Gemini Links 07/04/2024: Losing Access to the Pi and 'Boss Key'
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Thoughts - Imaginary worlds
Sometimes, I wonder how I would do as a kid today. Of course, we think about the classic screens everywhere, social media, and all the bad things that children are exposed to. But there are also things I would have dreamt to have.
I was very active in a bunch of forums when I was a teenager, and some of them were very focused on role-playing, usually around a video game. I had to write entire stories and dialogs for my online avatars. To do so, I also used to draft character back stories and fictional worlds. I like to think that I was pretty decent at it, and after a while my online friends were asking me to write RP pieces for them.
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🔤SpellBinding: CEITNOJ Wordo: URGES
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An avalanche of dogs
Being critical of someone in person or in a small group is a difficult time for everyone involved but it’s part of normal life.
But when I’m being critical of someone publically, especially in a many-to-many medium like online, what happens is that I get a figurative “megaphone” probably better known as “ten thousand faceless clowns who claim to be on my ‘side’ but who are much meaner and harrassier and have way worse arguments will ’join in’ or will have already joined in even before I say anything”. A tidal wave of hot takes drowning out attempts at nuanced criticisms and small course-corrections.
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Low Sunday (W)
As newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Psalm: Rejoice to God our Helper, sing aloud to the God of Jacob.
Glory be to the Father. As newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
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Why I don't write callouts
Okay, that's not entirely true. I've definitely written callouts. And I'll even qualify that a bit further to say that I don't, or at least try my best not to, write callouts of individual, non-corporate persons. I just wanted a title that'd serve as a natural successor to "Why I don't write arguments"
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21 pen questions
My Waterman Laureat. It's not the most expensive or flashy pen, but it was passed on to me from my mom, so it has some history and a lot of sentimental value. I'm not one to keep things solely for sentimental value, though - it's also just an objectively good writing experience!
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Technology and Free Software
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Systemata interna nova BSD
Yesterday I managed to lock myself out of my Pi, the sshd config was all right I just added the wrong user to the group... Created a group and user to only have sftp access, but I mistakenly added my main user to the group, so no shell for me. Root access is not allowed as are no other users that can access via ssh. Had to connect the Pi to a monitor/keyboard combo to login.
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Boss Key
This is a special (perhaps undocumented) key in a game that will bring up a spreadsheet or other such totems that give the appearance that one is doing productive work. Back in the day (the 1980s) computers were something of a rarity and therefore the only place one might be able to play a game was at the workplace. Is this a problem?
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The exquisite quality of blorbiness
What even is blorb? A blorby situation in an RPG is when the room, the monsters, the stuff in the rooms, that’s all canonically decided. You’ve written it down even. Maybe there are some random encounter tables in there.
The players know some of the stuff or maybe they’ve figured it all out through “playing 20 questions with a door knob” as some like to call it. They’re stuck down here and now they need to find rope. Or they know that the floors are trapped but how do they get across? Or they’re just in a boring office building and trying to figure out how to get Maddy to tell her secret.
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Damsel (2024)
I randomly clicked on the "recently added" section of that Plex instance. I had no expectation whatsoever.
In short, this is a classic dragon and princess fairy tale, except the princess will slay the dragon. The actual scenario is not much longer nor deeper than that. Everything is expected long before it happens, and there is not much of character building. So overall, it feels bland and uninteresting.
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.