Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 22/05/2023: Bubble Debated a Week Later



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Some new books

        New to me, that is. Two new thrift store books, $1/ea:

        the life-changing magic of tidying up (2014), Marie Kondo and The Land Breakers (1964), John Ehle

        Both are hardcover. My wife has the digital version of the Marie Kondo book, and tells me that the book itself suggests being given away, so it's not odd to see it at a thrift store. Seems like sound advice. It's a book about letting things go. Maybe it was secretly written by the League of Thrift Store Masters, as propaganda to replenish their shelves?

      • Etymology

        It's probably not a familiar word if you're an American, maybe more of a British/Canadian thing, but today I learned that "Tory" (as a nickname for Conservatives) is derived from the Irish tóraidhe; appropriately, "bandit".

      • All Day Outside

        On Saturday I went up to my parents' for a family get together with my dad's sister, my mom's sister, and my mom's aunt. I don't much care for my mom's side of the family and while I tried coming at them with an open mind and heart, it being a number of years since I'd last seen them, they proved to repeat the same negative traits that has pushed me away from them. My dad and his sister agreed so we ended up spending a lot of time together, hiding from my mom's half. One of the things I did to stay busy away from the family was prepping an old metal horse trough to be turned into a raised planter box. I had to drill a few holes in the bottom for drainage and load it, as well as a bucket of composted horse manure, into the back of my car. I unloaded it all as soon as I got home that night.

    • Technical

      • Pixel, Audio Clipping, etc

        Yesterday I mentioned I was having audio issues with my Pixel. I never got it sorted out on the default Camera app, despite all the suggestions I found on reddit.

        So I tried plan B: downloaded Open Camera from the Play Store, tried a few recordings on a few different instruments.

      • Science

        • Factorizing x^5-5x-3

          Just another ".tex" file that shows how to factorize some quintic polynomial.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • A read-only web front-end for a news server
        • Everybody Has a Take on Bubble. Here’s Mine

          But to have arrived at this non-take, I have had a couple of hot or not so hot takes.

          I participated on Geminispace.org quite a bit. But my foremost reason to participate was because I agree with @skyjake in dog-fooding Gemini for issue tracking for Lagrange. So I had a snack.

          Because I added my email address to Geminispace.org, I received notifications. I participated in more subspaces. The slow web got faster. Uneasily faster. But the gained value from staying in the loop had more upside than downside; collaboration increased. Still, there was the lingering feeling that I moved from a cozy zen retreat to the hustle and bustle of a metropolis. All those feelings still apply after a week.

        • Feedback and Validation, Engagement and Performance

          Sometimes I miss the direct and immediate feedback of social media. Most times I’m happy to not hunting down notifications.

          Sometimes I miss validation for something I wrote or created. Most times I’m happy with just expressing myself.

        • Re: Everybody Has a Take on Bubble. Here’s Mine



          In any case, why should Gemini cater to only one of these groups and not the other? The protocol is simple for sure, but it's perfectly capable of serving the needs of both groups. Anyone regardless of their preferred communication style can enjoy the other benefits of Gemini, such as privacy, lack of bloated web technologies, no unsolicited ads, and being in control of the overall experience with their client selection, to name a few.

          This is total speculation, but I feel like the long-form gemlog-preferring group is much smaller than the microbloggers. There are many reasons, but an important one is that serious long-form blogging is more like an art form in that takes dedication and focus, and these things are in short supply. Microblogging is something that many more people are able to partake in, enabling them to express their thoughts and feelings in a way that seems impactful. Here we should be very careful before making value judgements about which form of communication is "better": one may favor thoughtfulness, and the other immediacy and feedback loops, but both have their strengths and weaknesses.

        • Re: Bubble

          The sourdough protostarter is not really bubbling, yet, and mostly smells of flour. I suspect the environment is more about bleach than yeast, a win from the War on Bacteria. There aren't any wheat fields visible, though there may be some off in somewhat walking distance range? I'm already doing the "leave the water in a jar for a day so it smells less like a swimming pool" thing.

          [...]

          Not sure why bread is still stuck on bubble sort, presumably someone would have invented a better method by now? Okay, that joke was a bit of a stretch. You did not need to hear any of this!


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October