Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Invega, mental health, and hygiene

    Since I've been on a lower dose of Invega, I've noticed that I've had more spoons for maintaining my hygiene. This may be coincidental, or it may be causative.

    In retrospect, during my adult years, my poor hygiene correlates with increases in my Invega dose. 2011-2019 were probably the most unhygienic years for me, and that coincides with being on 9-12 mg of Invega. Invega causes me to be fatigued and drowsy during the day, which means I have less spoons for maintaining my hygiene. Also, it's one thing to not have energy for maintaining my hygiene, but it's another to simply not care about it. Whatever Invega does to my brain chemistry that reduces positive symptoms of psychosis somehow also makes me care less about my hygiene. Barring other possible reasons, if it is the case that Invega causes me to care less about hygiene, then I would expect to get my "normal" pre-Invega hygiene habits back if I were weened off completely. It's almost like Invega decreased positive symptoms of psychosis and traded them off for an increase in negative symptoms.

  • 🔤SpellBinding: YDIPTVA Wordo: BUTTE

  • Diary of an Unemployed Citizen 001

    As I continue my tenure as an unemployed citizen, yet another temporary assignment finds its way across my bureau: a Seasoned Support Driver for the United Parcel Service. Though boasting the centurion UPS logo, I, personally, would not be allowed to drive a Brown Truck, don a Brown Uniform, or see a single ~~Brown~~ Union Cent.[^1]

  • Diary of an Unemployed Citizen 002 - A Dingbat Free of the Trenches

    The morning is slow. I receive a vocabulary list from the United Parcel Services, a nice touch I figure, and place it upon my tintub.

    [...]

    We are directed to a small white awning, propped against a dark grey shipping containing. The awning covers two tables and ten wastebaskets. The two tables are not large enough to accomodate the fifteen or so fresh recruits. Some of us stand, some pace, most stare at their phones.

  • Diary of an Unemployed Citizen 003

    And I even think I have most of those in my vehicle.

    But considering how they offloaded to us dingbats, we pick up two headaches for every three packages loaded.

    Today I met my driver in the parking lot of _Buena Vida Pharmacy_ roughly a full store plus two miles from where I was hired. He proceeded to drop most of his truck's packages onto the ground for me to load my compact car as full as it will allow. He then quickly warned me about dogs, and promptly left.

• Technology and Free Software

  • The Adocentyn Temple Almanac version 2 is released!

    For the more astrologically-inclined among y'all or those who want an edge on or a step up with timing their rituals, I have some great news!

    The Adocentyn Temple Almanac (TATA) has released its second version, with a whole bunch of new features, customizations, and improvements! I mentioned the first version being released in February this year, but I've been working on getting a improved one put out to be released just in time for people to start planning their 2025, which is officially released as of today.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • How to Setup a Gemini Capsule/Website on a Google Cloud Compute Instance

      Gemini is a lightweight internet protocol designed for accessing remote documents, bridging simplicity and privacy. Positioned between HTTP and Gopher, it features a minimalist, text-focused approach with a unique document format called "gem text, " which allows basic styling and linking. Gemini emphasizes low bandwidth usage, user control, and a distraction-free browsing experience.

      In this article, I will demonstrate how to set up a Gemini website, often called a "capsule," on a Google Cloud compute instance running Debian 12 or similar. In principle, this tutorial should be applicable to any Linux box, whether on the cloud, VPS, or home, as long as you have `sudo` privileges and can open the required ports.

    • Utilizing VPSs' IPv6 ranges for privacy

      Now, say that you have a cheap VPS that you use as a VPN "server" for it to route your traffic through the interwebz. In that case, you probably also received a IPv6 prefix for your fancy new virtual box. Depending on the prefixlength, you now have an enormous address space to make use of! But what can you do with it actually? After all, there is _no_ way that any single person can utilize it...

      Next, say that somewhere in your pf.conf you NAT your internal VPN clients' v4 addresses to your external server addresses, like so:

      match out on egress from (wg0:network) nat-to (egress)

      This will actually also work for v6 addresses, given that you gave your egress interface a v6 address and that the VPN clients have a v6 address configured which is not part of your server's v6 prefix. Yes you have heard me correct: NAT on IPv6? Who in the world would be crazy enough to do something as stupid as this? I am! And this is gonna get even stupider >:)

    • Home networking and preventing DNS leaks

      I'm thinking of getting my OPNsense device back up again. At my previous place of residence, I had AT&T internet, and AT&T had all sorts of configurable options in their modem that played well with my OPNsense device. At my current place of residence, I have Xfinity Comcast, and the only option I can configure on their modem that would allow me to use my OPNsense device is "Enable/disable bridge mode". When I first moved in here, I tried doing that, but for some reason the IPv4 gateway on my OPNsense device wasn't picking up anything. I believe I had everything configured correctly, the Xfinity modem was in Bridge mode, and the OPNsense router was assigned the public IP address from my Xfinity account. This was four months ago, and it's very likely I missed something in the configuration, so it can't hurt to try again. The worst-case scenario is that I reset my Xfinity modem to factory defaults and continue to use that. But it would sure be nice if I could have more control over that portion of my internet.

    • The continuing saga of receiving email for Sean Conner

      I have another data point for receiving email for other people named “Sean Conner.” [1] This time, I received an email from a auto repair shop in Wimauma, Florida [2], detailing work on my 2014 XXXXX­XXXXX­XXX with VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) XXXXX­XXXXX­XXXXX­XX and the Florida plate of XXXXX­X with XXXXX­X miles on the odometer for a total amount of $XXXXX­X. If that level of detail isn't scary enough, I also learned of my phone number (919) XXXXX­XXX, which places me somewhere in Central North Carolina (I'm guessing it was my parents' car getting repaired, most likely). Fortunately, no credit card information was given out in the email notification.

  • Programming

    • On using reproducible Python development environments

      One of the things I find annoying about using Python is that there are so many ways of making the development environment of a package or set of scripts reproducible. I have a repository that contains several Python scripts that help me with various tasks, mostly related to qBittorrent. Maybe one or two of these scripts can be separated out into a distinct, individual package, but it's generally more convenient for me to have a directory-level development environment activated with direnv where I can run the other scripts too. I've been using `nix-shell` with a shell.nix file, but this tends to require that I learn the Nix expression language in order to configure shell.nix. I don't like using tools I don't fully understand, and I'm not willing to prioritize learning Nix. It would be nice if I could just use a TOML file to declare everything I need, similar to pyproject.toml, and `nix-shell` would read this instead of shell.nix. As far as I know, the Nix language doesn't have a way to map the TOML structure to Nix expressions. I've tried devenv.sh, but this adds extra files and cruft that I don't want polluting my development environment. If I use a plain requirements.txt file with a virtualenv, it can't pull in the Python tools I use, like black, isort, bpython, and pyright.