Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Films I Have Watched Many Times

    By Sontag's reckoning the decline of Cinephilia had been underway since the mid-70s, several years before it claimed me. But that wasn't surprising, seeing as how I was living out in the Back End of West Nowhere (otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta) and it took a while for cultural trends to travel from the centres of civilization outward to us hicks on the periphery. In fact, it was only in 1978 the old Princess Theatre began its great 18 year run as a repertory cinema, following a few years where skin flicks (whatever remnants were left of them, after the Ontario Censor Board had done its work) were its stock in trade.

    I haunted the Princess, going multiple times a week, sometimes with friends, other times just by myself. Cult films, American classics, foreign films, even a few Canadian features ... taking it all in, for a time, it seemed like the supply of captivating celluloid dreams was inexhaustible.

  • A Wizard of Earthsea

    I first read the original Earthsea triology during my personal "golden age of science-fiction" (i.e. around 12), and I find myself re-reading it about once a decade or so, along with the later novels.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Upgrading the Steam Controller's stick

    The original thumbstick of the Steam Controller was always a bit imperfect. I bought my Steam Controller on day one, but a few years in, the soft-touch material on the stick started to flake off. That's gross!

    Those flakes that rub off also don't help with gripping the stick. It already has a convex-shaped top, which I like less than a concave top. It always feels like I'm pushing the stick in some direction but my thumb is slowly slipping.

    After almost a decade of putting up with this, I had enough. I looked around online and found that people had figured out how to upgrade that part of the Steam Controller, and it's actually decently easy and cheap.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Youtube is a crime against parenting ☣️

      If you are a parent and your child or children are still kids or teens, Youtube is a serious problem. It is the primary source of distraction, is a cauldron with very limited filters where anybody can have voice while it shouldn't.

      I heard that they forced strictly rules upon video uploaders but those filters haven't nothing to do regards protecting kids brain development against the petabyte of craps, especially short videos.

      I decided that I had enough of this crap, I checked briefly on LibreWolf and I spoof out a bunch of urls that should prevent any videos from being loaded on Youtube as well on other search engines, I also added all the other sources of crap that any kids had better to avoid.