Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Notes on an overheard conversation while at the doctor's office

    “Hello! How are we doing today?”

    “I'd like to lodge an official complaint.”

    “Sigh.”

    “You know what this is about.”

    “It's about the front desk, isn't it?”

    “Yes. The new sign-in procedure **sucks!**”

    “It didn't work for you at all?”

  • Lady Audley's Secret

    A few weeks ago, I borrowed Lady Audley's Secret from the library. It is a Victorian murder mystery from 1861. Rebekah Matt at Great and Noble Tasks had a blog post on Gothic fiction a few months ago, and that was where I got the recommendation.

    The book starts off with a three page description of Audley Court. Not without some ominous foreshadowing, which confused me a little because the narrator insists that Audley Court is the most charming and halcyon place you can possibly imagine, but the description doesn't coincide. It seems more like a place that would give you the shivers. Perhaps that was intentional, since it is a murder mystery

• Politics and World Events

  • The Value Of Our Fear

    Why on earth was this shoehorned into a speech that otherwise sounded so consequential? I don't know for sure, but here's one possibility: this speech is actually directed more toward Canadians than the rest of the world.

    Because guess what, Carney's government has another budget confidence vote coming up, after only narrowly winning the last one in November 2025. Bill C-15 (or if you prefer catchier names, "An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on November 4, 2025" [6]) has passed second reading in the House of Commons and is now under review by the Standing Committee on Finance. And boy howdy, there's some *really* stinky stuff in there.

    So here's what I think is going on:

    Carney is using his big moment at Davos to gin up nationalistic sentiment (and with it, support for his leadership), in a bid to scare opposition parties away from voting down this sketchy-as-hell budget bill and forcing an election.

• Technology and Free Software

  • I still don't understand this SYN attack, but now I can block it easily

    It's been almost six years [1] since I first started seeing this attack, only now it's no longer from European IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. I'm still unsure what is going on with the attack. There will be up to around 100 connections to the web server in the SYN state, all with different IP addresses, but all apparently from networks in Brazil and it's never enough to really affect the server. I finally got tired of whack-a-mole and filling up my firewall with scores of networks to block. I decided to see what data is actually being sent and hopefully find a better way to block such traffic.