Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Happy New Year 2026!

    I was listening to the radio in my car on the way to the supermarket earlier, and they were talking about when it is too late in the year to use the phrase "Happy New Year"? Apparently the cut-off point is the 7th January, so I'm in the clear in wishing everyone on Gemini a very happy and prosperous 2026!

    2025 has been a very interesting year for me. A lot has changed in my life, as I noted in previous gemlog entries. At this point I crave a little stability, but I think 2026 will bring about many changes as well.

  • A year of hill climbs

  • A year of hill climbs

    I managed to achieve some goals, and not to achieve others. Of those I did achieve, the one to climb a local hill once per month for the whole year is the one that I feel had the most impact on me. Okay, look, very strictly speaking I failed this one. There was one month, I think it was March, that I didn't climb the hill. But I climbed it twice the month after, and the first of those times was very early in that month, like maybe the second or third day of the month. I definitely climbed it twelve times with an average of 30 days in between climbs. Close enough.

    In the Spring, I learned that there are wild plum trees growing on the hill. At least, I'm about 90% certain they are plums. If not they're something very plum-adjacent. Whatever they are, I ate one on my way down the hill the day I discovered them, and it didn't kill me, so this year I'll collect a bunch and make Mountain Jam (my wife and I actually casually refer to this hill as "the mountain", which is really too grandiose a name for it, but it sounds better than Hill Jam. Although now that I think about it, the Finnish word for jam is "hillo", so maybe I should just call it hill-o...).

  • Happy New Year

    Been off these past two weeks. Love being home, but I head back out 9n the road tomorrow.

    Hope everyone is doing well.

  • wake

    one more semester, almost done. I had no reason to set an alarm today, and neither did my roommate. for the first time in a very long while, I woke up naturally. it was a weird experience. I understand that this sounds very very weird, but I genuinely thought "why did I wake up? there was no alarm." my roommate had woken up before me, and was sitting around. I asked for the time, received it, and put my head back in the pillow for a while. in the wake of a very stressful semester, I still needed those 5 more minutes.

• Games

  • False variability in Rebirth

    One unexpected game design lesson from Rebirth‘s Ireland side for me is this:

    The game has random distribution of “Tower” powers and in a two player game, a random eight of the twelve goals will be public and a random two will be available as private goals and two won’t be in a game (in a four player game all twelve will be in the game).

    That setup variability doesn’t matter that much.

    Now, I’m not saying it matters zero. It does matter. A little. I usually like to start near one of the 2× tiles, for example (since I often like to rush for the 24-point connect-four-castles goal) so it matters to me where that tile ends up. And knowing when to use a “time walk” tower or a “brainstorm” tower is a key part of the tactics in the game.

    But the flip side is that usually most of the players will visit most of the towers especially at 2p. Even at 3p I’ve noticed players take care to at least get most important towers on their itinary. Eventually.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Social media connection

      I don't know, I used to let anyone connect with me, then I made my mastodon request needing approval, then I felt really bad not to approve people when they do a request.

      I like when people reach me by email and start a conversation. That I don't mind. Similar to people in the street, if you start talking to me, I'll be happy to talk.