Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: CDEHLNY Wordo: SHOER

  • Tanzania and Brazil coffee beans

    I usually buy cheap coffee and by carefully preparing coffee, I’m able to make it taste passable. Not good but passable. However, I’ve bought much better coffee beans than usual (something like 2× the usual price) – Mixed beans from Tanzania and Brazil. And it tastes good! But it is still not as good as from my local café, I’ll need to find which ones they are using.

  • in the undergrowth

  • Posts from January to June 2025

    These are my social media posts from the last six months. I keep them here to reflect on them and also to not lose them. Social media networks come and go and are not under my control, but my domain is here to stay.

    These are from Mastodon and LinkedIn. Have a look at my about page for my social media profiles. This list is generated with Gos, my social media platform sharing tool.

  • Avoiding journaling

    I've had, for a couple years now, a good habit of journaling near-daily. I've fallen off the wagon a bit, though, and I think the reason why (aside from depression and hormone fuckery) is that I keep writing the same things, confronting the same questions without answers.

    I've always had issues with fear of failure, tied up in a fear of rejection. When I want to find answers to "what would make me happy?" and "what life do I want to live?", the near certainty of not finding the answers makes it hard to start. I had a funny thought, though: maybe, like a physical task under GTD, those questions can be broken down? But then, of course, how does one "break down" a question like "what makes me happy?"

  • A Constellation of Ideas

    My mind is a cacophany of chaos, alternating between screaming and silence. I'm either one thing, or I'm the other. Sometimes both, and occasionally neither. The pendulum swings, and I just swing right along with it.

    What does all this mean? Let's imagine, for a minute, that all of existence is merely a piece of land split by a river. The river is how you get from Point A to Point B; it's a conduit, but life is not the `River`. Life is the things you see happening along the banks as you drift past. You're `supposed` to step out and experience the myriad things that happen on those riverbanks, yet life for me is just drifting, never stepping out onto one bank or the other. I float through existence, watching others live. Because to step out onto either bank would be to commit to living a certain life, you see, to being a certain kind of person.

• Technology and Free Software

  • I’ve distrohopped to Arch Linux

    I’ve distrohopped to Arch Linux from Debian on my laptop to have the same distro on both of my computers. Having slightly different config and software on two computers started to get on my nerves. My server and family members’ computers are still on Debian.

  • Looking for a new image viewer

    I’m looking for a new image viewer… A GTK version vimiv was deprecated in favor of a Qt version, which doesn’t install on Arch Linux from AUR. Previously I was using imv which is “is currently seeking a new maintainer to adopt it”.

  • today in AI fuckery: lying about my bank

    I was renewing my vehicle registration online today (as you do), and I did not want to pay the extra "service fee" for paying with a credit card (as you don't). So I opted for the "electronic check" option, which requires me to enter my account and routing numbers.

    I have my account number memorized, but I always have to look up the bank's routing number. I know it when I see it, but I don't have every digit memorized.

  • Modify Battery Charge Low for your UPS using NUT server

    This is a follow up of the post

    =>/blog/installing-and-configuring-nut-network-ups-tools-for-your-home-lab/ 🔌 Installing and configuring NUT (Network UPS Tools) for your home lab

    which is already too long so an edit there is useless.

    This is why I chose to share the command used to set your UPS battery charge low parameter in a dedicated page.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Fulfillment in Gemini

      Christian of AuraGem, who has developed many excellent services for Gemini, shared today that he is feeling burned out with all of his projects.^ He lamented that Gemini has largely stagnated; very few developers are active in the community, and even when they develop new tools for Gemini, very few people use them, if anyone at all. This leads to boredom, frustration, and overall exhaustion.

      I can't say much on the current state of the protocol. It is still fairly active, but it hasn't grown much in the last 2 to 3 years. The community consensus seems to be that after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided in 2022 and people returned to the outside world, Gemini lost its momentum. I broadly agree with that. However, I do think that many people who came in 2022 did expect Gemini to supplant the Web in some way, and when the protocol failed to do so, they left.

    • End of Tinylog experiment

      I’ve tried write my Tinylog regularly, but I’ve noticed that this form doesn’t work for me without easy social interaction (like on Station¹ or Mastodon). So, I’ve converted my Tinylog’s entries into posts and ended the Tinylog experiment.

    • My Google Cloud Bill

      Not too bad for 10 gb of storage, 1 gb of ram and 2 cores. This VM has been powering my combined web/gemini vert.x server for the last 18 months. I've had no issues and no downtime, AFAIK.

      Unless something has changed, anyone with a gmail address can get one of these VMs. I've always thought it would be interesting to set up multiple instances and link them together with a vert.x cluster manager. This is how I know I may be insane.