In Germany, we used to put an ASCII art fish for trolls, because they were troll-fishing:

><xX))))o>

That was advising others not to react to them/ Maybe we should use something similar for clanker-bots ?

Here another article on this: http://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/gemini.html (written in 2020)

And later https://preshing.com/ on threading and concurrency.

From the article:

“What is the point of text-only webpages?” you may ask, especially if you are under 30. Gemini will probably not appeal to those who use the Internet primarily for entertainment, rather than as a source of information. But many, including myself, have lamented the demise of the 1990’s Internet. We want an Internet with webpages that do not take an average 10 seconds or more to download–despite having very little user-readable content, let alone content we may actually want to read. We yearn to return to the days when we could actually find noncommercial websites with an Internet search engine. Remember the days before about 2007 when a Google search could yield millions of search results, and Google would let you access as many as you wanted? Now, we get only a few pages of results that Google thinks are worthwhile. Though I have no proof, I suspect these may be mostly websites that have paid Google for the privilege of appearing in its search results. Go ahead and call me pessimistic. Perhaps I am.

One huge advantage that I forget to mention: Since Gemini does not use “addictive by design” UI elements popularized by social media companies, like feeds, timelines, likes and upvotes, colourful and distracting elements, endless scrolling, and comments that invite trolling, it feels a lot calmer.

If you want to have a glimpse how an Internet without addictive design could look, an internet made for and made by people, have a look at https://geminiprotocol.net/ . It is radical, indeed - but sometimes, it is better to bite the bullet, and follow the maxim “it’s better to get unpleasant things over and done with”.

And one main difficulty with using the Gemini network is… well, it is not addictive. It rather needs a little discipline to use it and harvest the fruits of it. Just like reading a good book, or writing a real letter to a friend.

“OpenSlopware” was a repository on the European Codeberg git forge containing a list of free software and open source projects which use LLM-bot generated code, or integrate LLMs, or which show signs of “coding assistants” being used on the codebase, such as pull requests created or modified by automated coding tools.

However, its creator – who we are intentionally not naming or tagging here – received so much harassment from LLM boosters that they removed the repository, and indeed their Bluesky account, stating that they would withdraw from social media for a while. Now, if you try to visit the original URL, you will receive only a 404 message.

Ahrtal, Acapulco, Derna, Emiglia Romana, Valencia, Blatten in Switzerland… every year we see more apocalyptic images.

Taiwan does this differently, and it works better:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/578364/how-taiwan-is-leading-the-way-in-the-fight-against-disinformation

https://en.tfc-taiwan.org.tw/disinformation/

https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/how-taiwan-has-reduced-social-polarisation-and-become-more-resilient-disinformation

• Algorithmic Feeds Tuned for Addiction: Behind the scenes, sophisticated AI algorithms curate each user’s feed to hold attention as long as possible. Rather than showing content chronologically, platforms personalize the feed using machine learning to maximize engagement — learning what hooks each person. This design is deliberate: “AI-driven social media algorithms are designed solely to capture our attention for profit… continuously tailoring feeds to individual preferences,” thereby maximizing screen time and deepening activation of the brain’s reward centers. By endlessly serving up auto-play videos or recommended posts that align with a user’s interests (or trigger emotion), the platform keeps the user in a continuous loop. Internal industry documents frankly admit these “continuous feeds… keep users on their platforms for as long as possible” to boost ad revenue. In essence, the newsfeed itself is engineered not as a neutral product, but as an addictive “scrolling feed that distracts users” and constantly resets our attention for the next reward

The problem is that these social media sites have UIs that are addictive by design, and full of dark patterns. Putting that UI onto another domain name, owned by another company or organization, does not solve this problem. Replacing X with Mastodon does not solve that, even when the people running Mastodon have good intentions.

And “Addictive by Design” does real damage.

We need to think a bit sharper to get out of that hole we have dug ourself in.

So bike to your car. I like the idea.

Really, the Dutch are very pragmatic people.

I am always wondering why there is no standard for video conferencing?

We can be glad that the telephone was not invented in our times…

One huge advantage that I forget to mention: Since Gemini does not use “addictive by design” UI elements popularized by social media companies, like feeds, timelines, likes and upvotes, colourful and distracting elements, endless scrolling, and comments that invite trolling, it feels a lot calmer.

Oh, I see I made an error here:

The page I cited gives the power consumption in Ampere, it is 0.360 Ampere.

This is not, and this is what I overlooked, equal to the power consumption in Watt.

What applies here is the formula

 P = I * U

where I is current in Ampere, U is Voltage, and P is Power in Watt. And while I is 0.36 Ampere, U is 5.1 Volt (see www.raspberrypi.com/products/power-supply) , so the real power consumption is

1.85 Watt (instead of “half a Watt”).

The 5 A charger can deliver 25.5 Watt.

Here is the python code I used to compute the above table:

 >>> def fall_height_from_fall_speed_kms(v):
 ...   v_ms=v/3.6
 ...   a = 9.81 # m / s **2
 ...   t = v_ms / a
 ...   h = t ** 2 * a / 2
 ...   return h

In principle, this is correct. But the need for a helmet increases massively with speed.

Consider the end speed of free fall when falling a certain height - or the inverse, height in meters versus speed in kilometer per hour. It is:

10 km/h   ..... 0.39 meter
20 km/h   ..... 1.57 meter
30 km/h   ..... 3.54 meter
40 km/h   ..... 6.29 meter
50 km/h   ..... 9.83 meter

Would you jump from ten meters height into a concrete surface? Few people would, because it is almost certain that you die. But the frame pillar of a car is equally hard as such a surface.

Another data point: In the center of Copenhagen, not so many people use a helmet, but the speed is typically between 10 and 15 km/h - so many bikes there ! - and the number of serious accidents is very low. The contrary is the case for Germany.

And just to make a point: Using a helmet is always safer.

Yes, right.

But: A bike helmet won’t help you much if you have a collision at 50 km/h. If you go at moped / light motorcycle speed, you need a motorcycle helmet, too.

And for Arch / Desktop systems, also look here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications/Internet

Ctrl-f “gemini”

That was sadly exactly what I was expecting from the electric motorization of bicycles. It is a history that has repeated itself many times in the last 70 or 80 years since the first combustion engine mopeds.

The fact is that the human-powered bike is at a sweet spot of efficiency and safety. Once you go faster, you need a helmet, a heavier frame, wider tyres, better brakes, wider lanes, protective clothing, protection against cold, a heavier motor for propelling all the extra weight, and so on. The energy input from you the human dwindles.

It is not any more a bicycle.