Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Plitvička Jezera

    The reason for coming to Grabovac was that we wanted to see the Plitvička Jezera. It had many, many fantastic waterfalls, and a wooden walkway passing beneath them, going through the water-flooded areas, a boat to take you across one of the larger lakes, and more waterfalls. It was mind-boggling. It was beautiful. It was almost too wonderful to take in. But see for yourself.

  • 16 May 2025

    After a really, really productive week i am now again in this weird "Why the hell i am doing all this?!?" mood and my productivity just hit absolute rock bottom this morning. No, nothing bad has happenend, the bright fire that drove me to not only cram massive amounts of documentation about reactive web design - a thing that i had previously only a rudimentary understanding off - into my head but also write a web app for our sales people in this week... well, that fire did go *poof* this morning. I tell myself "i have the whole next week to polish everything... slow down", but as for now every interest i have in this project has vanished. Well, i hope after the weekend my motivation will return...

  • may 16 love detox eve 3

    I am obsessed with her.

    For the last few months it was all about her. I realized that I've created an alternate reality where I would think about her all the time, in the morning, going to bed, anytime I wasn't doing anything. I would only see her every other week, maybe once in a month. But I fully created a world in which I would be with her all the time.

    It's really crazy, I'm really crazy, and I feel like I've damaged my mind, or I really sunk deep into this obsession. This is completely self created and I can't believe how profound of an experience it has become.

  • may 16 love detox day 3

    Love detox, the calm after the storm.

    She texted me, and of course that calmed my mind. I'm afraid of the end, she seems to want to sustain something... I don't really know, but one thing I know is that I have to calm down, enjoy the ride.

    I've practiced some meditation about visualizing the light, filling my body. It was quite powerful and I realize that my abstinence has modified my energy levels. I forgot about this, but it's also quite exciting to see that change.

  • Spring, Post-Apocalyptic TV and a Novel

    It's been a cold and rainy spring in the North, with just a few days in the past month or so that have actually been spring-like. Yesterday was one of them, and it's amazing how sun and warmth combined with birds, flowers and the other signs of nature can elevate one's mood. But it has put off our plans for a garden, which we're still planning to do, although it probably has more to do with our move last August. It's always difficult to know what will grow where after moving to a new house with new property - is the soil too rocky? Does the sun hit the right parts of the yard for enough hours a day?

    We have also not been able to do much biking due to the weather, although I had my bike tuned and cleaned up and replaced one of the tires, so it's ready when the weather cooperates.

    My wife and I have started watching the post-apocalyptic series "The Last of Us" [0], which came out in 2023, so we're a bit late to the game. It's been a very good show so far. I never played the video game of the same name, so I'm just seeing it as it is, but the writing and acting are top-notch. The last episode we watched, the third of the first season, earned Nick Offerman much praise as well as an Emmy. He plays a survivalist who stumbles into a long-term relationship with another man who was caught by one of his traps. The episode was a bit of a departure from the main theme of the series, and could almost be a standalone movie in its own right (it's 80 minutes long) - but it's well worth watching.

• Politics and World Events

  • ALEP's PR campaign on leasehold reform, Chick's "chicken and egg"

    Recently there have been two articles circulated in the UK trade press from Mark Chick, head of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Professionals or "ALEP". The overall vibe is that someone thinks the new government is biddable on watering down the proposed reforms.

    Ultimately he proposes to "allow leasehold for new flats in the short to medium term, but with strengthened protections for leaseholders – while undertaking pilots in the passage towards commonhold adoption". It would be interesting to know whether he would have supported Lord Bailey's unsuccessful amendment to the 2024 legislation, which would have put in place the sort of protections he commends in his first article.

    ALEP is a trade assocation of solicitors, surveyors and so on who help you buy your freehold or extend your lease. I'd assume that they can't make their entire living from doing this and all have other areas of business. ALEP is pretty open, to the extent that I once even received an invitation to their annual golf weekend just by being on their mailing list. I don't play golf. I'm not even, like, Protestant.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Adopting an AUR Package [or helping Microsoft besiege Linux]

    I do a lot of .NET development for work. since I really like working from linux, and I loathe visual studio, I do my development from neovim in WSL. With .NET CORE, cross platform work is super easy, and I actually think it runs faster on linux using kestrel than windows+IIS, so this is smooth and easy.

  • What I'm playing 😼🚋 Jazztronauts | Plunder the Steam Workshop for money

    Jazztronauts is a deeply meta kind of game that takes full advantage of its Garry's Mod base: it uses the Gmod workshop as its playground and the story takes place within it as a "Source engine multiverse" of sorts. I find it's a great experience in online co-op with friends.

    The story starts off with you playing normal Gmod. However, while playing some unremarkable Half-Life 2-styled map, a band of interdimensional cats show up, exploring the worlds of the Source engine. They recruit you to help with the mission: you're going to help them gather junk from maps from all over the Gmod workshop. You will actually go out to real maps to steal props and level geometry!

    Wait, otherworldly visitors that show up to offer you a job for a mysterious agenda? Am I back in Black Mesa?

  • enjoying a little light forced data extraction on my bonus day off

    Local schools are closed today because of power outages, so I spent my morning repairing a trellis and running a few errands I'd postponed. Now I don't have to deal with them in June. Neat.

    [...]

    Why I Went: I am short on tops that are both light enough for working inside a no-AC cinder-block oven and professional enough for working in the library stored inside said no-AC cinder-block oven.

    Surveillance Vibe: Medium-High. I did not spot any obvious cameras, but I'm 95 percent sure they exist. The cameras are not as imposing as the little old ladies who run the place, though. They are EXTREMELY chatty and nosy and really, REALLY good at getting "conversational" info out of people. Forget algorithms - Meta needs to hire Doris and Laura.

    Will I Return: Probably. This is my third favorite thrift store in town, and it may become my second-favorite (see below).

  • Internet/Gemini

    • I was happier when I was on Gemini

      Around the end of 2023, I decided I wanted to post an article on my gemlog every day, and so I did. For about three months and then I sort of fell off. I don't write nearly as much as I used to, and I feel like I've been trying to get back to that place ever since.

      New year's last year, I was reflecting on the time and I noticed that my life had never felt so put together as it did during those three months. Things have changed since then, I suppose. My role as a caretaker has gotten a lot more difficult as the world has gotten harder to live in. I've worked full time for the last year, and unlike watching television or playing video games writing is a very active, constructive exercise. It takes work, and energy. It was easy at the time, surely, because I had so much practice, but it's just as easy to let go.

      Despite the title, I don't think it was the fact that I started publishing my writing on the web that pushed me to lose interest. I think I just slipped around the same time that I was witnessing a lot of change in my life and the world around me, and since then it's been hard to regain sight of what matters, what I truly care about. Writing has for a long time been the best tool I have to connect with people and I'm definitely not prepared to give it up.

    • An odd way of manipulating Reddit

      A couple of years ago one of my subreddits suddenly attraced a huge number of new subscribers overnight. I have four or five subreddits where I post links, all of them with a couple of dozen subscribers; I have no idea who these people are and why they would be subscribing to what is explicitly a distributed personal bookmark list.

      One day I posted an article about the origins of COVID, by a long-standing science writer named Nicholas Wade. By random coincidence it is his birthday today; he must be in his 80s. The article in question, while doubtless controversial at the time, is of course written in normal literary standard English rather than breathless Alex Jones-ese or the cant of the dog-on-a-string brigade. But brigade is what transpired: about 980 accounts subscribed to my "InformationPolicy" subreddit, dwarfing the audience about 40 that had gradually accreted to that point.