Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Hybrid Shadows - Watched, Scouting Mission

        I've been working on my Hybrid Shadows - my Sci-fi, Transhuman story. I've actually had a couple people ask me about this story lately, and I really appreciate the interest! I love the story, and have much more written in a very, very rough form, including the ending. This one isn't so light-hearted like Lantashi's Dance, so takes more effort for me to write.

        I have a short scene ready to go (Scouting Mission), and will publish a much longer scene in a few days after I have a change to clean it up.

      • I Hate Vacuum Cleaners

        This might seem a bit absurd or hyperbolic but I think that vacuum cleaners are the archetype for the over-engineering which we see in literally everything today it seems. It's a simple problem really: floors get dusty and dirty and the grim has to be periodically removed, but it is not a fun task so we want a device that gets the job done quickly and effectively.

        Now, there are a few very simple devices that have existed since time immemorial. There's the broom, the mop, and dustpan-and-brush. Brilliantly simple with no moving parts, no batteries nor power source needed, nothing that can really go wrong. The only caveat is that they only really work on smooth surfaces, and so, I hear you say, what about carpet! And its a very good point, vacuum cleaners are much better at cleaning carpet, and my answer that is simple: don't have carpet. Just get a rug instead, which can be patted down outside, or cleaned like every other piece of fabric you own. Vacuum cleaners are a solution to a problem that does not need to exist! They're temperamental, noisy, energy-intensive, and most of all wholly unnecessary.

      • Mr. Lucky

        We play two games of Yahtzee a week with my in-laws. My mother-in-law won the second game today, but I absolutely cleaned up in the first game. Four Yahtzees, including one on the first roll. Everyone was cursing me. It was unbelievable, definitely the highest score I've ever had.

      • littered letters

        I went through the Trash on Google Drive and pCloud, and I found heaps of old PDFs and .txt docs from the past 5+ years. I just made a big folder called "WRITE SHIT" and stored them on Proton Drive and my local machine.

        Some of it is ok, most isn't. Some are 30K word "offline" journals, some are short "personal experience essays". One reads like a small dissertation. And a few are poems, haikus.

      • Implications

        When I write something in English or think and dream in English, this is often a perplexing issue that confuses me and makes it challenging for me to fully immerse myself in the "Anglo Zone." Or in the "Latin Zone," for that matter.

      • Siege Perilous? 🏎

        Say you're a driver in F1. You get offered a seat at the front running team. But your team mate will be someone highly rated. Maybe it's Hamilton or Verstappen. The sort of driver who breaks records. This is your chance to be in the best car, to finish ahead of everyone... except one person. You might win a few races here and there, but a lot of the time you're going to be beaten, and even made to look a bit rubbish.

    • Technical

      • Wayland - Only the Future or Already the Present

        It is believed that Wayland is going to be the future of display managers for Linux. So I recently tried it out and am happy to report that it may not only be the future, but is already very usable in many circumstances.

        Before discussing my switch to Wayland though, it is worth talking about what I have been using until now. In the last (at least) year I have been daily-driving Xmonad (which obviously uses the X11 display server). It is great, and I love it and I would certainly return to it if I didn't think Wayland was already ready for me. Of course, I had my own Xmonad configuration (which is actually pretty minimal) including xmobar for the status bar. Though recently I had some issues with xmobar crashing (which was solved by switching away from xmobar obviously) and also longer startup times (30+ seconds) for some applications (which was actually the fault of xdg-desktop-portal-gnome and which was not fixed by switching to Wayland, but I found another fix for that in the meantime). So I decided to take a look at the future of Linux display system.

      • The Old Computer Challenge V3

        Hi! It's that time of the year when I announce a new Old Computer Challenge :)

        If you don't know about it, it's a weird challenge I've did twice in the past 3 years that consists into limiting my computer performance using old hardware, or by limiting Internet access to 60 minutes a day.

      • The Old Computer Challenge V3

        I want this challenge to be accessible. The first one wasn't easy for many because it required to use an old machine, but many readers didn't have a spare old computer (weird right? :P). The second one with Internet time limitation was hard to setup.

        This one is a bit back to the roots: let's use a SLOW computer for 7 days.

      • Re: The Gemini Protocol Seen by This HTTP Client Person

        One thing to note, Daniel Stenberg has explicitly stated several times that as long as the code is up to cURL's coding standards, he's more than willing to add Gemini support to cURL. I'm sure he also has more than his fair share of criticisms of HTTP and any other internet protocol cURL already supports too.

        Also, in this post I'm mostly just going to discuss Daniel Stenberg's original post and not the responses to it. Shockingly, almost of the responses were measured, well-written, and acknowledged the real issues Daniel addressed, like I'm attempting to do here.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October