Tux Machines
Gemini Articles of Interest
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 02, 2023
A Gemini client* is needed for the following links.
Technology and Free Software
MapTool
Recently I started running an Arden Vul campaign. You know the one: 1122 pages of PDF + maps. For my Stonehell game, I let players map and they're using Gridmapper, at the moment. I need to be precise when communicating the dungeon map to players and they need to draw it correctly. Sometimes there are questions and there is some back and forth. And I start wondering. Should I switch and do the "slow reveal of the published map"?
All I know is that I don't want to use a resource intensive web app to do it. When I start Discord, Roll20 or Jitsi, my laptop's fans start going crazy and the thing gets hot. I don't like that. So if I can get around Roll20, I'll try it.
Status update July 2023
Over the last months I developed the features that was necessary from a freelancer perspective. Last developments concern bill style customization, brand logos URLs, and minor workflow simplification.
The installation and update workflows are spotless, and I wrote a documentation companion website to help newcomers. The first stable versions had been released, the test coverage please me and will help me for a long time maintenance, the database migration process is simple.
How incredibly easy it is to break (weak) passwords
Just a few minutes ago, my fried sent me an encrypted ZIP file and says "This ZIP file contains some artwork, but the password is distributed in a past, live event. And it's the birthday of the artist. 8 digits. Can you crack it?" Apprantly he can't find the password. "Sure" I said. I've learned in my cryptography and security class that 8 digit passwords are really easy to crack. Worst case I can iterate through all the possible combinations with BASH within a day. But I've heard this John the Ripper thing is really good at cracking passwords. So I decided to give it a try.
I dumped the hash with `zip2john file.zip > password.hash` and started cracking it with `john password.hash`. Firs I saw john decided to use the CPU only and to myself said, well I'll have to go to bed and see what happens tomorrow.
At This Point We’d Be Lucky to See the Best Minds of Our Generation Starving Hysterical Naked
The last job I worked at, I did some web development. It wasn't my choice. I got re-org'd away from my previous team, lead a web team where a lot of my responsibilities were webapp development. Older stuff (Java and Struts), newer stuff (React, node.js), plus traditional stuff - HTML, CSS, JavaScript. I administered servers, worked with our automation, learned the ins and outs of a CMS that is, to be polite, not exactly in a Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Internet/Gemini
Not Dead
I'm not dead, I'm just suddenly really fucking busy.
I have a long-form post about AI menu planners in the works, but school has to take precedence at the moment.
Tough changes to keep gwit simple
Lately I've been updating the gwit specification to fix several issues that have surfaced during private mail exchanges and discussions with people who I consider relevant in the fields of Gemini and decentralized publishing. First, I want to thank each of them for their help and the time and effort that they have devoted to this, and for their very valuable input! 🖖 Also note that the "gwit-spec" mailing list is always open for further public discussion.
* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.