Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 24/07/2023: Goodbyes to the Web



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal/Opinions

      • Gravity Circuit: First Impressions

        I only have vague memories of Mega Man... Mega Man *anything* (X, Zero, one, forty-two etc.). I admit I never played through any of them, but I must have played one or two levels on friends' consoles in the 1990's. Apparently this means I'm not the best to judge Gravity Circuit for its roots... I am probably similarly familiar with 2 other games that Gravity Circuit reminds me of - Shovel Knight (I think of it when using downwards attacks with Kai) and Steel Assault (surprised I haven't heard more mention of the similarities with this recent title).

        As of the time of writing, I have played through the initial stage, and then the one with the steel factory or whatever the one is where you can hop in something like a mech... And I'm definitely planning to play more! I'm not very good at it - I play on Easy and I still die pretty often. Part of it is the controls for me. Maybe I'm slower at internalizing control schemes than I was in my teens, now that those are a couple of decades behind me.

      • Rain Check

        Heavy rain this morning, the trip to the lake postponed. Instead we watched the Blue Jays squeak past the Mariners, then headed to our friends' place for supper. Pasta for the main course, chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert (I told you she was a good baker).

        In the reclaimed time this afternoon we gave one of the dogs a bath and I spent a few hours hacking on my forever project. I've put well over a thousand hours into it, over the years. Probably several multiples of that. I give it away on my website, offer it for free (with optional donation) on itch. I've made a few hundred bucks in a few years. Enough to cover my domain and hosting, break even, and that's enough.

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Hello world!

        Hello there! I'm a decade Linux veteran here to spread some information about the scene.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • I think I'm done with the web

          The title is a bit melodramatic, I know. I can't realistically abandon the web since I work in web technologies, and a lot of the stuff I have to do day-to-day requires the web. I guess I just feel tired. Something about the recent collapse of Twitter and the subsequent clamour of wannabe replacements has soured me to the "web" and the impossibility of wresting it away from greedy hands.

          The web was (at one point) an exciting place to me. Lots of interesting people writing about the things that fascinated them for no other reason than they wanted to write about it. They could potentially find a new community of people who share their passion, but equally they may be shouting into the void alone. It didn't matter. People just wrote and drew and shared.

        • Cool Capsule Of The Week: D Moonfire

          D Moonfire is organized in such a way that you can actually explore it. Its index isn’t a large list of everything on the capsule. Instead, it has links to some recent gemlog posts, short excerpts describing some locations with links scattered throughout, and a footer that appears on every page with links to even more locations. Because of this, it can be easy to lose your bearing after exploring and not know whether you’re reading the end of a random page, Dylan Moonfire’s gemlog, his biography, or the index. Surprisingly, this isn’t really a problem because you can always just go the the parent directory, the capsule index, or use one of the links in the footer to get around.

        • Advancing toward beddie bye time

          Oh wow, Gemini just got an order of magnitude better for me:

          Doctor Who Zone

          It was on the order of something like three decades ago that I started plowing through Doctor Who, a journey lasting through the first seven Doctors. Much of it was on good 'ole (public) broadcast TV, but I'm pretty sure I've some DVD's laying around somewhere.

      • Programming

        • Only One Script

          Sometimes there is a need to run only one instance of a script. Additionally, one may want to know when the script last ran or if the script is running how long ago it started. Various implementations of this pattern have various problems: the lock could fail, allowing multiple instances to start, or a stale lock could prevent any instances from starting. Failures involve manual intervention, and there may be additional cleanup work depending on exactly what went awry. Another thing to worry about is a script simply not running because 02:30 AM on a particular Sunday does not exist, or exists twice—thanks, daylight saving time!

        • Today's coding lesson: Head Up Ass Recursion

          As I've mentioned probably n+1 times too many, my beef with liberals began in the 1990s, when I started increasingly reading that "old white males" were the cause of all the world's ills. I was quite liberal up to that point, complete with irregularly-scheduled vehement arguments with my birth family. I still remember how great I felt when Clinton/Gore announced balancing the budget. I also remember thinking Joe Biden was a vile asshole back then.


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



Recent Techrights' Posts

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From last night
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Macho Patent Office
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This response was clear and relatively swift
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All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
 
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
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Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
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The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
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article in La Stampa
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
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Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
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Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
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Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
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Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
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IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
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Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
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Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
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Such stereotypes end entire careers
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Links for the day
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025