Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Zany Unzine

    Incomprehensibly dis-infotaining zine with an exquisite selection of original drawings, collages and fully vegetarian word salad. This one has been in the making for some time now.

    It isn't about any particular topic, but the main text derives from an essay written in 1999. Individual words were automatically replaced with other words in a way that preserves the structure but completely destroys the original meaning of the text. Then the text has been translated back and forth across a few languages and manually edited for even less clarity. It used to be more entertaining to engage in these wispering games a few years ago, when the translations rapidly lost contact with reality. Now as translations have improved, texts tend to regress towards a standardised boring mean as rare words and expressions are replaced by more common ones.

  • 🔤SpellBinding: ABWINSH Wordo: OCULI

  • This time it won't hurt

    My previous post, the one about Beacon Pines, was an experiment; I've just read some writing advice, and wanted to find out empirically what would happen if I tried applying it in practice.

  • Throwing away an advantage 🏁

    You have a big car advantage and the constructors' trophy has been won easily. How do you handle the rest of the year?

• Politics and World Events

  • 🇷🇴 Romania's National Day

    Today we celebrate Romania's National Day! ✨

    Every year on December 1st, Romanians honor the Great Union of 1918 - a moment of unity, hope, and national pride.

    It's a day filled with flags waving 🇷🇴, warm traditions, and reflections on the country's rich history and culture.

  • The wrong time to reform Right of First Refusal on blocks of flats

    When the freeholds of blocks of flats are sold in England, their market value is revealed. Nowadays, the pricing information would even be marked on the public record at the Land Registry, but this was not the norm until the 1990s. From 1987, however, the price paid has had to be disclosed to the qualifying owners of the individual flats, and they have the right of first refusal of that price.

    Even if they can't or won't exercise this right, it provides a price discovery mechanism for the owners of the flats. From 1993 they obtained the right to buy the freehold at a time of their own choosing, rather than reacting to the decision of their landlord to sell at a time of *his* choosing. (I say "his" but the only owners of blocks of flats that I know are actually all women or corporations.)

• Technology and Free Software

  • 📻 Introduction to Ham Radio

    Ham radio - formally known as amateur radio - is a hobby and service that allows licensed operators to communicate over the air using a wide range of frequencies, modes, and equipment. Unlike commercial or broadcast radio, ham radio is intended for personal experimentation, emergency communication, technical learning, and worldwide friendship.

  • The Baofeng UV-5RM Plus: My Upgrade With Frequency Copy Function

    I recently upgraded to the Baofeng 5RM after using the classic UV-5R for almost 2 years, and it's a huge step forward. The UV-5R is still a fantastic radio, but the 5RM adds modern features that make it more convenient and versatile.

  • Why You Need a Tiny Radio Like the Baofeng UV-5R

    Before you ask: yes, it looks like a toy. Yes, it's cheap enough to make you suspicious.

    And yes, it absolutely WILL outperform your smartphone the second things get even slightly weird.

  • Playing with older PDAs

    Last month I was searching for some accessories for your digital camera (the SONY DSC-W530) and found some other machines instead. I still have some old PDA machines from late 1990s and early 2000s. Actually, I don't remember when I actually used them for the last time. I use my PSION II (a 1980s device) daily but I don't use newer device.

    I usually have my Nokia 900 available as a spare phone/camera but I only used it to made a few pictures this year. The problem is, of course, that it is now too tiny for my aging eyes (and I'm unable to make it work in the modern HTTPS/SSL world... fo on https:// sites, no e-mail).

    I have the battery installed in the Nokia 770 (in keeps charge for very long time) but I only turned it on to check if it's still alive (and to read a few some text in the FBReader).

  • HP 200LX and WWW

    I finally have made one of my HP 200LX machines connected to the Internet! I have got a working NetGear FA411 PCMCIA card so I'm now able to connect my 200LX to hte wired Ethernet.

    I have been using the LXCic software [1], the mTCP (the DHCP client, the ping and the telnet, for example) and the MicroWeb [3] for the WWW.

    It's not too hard to set up taht stuff, surprisingly [4].

  • Internet/Gemini

    • On Labels

      This feature has apparently been added to various sites over the years, often called badges or flairs, and I just wanted to take a detailed look at reasons cited for why this feature is often added, and why I feel the are overall horrible and extremely unethical when used as forms of punishment or a labelling of other people.

      The Benefits of Badges

      Labels and badges can be useful for identifying roles or characteristics about a person that this person wants to share with the world. A good example is that admins have the "admin" badge. Another badge that may be useful is categorizing users in a subspace based on what topics they like to talk about. It can also be used in game subspaces to categorize players into teams. These are good uses of these badges.

  • Programming

    • Advent of Code, 2025

      Here is where I’ll post my solutions to Advent of Code using zshbrev. Spoilers ahead, and no promises that I’ll make it through the entire 12 days.