that.

    • Politics and World Events

    • Technology and Free Software

      • a kind of chat thing

        I noticed that there was some mechanism for sending arbitrary data directly instead of just poking stuff into the DHT. kind of makes total sense, I'd just been distracted poking at the DHT stuff.

      • Old Computer Challenge Tools 2023 Update

        I've finally got around to uploading the fork of astro[1] I adapted for use on TinyCore. Because it uses the ash terminal, I called it ashtro[2]. It uses a tool I also had to build (to make up for the lack of termcap etc.) called termsize[3].

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Internet Appliance

          Last weekend I watched LGR's video on The Netpliance i-Opener, an Internet Appliance. When I saw the UI and a few screens it brought back memories of how exciting the Internet was back then. It was also a throwback to see that news could be read without obnoxious flashing ads and banners and auto playing videos and stupidily narrow margins. The shopping page in particular reminded me of how much more quaint the WWW was at the time. Unfortunately those days are long dead and gone.

        • Slash and Burn in the Twitter Jungle

          Browsing the Mastodon profile of someone from my city, I found this post, a couple months old now, about the ways in which Twitter keeps breaking. As the article's subtitle says, "everything worked fine until Elon Musk took over"; it details the ways in which Musk's chaotic reign has supremely fucked the site and alienated not just its users, but also the developers in the Twitter ecosystem, the people who make all kinds of software that hooks into Twitter's API.

          Unfollow bots, literary bots, where's-Musk's-plane? bots (the latter of which was naturally the first to be banned) - these all generally rely on API access to get information, send tweets, send DMs. Now, there has always been a precarity in making one's living in the public APIs of major sites: you're relying on not just stability, but goodwill, and it's very easy for both to vanish. In Twitter's case, both did. The stability was remarkably okay until early July, when (it was supposed) some unpaid bills (or at least fuck-you-I'm-not-paying-these-bills) lead to rate limits and yet another bluebird exodus. But if the stability was mostly okay, the goodwill obviously wasn't.

      • Programming

        • How I watch y*utube in ratpoison.

          If the script is executed without any arguments, a browser is opened on the landing page of your selected invidious instance. If the script is executed with a however many arguments, all the arguments will be parsed as a search query.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
There Are Days or Occasions Where gemini:// Requests Almost Exceed http(s):// and Gemini Protocol Isn't Even 6 Yet
Gemini Protocol turns 6 one month from now
 
How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
Links for the day
TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Five Years on Gemini and Atom Feeds over Gopher
Links for the day
Links 18/05/2025: F.D.A. More Sceptical of COVID-19 Vaccines, UK Charges 3 Iranian Nationals In Alleged Attack Plot Against Journalists
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: "Finally Upgraded" and "Rebooting"
Links for the day
Abundance of Good Code, "Just Like Air."
Richard Stallman's seminal manifesto and foundational (practical) work on GNU gave us a very solid system that facilitates productive work without concerns over spyware
Messages in TheLayoff.com Drowned Out by LLM Slop (Comments Focused on Replying to Bot-Generated Provocation)
apparently shaking hands with nazis isn't as bad as calling your git repository's main branch "master"
The Importance of Full Disclosure and Transparency Online
there will be full transparency, as always
Slopwatch: Slopfarms and Serial Sloppers Still at It
Apparently Google is too understaffed to figure that out
Links 18/05/2025: Decreased Prospects of Science Careers, Disappearance of Journalists
Links for the day
Microsofters Have a Long History Trying to Take Down Techrights by Sending Threats to Webhosts
picking on women
Links 18/05/2025: Science, Censorship and European Commission Taking on Monopoly Abuse by Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Šibenik and SFJAZZ Historical Archive
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 17, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 17, 2025
Links 17/05/2025: Microsoft Kills "Surface Laptop Studio" (More Canceled Products/Units), Groups Caution About Harms of Social Control Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Sympathy Algorithm and SSH on Alternative Ports
Links for the day
Inviting the Founder of GNU/Linux to Events (It Only Costs His Travel Expenses) and Recalling the True Origins
It's reassuring to see belated recognition
Slopwatch: Microsoft's Anti-Linux Propaganda and Cover-up, Slopfarms Clogging Up Google News
slop-tracking activities that observe googlebombing of "Linux"
AstroTurfing by IBM in thelayoff.com is Highly Risky (and Likely Outsourced)
Microsoft did this in Reddit (and got caught), so why won't IBM too?
Links 17/05/2025: Stabber of Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Links for the day
The Microsofters Have Just Shared Privileged Trial Data With Microsoft
There are serious ramifications for liability accountability as Microsoft salaries sponsor these SLAPPs
Trolls With LLM Slop Are Disrupting Communications About Mass Layoffs at IBM
LLM slop to drown out the signal
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Happier on Gemini and Manipulating Reddit
Links for the day
ComEd and Microsoft: A Mess of Spaghetti Held Together By Circus Clowns
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 16, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 16, 2025