Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • What to do when the pressure shapes your days

    The air tightens. Prices shift subtly. And people, like squirrels, begin to stockpile.

    For good reason too:

    But that pressure doesn't need to be a threat, it can be read as a message.

    It’s September. Winter is nearing in Europe.

    Energy-prices stay high. And the AI goldrush is not lowering the costs just yet. War already began, the point-of-no-return seems past - alliances are already shaping in the east. Down south, the past is still fresh in memory, while trade-routes are complicated by conflict-zones in other regions. All leaving a high risk supply-lines being cut - while an expected ally pressures with "trade-agreements".

    Yet the most dangerous element is the fracture within, and it is not because of what is foreign, as it is made out to be. It likes to use narrative; veiling the damage indicated by pains. Do you know what pain is? Whether from a wound, or something that doesn't add up in your life? It's a signal, telling you there's something wrong. An indicator that is inconvenient, and gets twisted about to be viewed as something harmful. Think of those "spot-remover"-ads - the denial shaped and induced by narration; it conveniently suppresses the awareness. It hides the issues the pain tells of. The threat, more-so than at the level of military, is the collapse of inner clarity - being subjected to this trend.

  • Channel demand: Devotion With Ease

    Antinatalism and religion can feel like intense, inconvenient energies. Friction often comes from approach more than belief. These notes offer ways to practice each with ease, easing rejection and drain.

  • Channel demand: Feeling Drained

    Sometimes it is about the tiny knots in the day; the transitions almost completed, the abandoned plans or "I'll do it tomorrow".

    The drain that results, is one of multiple priorities; your life, or fate, is shaping in several directions simultaneously. It may in itself be a product of lacking surplus, or of inner contradicting forces that try to move you in incompatible directions.

    The result is a slow steady leaking of energy, leaving you unable to complete tasks - another thing gets added to the to-do list. Those moments, when something inside you almost moved - but didn't - shape your life more than you might imagine.

    And then you finally try to get rid of a distraction, but it claims its space - there's something "important" or "it could be".

  • Channel demand: Lean Daily Habits

    Trim purchases, reset posture, and reclaim hours with a few simple shifts.

  • Channel demand: Hollow Forest

    There are places in life that feel like a sluggish forest. Each trail, seems to lead deeper. As the trees, growing darker and more grim, branch over the path - it is as though they will devour you if making one wrong move. You move, you struggle — and yet with each turn you get more caught up, weaker. Every second brings you nearer crossing an edge from across which there is no return. The more disheartened you become, the more the structures surrounding you grow in strength - luring you to turn into them. Another hungering fixation; each devouring one another except when fresh flesh shows.

  • There is So Little Time

    There is so little time in Adult Life (tm). I am working the early shift this week so I get some more afternoon in exchange for my nights. Perhaps, if I like it, I could be the morning guy permanently. All depends on how I feel about it.

  • 🔤SpellBinding — YGIRTVA Wordo: ENSUE

  • 🖼️ xkcd: -Style Pizza #3142

• Technology and Free Software

  • Command-line Options in POSIX Shell

    When I write shell scripts, I like to challenge myself by seeing how robust the scripts' functions can be while remaining POSIX-compliant and using as few external dependencies as possible. This means I sometimes re-invent the wheel, but I've learned a lot about POSIX shell along the way.

    I wanted to add command-line options to my microblogging script a few months ago. POSIX offers the 'getopts' utility for exactly such a purpose, but it only parses short options, and I wanted to include GNU-style long options. GNU's replacement 'getopt' has shortcomings of its own, so I decided to write a parsing loop of my own. The core code, whose only external utility is 'test' ('['), is below.

  • Channel demand: Lean Tech

    Every app, library or snippet carries a production line. Ask who maintains it, what it demands and whether it aligns with the values you claim.

  • Channel demand: Regain Control Of Transitions

    Every time you try to make real progress—hit publish, launch the project, complete the application—something delays you.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Introducing acre 0.9 (and the joy of software toolcrafting)

      I've been working on a software tool for myself, to lighten the load of my job (software engineering), and also *just because*. I'm honestly proud of it. `acre` v0.9 is out there.