Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • hi, coffee

    steaming mugs and trailing pipe smoke see in this foggy Monday. ill be at home, needing a break from volunteer work. Rewarding work, but took Sept off, as I did last Sept.

    Cutting budget, staying frugal:

    no need for a $99 monitor stand, a $29 tablet stand will work ok for 15 in ASUS ZenScreen. Those and an HDMI to USB-C cable is all that need be purchased from BH Photo in Oct

  • 2024 Week 33/34/35/36/37: Photos

    Our garden continues to grow well in the summer warmth. The tomatoes grew rather slowly at first, but fruits are now appearing on the vine in droves. Cucumbers grow more regularly; we see one once every few days or so. Here one of each is laid out on the counter for later use.

  • Small Improvements in Carbon Capture

    I've seen a lot of noise the last little while about improvements in carbon capture technology. And no wonder. With the effects of climate change becoming not just more devastating, but more frequent, the world is seeing the consequences of our species' long term choices. It's said that it doesn't matter if you don't believe in climate change, because your insurance company does. I'm not an actuary, but I did used to do work for an insurance company, and I can tell you this is true. Climate change had a direct impact on policyholders in that there would be new policy blackouts placed on particular zip codes. In the cases I witnessed, this was certain regions of California as fires devastated parts of the state in the mid to late 2010s. Meanwhile, I did what I could myself. Made sure I had enough insurance on my house, selected Overland Water coverage in addition to Sewer Backup. Trust me on this: in a world where rains are seemingly both less and more frequent, having a coverage that'll cover you if water penetrates the house from the outside is a must. I'll take that till I can't.

  • Back in the Game: Catching Up

    Hello again, it's been nearly a year since my last public writing. During this time, I've been deeply involved in supporting my parents through the process of adopting my niece and nephew, who had previously been in the foster care system since may of last year. In the midst of this, I found myself living in a tent due to the kids each needing a seperate bedroom. During that time I have been simplifying my life and reflecting on what truly brings me contentment. We finally got them adopted last christmas, and life is just now starting to settle down.

  • the crickets of night

    I observe. Like camping. Hawk State Park is not far from here - deer hooves in the night, Whipper Will nocturnal birds, coyotes, sometimes too close. Those occupy the night sounds deep in the wood line. Here, crickets and occasional distant engines.

    But observance. A "I think that is that", and the slow, mildly acknowledging "I think that thing in the distance is..." thoughts pass through my mind. Taking in, all.

    St Genevieve St runs behind the building, but up several houses. A historical neighborhood, large trucks, town cars, and an occasional ATV (because Farmington). A street lamp dawns it's corner - I see passers by, silhouettes of far strangers hoofing their way to their destination.

  • Bells

    The Autumn chill blows across the lake again like a howling banshee, and once more the cook is attempting to light the stove to prepare our late breakfast.

    To get some fresh air I step out onto the deck of the ship from my quarters. It was still raining and sleeting per the usual weather of the lake. To try and numb the pain I try to light a cigarette from a 12 pack.

  • At the coast again!

    Well I'm at the oregon coast again, cannon beach this time instead of my typical seaside. This is just a daytrip, so we can walk the beach for hours and hours before I go off and start the academic year all proper-like.

    I think I'm going to count this as my official ROOPHLOCH entry for september. I know I technically did it before I remembered solderpunk was doing his whole challenge again when I wrote from my then absolutely brand new pocket reform at the local dormant volcano turned park.

    But writing here on the beach and posting feels more in the spirit. I love that here we don't have private beaches, that it's always public (although people can still have Private Access in that if they own property next to the public beach their paths too it don't automatically become public) which means that we can just walk for miles and miles and miles.

  • Exhumed wisdom

    In the decades that I’ve had the account, some links have gone rotten. Since I’m planning on transitioning away from Pinboard, I’m having some interesting challenges getting some of these web pages out and into a format that’s usable if I want to get back to the information in it and/or show that information to others.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Configuring Autocrypt in Emacs/Gnus

    After learning several "standard" UIs that subsequently disappeared, I try to do client-side things in Emacs if it seems sensible. Reading email is one such task, since I personally rarely need anything other than plain text support. Here I describe my general Gnus configuration, and later the parts relevant to autocrypt.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Grow your own services

      This site aims to help people take control of their cloud services while not requiring them to DIY their entire stacks.

  • Programming

    • Pseudo-Productivity In Java

      I do like Java, and I'm sure that is an unpopular opinion in Geminispace. But I have noticed a side-effect of its verbosity that frustrates me to no end. While in a well applied form, the verbosity of Java can serve to make code that is fairly immediately obvious and "self-documenting" to a degree. This is a large appeal to me when writing business software, where I cannot guarantee every pair of eyes on the code is competent or capable as a programmer. This verbosity however has a counterside to it when used by those aforementioned people.

      A lot of Java programmers seem to fall into habits that they themselves don't even think about. I'm sure this happens plenty across language boundaries, but never have I seen it more obvious than in a Java software stack. Everything must be separated into "Controller -> Server -> Repository", which each having their own interface that is implemented once and only ever once. It's a madness that is only overtaken by the insanity that occurs within C# software stacks, and the generally outlandish code I have encountered in Microsoft shops.

      All of these weird design patterns and overreliance on habit can make it appear like you're doing a lot, when in fact you have written extremely little.