Gemini Articles of Interest

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 21, 2023

A Gemini client^* is needed for the following links.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Letting Go of Computers

    I have owned computers since I was ten years old, when my dad brought home a genuine IBM PC XT in 1983. They shaped my life and my thinking, even as they shaped the world at large. I loved the magic machines for a good many decades, but now I find much to regret, on both the personal level and in society at large.

    I've had to step away from computers, for two reasons. The first is aesthetic. Computing has become a kind of ugly necessity, in which the productive work we do must run in tandem with an endless arms race against corporate and criminal scum. Another firmware vulnerability, another third-party database breach, another search engine rendered useless by AI-generated SEO garbage. The walled gardens get tighter and smaller; the end-user profit squeeze more pronounced.

  • Dark mode/light mode

    Using light mode at night hurts my eyes, but when I first discovered how to set dark mode some fifteen-some years ago, it was difficult to automatically change back and forth. I would have to manually change *every* single setting. It was so tedious. So I left my devices on dark mode constantly, even though that actually strained my eyes in the daytime.

    And so I progressed until the present day assuming that it was still difficult.

    But it’s not! Not anymore! There’s just a little toggle I can select in Cinnamon to switch my system. And Firefox (well, Floorp, but same difference) automatically changes when I tell it to! And so does Sidebery! And Dark Reader toggles itself! And so does Discord, and so does the shiny Mastodon userstyle I installed, and I can make my custom Dreamwidth userstyle turn itself off when I’m in light mode, and I just discovered Sublime Text can *also* automatically switch between light and dark mode, and and and.

  • Nozzle Size

    I’m used to higher resolution being an expensive upgrade, so the idea of nearly double resolution for a few dollars took me by surprise.

    I’m talking about 3D printing. It was a couple of months after buying a 3D printer that I learned that you can buy different sized nozzles for the Prusa MK3S; that they’re so cheap as to be effectively free; and that while the default nozzle size is 0.4mm, it works fine with a 0.25mm nozzle—almost doubling the resolution.

    So! I ordered some nozzles: and most importantly, the 0.25mm and the 0.8mm nozzle.

^* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.