Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Slow writing

    Something interesting about writing every day is that my expectations around the process and the output have changed. And, to be clear, this is neither a good nor a bad thing, just different. Writing every day is quick, almost-but-not-quite stream of consciousness. It's not a premeditated act, and it certainly doesn't involve deep thinking in the way that periodic writing does.

    Making this a daily practice generally does seem to scope my mindset to the last 24 hours, and that's what shows up on the page. That's expected. It makes sense. The results are as varied as the daily lived experience.

  • Beans have unexpectedly...

    Beans have unexpectedly become one of my favourite garden treats and these Dragon Tongue bush beans, which I planted for the first time this year, are absolutely delightful!

  • (No)? Hard Feelings (2023)

    We watched this based on a recommendation. It had been described as one of the best comedies of the year, and conveniently it was on Netflix.

    It’s a German film about a boy who gets struck by lightning, which causes his penis to start talking to him.

    Oops, this was Hard Feelings (2023), not No Hard Feelings (2023). I don't know whether this was a mockbuster like Transmorphers, or just Netflix doing Netflix things, but we stuck with it.

    It's truly terrible.

  • Linked Verse

    i never thought i'd get to even play this game in my life. maybe once or twice if i happened to go to japan but that was it. i was content with playing the few games i liked at round 1 (okay it was pretty much only groove coaster lol) but one day i found that the game i spent 10s of hours of my life driving to play after work was gone and i almost just.. gave up on it? nothing else felt as fun or as interesting in input and visuals so, why bother? but i decided to just see if there was somewhere else to play groove coaster ('cause god knows WWP doesn't hit the same) and by some miracle i happened to find soft landing, just two months after opening, and when i arrived it was just me and aether in the building if i remember correctly

    i went around and tried everything that looked interesting (which, holy hell, i would've been so overwhelmed with all the cool stuff we have now LOL) and aether came up and started talking to me about "oh we put valk knobs in this one so it'll feel better" and i just nodded along not knowing what the fuck that meant, and he asked to play a set or two with me if i remember correctly

    i remember thinking "wow, these games are pretty cool, it's kinda far though so i probably won't come too often" but then the whole pump crowd came in and i got invited to colorado apex by gumby, after asking him for the time

• Politics and World Events

  • "Transgenderism is Predatory" Update

    I want to mention that I have expanded my "Transgenderism is Predatory" essay, so that it is around 500 lines long, and covers more aspects of the subject.

    [...]

    Your sex and your gender are a gift given to you by the Creator, to be enjoyed and to be utilized for good. Trying to pretend that you are the opposite gender, or to mutilate yourself, will only lead to suffering for yourself and for others.

  • Transgenderism is Predatory

    A serious developing problem in US prison systems is the infiltration of transgender policies, which has resulted in serious sexual abuse and violence for women inmates. It has allowed biological males, even those with known history of abuse against women, to be housed in the cells of female inmates, just by claiming they identify as a woman or feel uncomfortable with male prisoners.

• Technology and Free Software

  • ♑︎ Mirror Windows and Fangames

    Finally got round to set up at least one of my bedroom windows with mirror foil. It does reflect quite a bit from the outside. So, let's see if I'll be cooked again in the morning.

    There's still the second window to be covered, though. But after measuring, cutting and attaching the first foil, complete with big long bubble that refused to be disappeared completely, it was evening and we declared our work done for the day.

  • ♑︎ Let's move on Backwards

    After looking into the Evercade and contemplating, (still contemplating) and jumping into Pokémon fan games (I need to grind so hard for badge two now. T_T) I now have dipped my toes into emulation.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • limiting internet use - early observations

      i thought maybe to start i could have one day a week of no tracking, just do whatever? an easy mode? or would that be too distracting, actually - un-doing the hard work of the other 6 days? i kind of tried it on wednesday (wednesdays often see me tucked away into the bedroom while partner's in work meetings) but it felt idk, boring. unsatisfying. so maybe that's not the way...

      i've also allotted an hour of "screwing around" per day but i haven't really used it? not sure what other screwing around i'd do that's not messages/blogs and video. maybe i should just cancel that in general? or wind it down to half an hour? i do "necessity" stuff online anyway like paying bills, or things like updating my blog, but it's a one and done type of deal. i don't navigate away from whatever i'm doing into other areas of the internet... maybe, somewhere down the road, that's what that half-hour/hour would be for? all accumulated tasks that require a connection? it makes sense to "contain" internet to one time slot, like in the olden days of dial-up.

    • ♑︎ Logging Off Made Easy?

      I've been using Rogallo for a while now and something I've noticed is, it's made logging off easy.

      I'm not sure why that is. Is it the lack of tabs? Lagrange has tabs and it keeps me longer. Rogallo requires me to work within one window and only that one, going back and forth from antennas to gemlog and back to antenna to gemlog. Actually remember to check Station and BBS instead of going from tab to tab and just refreshing.

• Programming

  • Human Code

    Code is an artform. If you've encountered (or written!) program code that reveals the humanity of its author, please, I'd like to know about it. Wry, angry, frustrated, gleeful, poetic, or butthurt comments. A spontaneous haiku. Huumorous or pointed identifiers, metaphorical abstraction choices. Or even solving things in an unusual, novel, or awkward way.

    Most code written today is much, much more sterile than some of the code of yore (especially, hobbyist/indie code). I'd like more humanity in my everything, please, and code is a great place for it to be.

    Moving forward, in the light of both our decades-long systematic sanitization of program code for the sake of professionalism, and (especially) the recent increased tendency to agentically generate code, I intend to conscientiously increase the humanity on display in my software design and code, however I can. Feel free to join me!

    Below I've gathered some examples that have touched my soul in some way, and that confront me with the humanity present in a program’s author. I’d like to have included more or better examples of interesting identifier choices, or funny or perplexed code comments—if you have ready examples, please share!