Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 17/09/2023: The Rehearsal and AuraGem Music Bugfix



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • In Which I Finally Meet Spaghetti Pete

        For years we've been hearing about one of our friends' infamous former roommate. They became roommates, the story goes, when our friend answered a classified ad for a roommate that ended, "must like beer." He responded back with, "Hey, I'm looking for a place to live, and I like to drink beer." And this is how he became roommates with the guy that became known as Spaghetti Pete.

        Spaghetti Pete is the sort of guy who likes to have a good time: when he's not working, he's either at a party, or throwing a party. You'll always be offered a beer. And every now and then Spaghetti Pete gets ideas about something that sounds like fun.

      • where's bartender

        I've ordered a tea 6 months ago and still didn't get it. Have you seen ~bartender recently? Is he doing okay? If he's on a vacation, then we need to urgently find a replacement. What kind of pub is it without the most important person, without whom people cannot get drunk?

      • TV Showcase: The Rehearsal

        The “mockumentary” has held a place in my heart since “Borat” (2006).

        A mockumentary is a humorous production in the style of a documentary; “real life” participants interact with, usually, a very smart comedian playing a character.

        As a format it goes places nobody else can go, gently—or sometimes not so gently—poking fun at life with deadpan humour that I find immensely entertaining.

        More recently the UK series “Cunk on Earth” took a few episodes for me to get into, but left me convinced that the production is a work of genius. It’s worth watching the whole thing just for one scene about nuclear weapons—and ABBA.

    • Politics and World Events

      • Beangate

        The trick here is to make something old sound like a modern political scandal. Anyways, the foundation of modern Western mathematics is (or was) wrapped up with a number of, uh, strange views. The rational mind may put these rules down as "woo" or "humbug", but here we are. Here's a sample.

    • Science

      • stream 5

        i think there is something important even though it seems like there's not. it seems like everything is either important or unimportant, but if everything is equally important, then it also feels like every thing must be unimportant. I think there is a lot of beauty in the subtlety of sometimes adding line breaks and capital letters at interesting times and places to tweets and like that things. I think it matters to every character. every char. characters as people as letters and numbers and symbols inside of strings. what beauty what love what mystery is encoded in the strings of us our DNA or our actions logged in coordinate maps through all time through all places.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Ennui Institute

        I've been thinking about smol.pub all day so figured I'd give it a go. "For the price of a cup of coffee," and cetera. I've spent the bulk of my life, adult and otherwise, On Line and sweet peaches does it suck for the most part these days, a few small circles of community notwithstanding (1). I'm enamored with the idea of a simple posting platform, and have experimented a little bit with markdown-generated static sites (2) for accessible text-first tabletop role play adventure writing, which I've enjoyed, but I want to go simpler. This dovetails with a vague plan to Raspberry Pi Zero myself a markdown editor hobby PC, one which should really sputter under modern web conditions by design.

      • ChatGPT Writing Gamebooks and Pangamebook 1.6.0

        The new algorithm for shuffling gamebooks that I implemented yesterday caused all sorts of bugs in Pangamebook. It also revealed one or two old bugs I just had not noticed before.

      • Kvetching - Tech - The Machine Stops

        Once a month or three I do Fediverse. Tried to-day. Within 7 minutes, I was physically ill, my gut contorted, my shoulders tense. And this, not from reading bad news or uncouth disagreement. No, sick just from the biotic effect of the technology, even with pleasant pictures of pixelated kittens and amiable company. Within 20, I was writing irate re-replies to autie reply guys. 25 minutes later, I shut it all down with a sigh of relief.

      • Nothing much ...

        ... to say today. It's been a great weekend after a couple of quite crunchy weeks, but now I'm staring down the barrel of another few weeks of serious knuckle-down. All good, can't complain, I love my job! But I'm looking forward to things easing off a bit at some point.

        In the spirit of directionless rambling, I noticed just this afternoon that I'd received an email from the FSF advertising the upcoming 40th birthday of the GNU project. Amazing that it's been that long! Amazing also, that one of the two events they're hosting will be in Switzerland, and just a bit over an hour's train journey from where I live. There's even to be an RMS keynote!

      • Internet/Gemini

        • AuraGem Music Bugfix

          The bandwidth throttling of music files was on a global basis by accident, which meant that it was throttling bandwidth for the sum of the bandwidth of all connections. Now bandwidth throttling happens per connection, which means there can be concurrent connections of 320 kbps streams running.

        • Language log no word for x archive

          A list of articles documenting claims that some language has some amount of words for some concept.

        • slow updates

          I’ve been thinking it’s painful to update the main page and I’m pretty slow to push updates. I’m imagining I can solve this with a new tag, that when present, will automatically get added to the index and I can grab all the files that match this year. Or maybe the last N posts… I’ll try for the current year to begin with.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 23/12/2025: Hydraulic Pressure Balance and mercury://
Links for the day
Techrights as 'Regulator' Against Runaway Trains
"Runaway trains" never scared us because we know that they, unlike us, don't think rationally
Social Control Media is Bots (Fake Traffic, Fake 'Engagement')
As per FORTUNE, 76% of Twitter is alleged to be bots now
"Major [IBM] Reductions Will Take Place Soon in Rochester MN"
Maybe that's just the latest office gossip
 
A Good End for a Fine Year
Today we saw some pleasant news online about the growth of GNU/Linux and more perils impacting Windows and XBox
Serial Sloppers Lost Momentum, Sites With "Linux" in Their Name Barely Bother Anymore
Will 2026 be the year slopfarms jump the shark?
Gemini Links 23/12/2025: "The sun is shinning" and "problem in the Butlerian Jihad setup"
Links for the day
Links 23/12/2025: "Over 8,700 News Articles Censored in Turkey in 2024" and "Photos Are Being Deleted From the Epstein Files"
Links for the day
Links 23/12/2025: That ‘Satisfying Click’ and Security Lapses, Car Bomb Kills Russian Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov
Links for the day
Links 23/12/2025: GNU Taler 1.3, US Regime Censors Television Again
Links for the day
Valve Can Bring More Users to GNU/Linux, But It Won't Bring Freedom
Steam is DRM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, December 22, 2025
How the Slop (So-called 'AI') Bubble Will Burst Next Year
There are already talks about mass layoffs in January
"Generative AI Bubble Has Begun to Pop", Nvidia Rides “Circular Financing... a Strategy That Hearkens Back to the Dot-com Crisis”
For companies like Microsoft this may mean another 30,000+ layoffs next year
Microsoft-Connected Media Talking About XBox Division "Profit Margins" is Distraction From XBox Sales Collapsing 70% in One Year
The simple fact is, Microsoft's console is dead in the water
The Reality is "Vibe Code" (Slop) is That It's Worthless
“Confidently Wrong”
British Web Developers Can Probably Ignore Firefox Users (Based on US Standards)
Mozilla has managed to piss off enough people
On the 'Digital Gulag' of 'Secure Boot' and Microsoft Disguising Its Attacks on Users as "Security"
Dr. Andy Farnell has this new article
Slopfarms Can Only Survive in Google News, Which is Still Promoting Them
Google News promoted only 3 slopfarms today
Gemini Links 22/12/2025: Films, Creativity vs. Consumption, Slop in YouTube
Links for the day
Microsoft XBox Losing Money, Layoffs and Studio Shutdowns (As Well as Price Hikes) Not the Solution
Microsoft does not quite talk about profits
Links 22/12/2025: Data Breaches, deterioration in Politics, and Geminispace
Links for the day
Links 22/12/2025: North Korean Applicants Target GAFAM (Amazon), ‘Orwellian Climate of Fear’ of CPC (Even Outside China)
Links for the day
More IBM Layoffs in India
It's not as simple as "laid off to be replaced by an Indian"
GAFAM Deeply Connected to Jeffrey Epstein, Richard Stallman (RMS) in No Way Connected to Jeffrey Epstein
people who hoarded all the capital get to decide what people think and say
Linus Torvalds Has a Birthday This Coming Weekend, Thankfully He Still Controls His Main Project
GNU and Linux should remain under their control as long as they live
Mozilla is Getting Attention for All the Wrong Reasons, Take a Look at LibreWolf
Just last week Mozilla added a new top-level manager who (as usual) came from a "tech giant"
When Conformism Means Capitulation and Defeat
In an age of injustices like these, we all have some kind of moral obligation not to be conformist.
Text is Still King
But the so-called 'industry' insists that we should download 10 MB of objects from multiple domains... even just to read 5-10 paragraphs of text
Links 22/12/2025: Facebook "Testing $14.99 Monthly Subscription Fee to Post Links" and "Middle East Petrostates as American Media Owners"
Links for the day
Beyond the World Wide Web (WWW)
We continue to treat Gemini Protocol as a first-class citizen
Serbia: GNU/Linux Rises, Windows Down to All-Time Lows
According to statCounter
"Wrestling With Pigs"
"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
Productive Year and Better Access to Techrights' Archives Going Back to 2006
we've long needed and wanted native, local, independent search facilities
Linux Abandoned by Linux Foundation
It speaks for Microsoft and for so-called 'AI' companies
Microsoft Has Practically Given Up on XBox Already
Expect many XBox related layoffs when 2026 starts (Q1)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, December 21, 2025
"Today's [Red Hat] is run by a cabal of vultures."
it seems safe to assume Red Hat too will languish away
Microsoft Layoffs in 2026 Can be Bigger Than 2025 Microsoft Layoffs (30,000+ Workers Laid Off)
"Is there going to be any reorg or Microsoft layoffs?"
Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Solstice, Chaos of CSS, and Program Interpreter Fun
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Represents People, Not Corporations
FSF isn't in the "business" of appeasing oligarchs
Why?
Why write articles?
Microsoft-Connected Publisher Spinning XBox's Death Spiral (It's Dying Fast) as a Strength and Something Deliberate
"Microsoft’s big gaming pivot"
Slop is Rare by Now
A year ago slop was so abundant that we did a whole series about it, and it was daily
Links 21/12/2025: U.S. Strikes in Syria, "Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Labrador Retriever of Lagrange's Developer Dies From Cancer, Political Philosophy, and "Getting to Inbox Zero"
Links for the day
IBM: We Can't Make 'AI' (Voice Recognition) Do the Work of a McDonald's Teenager, So Let's Try the Same on Saudi Planes
IBM is lost. It's truly lost.
Microsoft is Becoming Irrelevant: The Case of Georgia
Not Georgia Tech
Sirius Open Source is Now Imminently Dead (Struck Off)
compulsory strike-off
Dr. Richard Stallman, Invited by LibreTech Collective, is Giving a Public Talk in Georgia Tech Next Month (Scheller College of Business)
They can probably squeeze about 400 people into this room
25 Years of Activism for GNU/Linux
My passion for GNU/Linux brought a lot of contentment
Africa, Where Microsoft Used De Facto Slaves to Pretend to be "AI", Chatbots Usage is 0.2% of Measured Online Traffic
Judging by recent trends in Africa, many "Windows PCs" are being converted into GNU/Linux computers
New Drone Footage Shows IBM is Dead (Parts of It)
The people who participated in IBM when IBM actually mattered probably have boasting rights, unlike people who work for IBM today
Michael Larabel Adds Slop Category to Phoronix, Quickly Realises That It's Worthless
Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)
After 35 Years the World Wide Web, HTML, and HTTP Are Proprietary
HTTP/2 added a lot of complexity (it's just a Google protocol, based on SPDY originally), many image formats are proprietary and patented, HTML got 'replaced' by Java-Scripts [sic], and many URLs (the URL system was created in the early 90s) are just long strings for proprietary 'webapps'
The General Public License (GPL) Inspired the Web's Original Openness/Freedom, According to Tim Berners-Lee
"During the preceding year I had been trying to get CERN to release the intellectual property rights to the Web code under the General Public License (GPL) so that others could use it."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, December 20, 2025