Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Ignoring a small problem eventually leads to a terrible, huge problem

    I'm fortunate enough to have a walk-in shower room in my house, something I think is quite unusual in Britain. It's just a small space, lined on all sides by traditional ceramic tiles, with a shower head in the middle. It was one of the things that sold the house to me, to be honest: the sight of those shiny, glazed tiles and that gleaming chrome pipework -- marvellous. I just loved it. I used it night and day.

    After about ten years, I started to notice problems. Some of the tiles were getting loose, and there was a bit of mould in the corners. But I was a working man in those days, with a living to earn and a family to raise. I did the minimum I could to fix the problems in the shower room, and just tried to ignore the long-term consequences. I knew that I'd pay the price for this negligence eventually, but I didn't have time to worry about it -- or so I told myself.

  • Retired a year; still don't know what I want to do for a living

    It's just over year since my last day of paid employment, and I thought this would be a good time to reflect on how I feel about retirement.

    In general, I love being retired.

    I'm fortunate enough to have a roof over my head, and no shortage of money. I'm in sound health, and my blood pressure has responded well to the reduced stress. My wife is also retired and, for the most part, we don't get on each others' nerves all that much. I wake every morning full of enthusiasm for the day ahead.

    And yet... I can't avoid a nagging feeling that something isn't... well, isn't quite right. The feeling is always there, hiding in the dark; but sometimes it flares up and surprises me, like a rat scurrying out of the log pile when I reach down to collect firewood.

  • Change From the Ground Up

    It's common for people in the US and beyond to blame America's shortcomings on, or credit her strengths to, the current political regime. However, there's a saying in political analysis that I strongly agree with: "Politics are downstream of culture." The United States is a democracy, and as such, the values of her leaders are a reflection of the values of her people. If we want long-term changes in policy, we have to make changes to culture first.

    Many people lament that the current administration has cut funding for environmental research while ramping up oil and coal production. If we want to move away from the use of fossil fuels, then these measures are a step in the wrong direction. We in the US can post online all we want about how CO2 emissions hurt the environment, how mining destroys ecosystems, and how plastic in the ocean kills sea turtles. But actions belie a person's true intentions. What are we really doing about it? Do we Americans really want to move away from fossil fuels? Are we actually interested in saving energy or converting energy resources, beyond mere lip service or virtue signaling?

  • Bad timing 😷

    What a bad timing to fall sick. I started to feel bad aboard the ship that made the transfer from earth to the Outpost. So much, that I didn't passed the temperature check when it was time to get on the station.

    So here I am, in the infirmary, placed in quarantine. I'm glad to see they have some procedures in place, I wouldn't want to contaminate anyone.

    With all that, I haven't managed to get to my quarters (or shop for that matter). I just arrived and I am already behind schedule with everything. But that's okay, on the bright side I won't search for things to do!

• Politics and World Events

  • Yes, Judaism. No zionism.

    A guy who taught me a lot over the years, especially about geopolitical and military entanglement in Syria and Ukraine, has not been able to get his head around Israel's genocidal, expansionist rampage of the last two and a half years. He's just horrified, and silenced by his horror. Epstein revelations are also a bridge too far for him: again silence, then minimization.

    I couldn't understand why he couldn't understand. Why his astute insights gained from military and political service, and long political commitments, were lost in the last few years' current affairs. What was unspeakable to him?

    This week it dawned on me---he's German. The horizon of his understanding is defined by Israel's extortionate manipulation of German national guilt, and a Jewish population that has remained too small since the Nazi period to act as an effective counterweight. Like young American Jews, young German Jews are antizionist. But there are so few he has likely only encountered them in media reports.

• Science

  • Rant: statistics is actually for something

    For most of my working life I was an experimental scientist or an engineer of some sort. I got used to dealing with statistical methods and, over time, developed a feel for what you could do with statistics. I always assumed that other people had the same view of statistics that I did: statistical analysis was a tool we could used to find out interesting and important things. Over the years, I've come to realize I was wrong. A huge number of people either (a) have no idea what statistics is about at all, or (b) assume that it's a set of mechanical procedures that you have to apply to show you've done your job properly. Neither position is productive.

    I've always had a few articles on my website about statistics and experimental design, and sometimes people read these articles, and come to believe -- usually wrongly -- that I can help them with their statistical problems. The reason I can't help readers with their statistics is because they haven't grasped the idea that statistics is _for_ something, that it has a purpose. I blame the editors of scientific journals for this: they seem to think that nothing is publishable without a ream of incomprehensible Kolmogrov-Smirnov test results, or whatever. Whether I'm right or wrong, the idea seems to have grown that statistics is something you do if you have to, but otherwise is to be avoided.

  • On writing a textbook, and why you shouldn't

    I've published 1.5 academic books in my working life. The "half book" ended up as a special edition of the Journal of Physics (IIRC), rather than a full book, because the Research Council that was paying me to write it ran out of money. Or so they said, anyway. Still, I guess I should be grateful for being paid up-front even to write half a book: most authors rely entirely on royalties for their remuneration.

    There's something satisfying about being able to claim you're a "published author", even if your work has a miniscule circulation. I've got a photo of me in Waterstones' bookshop in San Francisco, pointing at copies of my book on their shelf. I got a bunch of free copies from the publisher, ostensibly to give to interested colleagues but, in practice, to be displayed on my mother's coffee table.

  • On losing a lung

    One day I had the usual two lungs; the next day, only one.

    I remember the sudden decrease in the quantity of my lungs very clearly. It was towards the start of a long-ish hike across Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Even in August it was cold and misty, as it nearly always is on the Moor. Nothing to see but grass, exposed rock formations, and the occasional sheep. And, if you're lucky, another bunch of hikers -- Exmoor is a popular destination for walkers of all ages and levels of enthusiasm. Nothing much to hear but the occasional bird call; even when you're with other people, it feels somehow insensitive to speak out loud in such an environment. It's an area that appeals, I guess, to those of us who like quiet and isolation. Civilization could end, but hiking on Exmoor would remain the same.

    [...]

    The doctors told me that I shouldn't expect ever to regain my former fitness but, with some rehabilitation, I could still have a normal-ish life. Walking, I was told, was OK, so long as I didn't overdo it. In due course, you'll probably be able to manage a mile or two without ill effects, they said.

    Fuck that, I thought. I trained harder than I ever had. I ran with an oxygen saturation monitor, that alerted me whenever I got dangerously hypoxic. I biked, I pushed weights, and I swam harder and longer than ever before. After about six months of this, my lung function became -- nearly average.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Supplyframe Adds a Tariff Estimator to Findchips, To Help Parts Buyers Avoid Sticker Shock

    Supplyframe has announced a new feature for its Findchips service, which lets builders search for parts from a wide variety of vendors: a tariff estimator, designed to simplify the process of importing parts and swerve stick shock when it hits Customs.

    "In today’s world of extreme tariff uncertainty, the new Tariff Estimator – available on Findchips.com – provides engineers, sourcing, and procurement professionals with an easy way to estimate the cost impacts of tariffs," says Supplyframe's founder and chief executive officer Steve Flagg of the new feature. "This capability, combined with our industry-leading design-to-source intelligence solutions, positions teams to fully understand the context around risk, cost, and lead times with every component they include in their bills of material (BOM)."

  • Indra: Meshtastic for Ubuntu Touch

    In my continuing quest to make apps that I use available to myself on the new mobile OS I switched to, I have created a Meshtastic client for Ubuntu Touch. I call it Indra, after the concept of "Indra's net," a net whose jewels reflect every other jewel perfectly.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Commenting on a map

      On IRC, @bss@ill.moe asked for feedback on a map. Based on what I know about the landscape here in Switzerland, here are some basic guidelines.

      Mountains form chains unless those very rare lone mountains that are the results of volcanoes. The most important feature of mountain ranges are the rivers that dig the valleys.

    • Back to Gemini

      I have to admit that I wasn't all that impressed with the Gemini protocol when it was first announced. I certainly liked the _idea_, but I thought both the protocol and the basic 'gemtext' file format would be too restrictive. Of course, I understand why it (kind of) had to be that way: we all know what happens when we give people too much rope. Still, I thought you've got to give folks _some_ rope. Gemini doesn't provide enough rope to hang a hamster, frankly. And that's a image that's going to stick with me :/

      Still, the principle of Gemini seemed sound enough. What I expected to happen was that people -- probably very technically-minded people at first -- would discover it, complain about all the same limitations as I did, and then invent something better -- something more flexible and expressive than gemtext, anyway.

• Programming

  • Lali Lambda: has

    I will be starting to write little snippets of Lali[0] code, with the intention of spreading beauty of lambda programming :-) .