#memes

Perfection:

#memes #fridaymemewar

#memes #fridaymemewar

#memes #fridaymemewar

#memes #fridaymemewar

#memes #fridaymemewar

#memes #fridaymemewar

I've recently been considering the many aspects of the free and open source 'movement' (for lack of a better word) that mesh well with the Catholic worldview. I wrote a somewhat fanciful piece on FOSS projects being like the cathedrals of our age: long-standing projects, taking generations of builders, built for the good of the community. (https://www.linen.dev/d/university-of-st-hildegard-of-bingen) That got me thinking further, about how FOSS projects are a service to the poor. As cathedrals offer a place of beauty and inspiration to everyone, regardless of income level, so open source projects offer tools and resources that can be used by all. And going a step further: these projects are usually built in the open, with publicly available documentation on how to contribute, and usually even the capability to view the process of improvements being incorporated into the project. Thus allowing for an educational opportunity open for any who have the desire to learn, again, free of direct cost. The final thought this prompted, is how FOSS projects build community. While it may start as the work of a single person (and of course the vast majority of projects stay that way), it has the potential to grow into the work of a community, with all the difficulty and opportunity for growth that entails. I'd love to work this into a longer paper some day, though a good library would be essential for the research. But there's definitely something here.

@ElectronicMonkey #flycat question: I see a button on posts for zaps, but it doesn't appear to do anything. Is it just a placeholder, or does it need to be setup or something? btw, amazing work on the client, easily my favorite that I've tested!

My handmade pants have reached their final form!

Nerdy theological reflection on the Gospel this weekend: did Jesus give Peter the public or the private keys to the Kingdom?

# Away From it All: an ode to offline first I looked up in the sky, and saw the Milky Way overhead, underfoot, a dusty gravel road, the night sounds of the deep woods in my ears. The location was in the Ozark mountains, nearest town was far away, and the best part: no cell service. Couldn't get even a whiff of signal until I drove 15 minutes up the road. It was a hunting ranch, and the mess hall had wifi and a decent connection to the Internet. But back in our cabins: nothing. Just porch sitting, going for walks, playing card games, or reading a book. For me, it was the perfect time to test my offline setup, in between doing all the awesome things I just listed. My media library, all locally stored on my Steam Deck, worked as expected. The older games I had preinstalled worked a treat as well. And of course SSB via Manyverse worked perfectly. ShareX on my Android phone worked to share files to other devices, and Syncthing worked to keep stuff synced as well. And though I didn't test it this time, I know Briar would have worked as well. What this situation prompted in me, was a longing for that dream that so many have expressed: a slower and more peaceful world. I'd love it if the Internet was not available in my home (and even my office), and I needed to walk 5 minutes to somewhere else whenever I wanted it. I'd love all software to have some way of caching and working offline. I'd love for mail, physical or digital, to be the only way to communicate over distance.

Gemini Protocol: the best social network I chase the magic, and every once in a while, it's within my grasp. Heard about Gemini roughly a year ago, but took a few months for me to research and download a browser to actually try it out (oh, if only I knew about the various https portals to Gemini!). But once I got there, it was magical. No effective searching, tons of broken links, no pictures, no monitization: all culminating in every blog/website I found, appearing as a shimmering oasis in the middle of a barren land. Products, nay, pieces of art, put together by artist making art for the sake of creativity! These personal sites, would be seen by dozens, at most hundreds, or maybe passed over completely. No way to comment, no central hubs for socializing, and yet, more social than any social media. Your weird relatives, boss, or coworkers, are not going to find you here, so say and build whatever you want! Just no pictures, unless it's ascii. And you have to wonder around the Gemini web through links in zines, web rings, and personal recommendations made on blogs. It's the most human feeling social setting I've found online in a long time. And what prompted me to write this post, is realizing it's also given me the best value for time out of all the other social places I hang out online. Prior to it SSB held pride of place for introducing me to cool people, projects, and ideas. And SSB is still firmley in secnd place, still so much cool stuff happening there. But Gemini is king. So many interesting people, discussing fascinating projects, and pondering strange and fearsome ideas. To finish out a hierarchy, I'd put the Fediverse next, and Nostr below that, in terms of having cool people and stuff. And I gotta give Tumblr an honorable mention, not for what it is now, but for what it was long ago, giving me the taste for that magic, that I keep on seeking. #gemini

One thing I very much appreciate about the Fediverse is filtering. I added filters for various politicians and world leaders, and my feed is free of politics. Added filters for various corporate social media platforms, and I'm spared that drama as well. It's good stuff.

Had to go on Facebook to get some info, and oh boy, what a hellscape. Reminded me of an old meme format, felt inspired to throw this together:

# Various Things ## Kagi I've often dropped the phrase "if you're not paying for it with money, then your data is the payment" in my feeble attempts to convince family and friends to drop Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc... And I say feeble, because it never really seems to work. I need some new strategies. About a month ago, decided to follow my own advice, and started using, and paying for, Kagi. Google and Bing, as well as the various other ways of getting their search results, have been kicked to the curb! My one month review begins with the fact that I search quite a bit. Blew through the 300 searches plan in two weeks, so I'm on the next tier now. Search results have been great, a very few times I've had to venture to the second page of results. I'm not a fan of them trying to add a bunch of ai features, but I understand that it's in vogue at the moment, and they all seem to be opt in, so I'm just ignoring them. I'll give it a 9/10 (gotta cut one point for the ai garbage), highly recommended as a search engine, and giving Google the boot is a wonderful bonus. ## Gris Picked up Gris on the Summer Steam Sale, and just finished it yesterday. Absolutely beautiful art style, gameplay (love that you get to bring things back to life by singing!), and storyline. I almost cried at then end. Also, seems like it was made for the Steam Deck. It's getting a 10/10, will definitely be replaying in the near future. ## Archiving I've started to take offline archiving seriously over the past month. A combination of Tumblr and Twitter going full silo, as well as Youtube vids dissapearing from my playlists, and then just the general ephemeral nature of the Internet. First step was adding more storage to my two main backup devices. I already had Resilio/Syncthing setup to keep things synced across those two devices, so once the new storage capacity was in place, just needed to add a few folders and away we go! Backing up vids has so many options, I'm not going to go into what I use, it's changed just in the past month, and will probably change again. But for websites and blogs, I played around with two tools: first I tried out [NB](https://xwmx.github.io/nb/) and then [Offpunk](https://notabug.org/ploum/offpunk/). Offpunk is the winner for my needs, but NB is a very interesting option. NB was easier to figure out for someone not terribly familiar with the terminal, so it was a good a starting place. And it does store snapshots of webpages, and allow you to browse stored sites, as well as having a whole bunch of note taking functionalities. However, the way it processed webpages for storage wasn't the best, certain parts would get cut off, and it doesn't even try to get images, which aren't necessary, but are sometimes useful to have. Offpunk is only about storing websites for offline view, and also adds a syncing feature, which seems like it will be useful for blogs that get updated every once in a while. It also stores images, highly pixelated, but it's enough to give an idea of what the image is about. The way it browses through the synced sites is definitely smoother than NB as well. 10/10 for my purposes. It also works with Gemini protocol, which is something I want to write more about, but I'll save that for the future.

Been working on hand sewing a pair of mompei on and off for a few months, and finally finished last night! Still have pockets and a few other details to add, but they are wearable! Learned a lot on this first piece of clothing, and definitely increased the speed and consistency of my stitching.