Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: ABLMYUT Wordo: GUSTO

  • week 39 - peachtober prep

    the week felt... slow. a little brain slow? and some pains, the weather changes are definitely affecting our household. alternating sun and rain, there was even a storm! the mornings are cool enough to run the heating. a nice respite from the heat and mosquitoes of summer.

  • UZUMAKI

• Technology and Free Software

  • Locked Out

    In the beginning, there were passwords. To log into your various online accounts you had to demonstrate that you remember their corresponding passwords. If you forgot the password you got locked out. This was a tractable problem that you could solve unilaterally: keep multiple redundant copies of your "password manager" database, so that you're unlikely to lose all of them at the same time.

    For reasons that I won't get into, eventually the gatekeeper that set the terms of how the login process works decided that passwords aren't good enough anymore, and started demanding in addition that on every login you type in a one-time code sent to your email address. Meaning that whichever evil megacorporation that manages your email gets to interpose themselves between you and every single one of your online accounts, giving them the power to unilaterally cut you off even from services that they ostensibly don't own.

  • New car doesn't like my rooted phone

    I rooted my phone and installed a custom ROM as soon as the vendor stopped shipping security updates. I did this to preserve the security level on the phone. Why, then, does even my smart watch app freak out when it detects the phone is rooted? Who the hell gave that app permission to go poking around the device internals to check? No one, that's who.

    So I've had to fix this now. I have a new electric car that has an app that let's me do stuff like pre-warm and demist it before I leave the house in the morning. So, essential stuff. But of course, the app craps out once it realised I've made the effort to secure an otherwise unsupported old phone.

    Following a tutorial, I opened Magisk, and renamed the app records to something sneaky. From there enable Zygisk (a Magist zygote daemon, apoarently -who names these things!), then add a module to fix other stuff, enable the denylist, edit to add apps. Reboot repeatedly throughout. But the magic incantations worked - nothing broke, borked or bricked. The spells let me remote control the car (I never knew I wanted to fix that!) and my watch app has stopped complaining.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • A late September life update

      When I announced ROOPHLOCH 2024 earlier this month I very nearly declared right off the bat in the same post that I wouldn't participate this year, on the grounds that I was (and am) really pleased with my 2023 post and wanted to aim even higher, which I knew full well I wouldn't have time to do this year, as I had a very full calendar for the month. But I didn't do that, because I figured that any kind of participation was better than none at all. So here I am at not quite the last minute, posting in a very uninspired way (Thinkpad X220 connected to WiFi hotspot on my phone), but at least I'm in a local forest, about as far, I think as it's possible to get from any clear walking paths in any direction. I've made pour over coffee with water from a thermos which I boiled at home before leaving (I've not had any fuel for my Trangia stove in I don't know how long), using lots of my old Finnish kit from when I did this all the time. It's nice, and has been way too long! It's raining slightly, which I didn't expect, although the trees are providing enough cover that I can leave the laptop open without things being too dicey...

    • ROOPHLOCH 2024

      I've never properly participated in a ROOPHLOCH before now. In previous years, I've thought of all sorts of ideas to post a log without relying on traditional Internet infrastructure, from emulating a dial-up connection over radio to a temporary solar-powered gopherhole updated by NNCP. And in previous years, I get so caught up in planning and research that I never get around to actually writing anything.

      We have a friend staying over at our house temporarily. Tonight we brought out the fire pit and roasted marshmallows together under the stars. By the time everyone else decided to go back inside, the logs still had plenty of burn left in them, so I decided to stay outside. I'm composing this log on my DevTerm, the keyboard illuminated only by firelight.