Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: DYINOPH Wordo: COCOA

  • 🖼️ xkcd: Jumping Frog Radius #3181

  • Tapped 🚱

    One tap wasn't connected to the basin any longer, and the other was very hard to turn off. Time for new taps. Today the plumber came to fit them. Yay, taps that work!

  • Wrongs

    And they drive on the wrong side of the road in America, and their light switches have to be flicked up to turn on, rather than the correct down.

  • A Card Arrives Late

    Yesterday, my aunt's annual Christmas parcel. Today, a couple of cards: one in my grandmother's shaky writing, the other from the UK, in neater script. No return address on either card (though I'd know my grandmother's writing anywhere). I open the one from the UK: not from my other grandmother, but my aunt and uncle. Thanking me for the card and flowers I sent when my oldest cousin passed last year. That they wanted to send me this card last year, but didn't. A note as well about how much those meant to them; how they were trying to move on, and how hard that was.

  • No Comment

    One of the few news outlets I still watch regularly (as opposed to reading or listening only) is Euronews. Though I don't live in Europe, I have several friends and relatives who do, and Euronews covers other global news enough to make it relevant to me. I love their reporting style: they maintain a fairly balanced perspective, and they use almost no editorial language, both of which are increasingly hard to come by these days.

    My favorite feature on Euronews is "No Comment." This is a section of their regular programming that features video from somewhere in the world with no music and no voice-over. Whatever event is being captured by the video is presented to the audience as-is, with no additional input. The viewer can then decide for himself what he thinks about what he is seeing.

• Politics and World Events

  • I really tried to understand "wokeness"

    I really tried to understand wokeness and their intention. But I can't. It always ends up with somebody forcing his moral opinions on you and many of them are not mine. I like to make my own moral opinions and opinions in general. I don't need someone to tell me, what's the "truth" especially if it's just an opinion. Sometimes very abstruse opinions.

    I also can't really identify with the LGBTQ community as they seem to demand.

    I've heard of people who got "canceled" because they said, that there are *genetically* only 2 genders, which is an objective truth and not an opinion. And by now I get angry at people who say, that their "gender" confuses *me*, while I think they have more problems with their gender identity than *I* have.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Chris Huang's Quad Stick is a Low-Cost, 3D-Printable Accessible USB Input Device

    Maker Chris Huang has released 3D print files and source code for an Arduino-powered "quad stick" — a multi-modal input device designed for accessibility.

    "I created a 3D-printed quad-stick controller with a mouth-operated joystick, an integrated sip-and-puff, along with an indicator LED, and Velcro pads for mounting an IR [Infrared] sensor," Huang explains of the project. "I designed it as an assistive device for people who have limited hand or arm mobility, allowing them to control a computer or game using mouth movements instead of their hands."