● 07.17.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Gemini Links 17/07/2023: Slackware Linux Turns 30, Old Computer Challenge 2023 Recap

Posted in News Roundup at 12:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal/Opinions

• Yesterday morning I awoke resolved to no longer bother posting to Antenna for feeling I don’t belong, don’t “get it”, etc. In terms of engagement/interaction/community, it’s earned a low rating relative to other places I’ve participated. There are times the overall feeling conjures wondering whether there’s collusion a la “maybe he’ll leave if we ignore him long enough”….

• Am I imagining things? Is it simply an aspect of “smol” that I’ve failed to grasp? Is the “right” way to exist in Gemini to put out topically interesting missives that ignore others’ contributions?

• Anyway, a funny thing happened a little later in the day: I noticed that, a couple days ago, someone I’m vaguely remembering having some sort of sysop role somewhere (when I was first looking the best place to host my gemlog) emailed me to let me know how much they’ve enjoyed my gemlog, and hoped I’d be continuing.

Politics and World Events

• It might seem strange that conservative political parties and movements often treat the enviroment so poorly and short-sightedly. After all, their religious texts have page after page on the glory of this priceless blue marble and how to care for this planet-sized household with love and attention to detail. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father.

• The problem is that most the runaway environmental problems, including climate change, were caused by a bug in market capitalism: under–accounted-for (often un–accounted-for) transaction externalities.

Technology and Free Software

• As the week of the challenge comes to a close, I’m already feeling like I want to extend it, and I’m typing this on my ‘old computer’, so maybe that says something.

• I thought about titling this post “Old Computer Challenge 2023: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” and I can see how I’d break down this post into those three sections, and I have definitely jotted down some “uglies” that I’ll mention.

• I often work on my computer late at night, so on midnight of the first day of the challenge I pulled out a Chip computer and tried to fire it up and get it working. After some back-and-forth between that and my other Pocket CHIP computer, I eventually discovered that I could use the Chip computer inside the hull of my Pocket Chip case. I used this lightly for a few days, then messed the thing up when I tried to keep updating Debian. The process to re-flash the Chip computer is very convoluted. And though I’d love to walk through and get my Chip computers useable again, I didn’t want to deal with that, so chose a different thing to try: I pulled out my old Raspberry Pi 1B computer from 2013 and decided to see if I could install Void Linux on it and run it for the week.

• Hi! I’ve not been very communicative about my week during the Old Computer Challenge v3, the reason is that I failed it. Time for a postmortem (analysis of what happened) to understand the failure!

• For the context, the last time I was using a restricted hardware was for the first edition of the challenge two years ago. Last year challenge was about reducing Internet connectivity.

• To make music, you don’t need any tools or instruments at all, think about all the music for choir or Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. But assuming you are working in a computer environment and making some variant of electronic or electroacoustic music, a common working model revolves around a digital audio workstation (DAW) with a number of plugins. The plugins are mostly effects that process sound signals in realtime. There may be MIDI instruments that generate sounds, controlled by a sequencer, perhaps displayed in a piano roll notation. DAW programs tend to be big and bloated with functionality. They clutter the screen with tracks, mixer channels, numerous tiny boxes, buttons, menues and submenues. Dual screens may be a requirement for a reasonably smooth work flow. Getting something done often involves digging deep into manuals to see where everything is hiding and trying to understand fancy terms for what often amounts to simple signal processing operations. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Internet/Gemini

• Tomorrow I’ll be doing some renovation in the room where my server is located. I’ll have to cut the power. This means that my fibre converter, router, and servers will be down for some hours. I’ll try to be quick about it.

Programming

• These notes are of two books by “John Sommez” I found helpful. I also added some of my own keypoints to it. These notes are mainly for my own use, but you might find them helpful, too.

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