ix years ago, in October 2020, I worked on making a text-only (bulletin) version of Techrights. The sister site would have the same thing 3 years later.

In the same month I experimented with putting these bulletins in IPFS, then I looked into more protocols (like Gemini Protocol, which I had already explored before but did not adopt).

So there’s a sort of anniversary in late October. It coincided with the COVID-19 stay-home directives.

Free software (like IPFS) has since then stagnated somewhat. Like blockchains, we barely hear about it anymore.

It still exists, but how many people use it?

I don’t think RMS knows much (or anything) about IPFS. He’s not a fan of fake-coins, so he would probably find IPFS off-putting.

oday the rain is fairly heavy (at times). It’s good for cleaning outdoors and for the garden (plants), but it also means that going out is reasonably unattractive, undesirable, unpleasant.

So today I’ve decided to stay at home and focus on writing details articles. There’s no lack of topics to cover, only a lack of time.

It seems like some of my recent articles “triggered” a reaction. That reaction was counterproductive as it gave away some finer details, which help our legal strategy.

Social control media compels people to act impulsively and post short, dumb, self-harming things.

recently published an article about Red Hat and it was accessed over 75,000 times. I didn’t know at the time the exposure would be that big. Had I known so, I’d make the article longer and more detailed.

Since then traffic in Techrights has been better than before, quite consistently. It’s now about 3 times higher than it was 3 years ago. I don’t think it’s all attributable to LLM bots. There’s definitely a lot of legitimate activity going on.

Astonishingly enough, I chose not to read any comment about that article Because “The Orange Site” is full of toxic “bros” who heckle what they link to, they don’t contribute much to the discussion.

oday we did a lot of housework and then caught up with news. On Tuesday next week we celebrate another personal anniversary and maybe we’ll have another chance to travel around Greater Manchester before it gets too cold.

Football is back in 9 days, but it’ll be in Anfield with heckling local fans who accuse ManCity of cheating.

The more rosy news, for us at least, comes in November. Techrights turns 20.

Why did I not do this sooner?

Simple.

I was addicted.

It’s easy to look back, recognise a mistake, then explain it.

I’m much better off without any of that nonsense.

HIS coming October, i.e. next week or this week, I think this site officially turns 24. Why in October? Because I still vaguely remember the day I started it, how it started, and why it began.

I was on a work shift at the time and I entertained the idea of copying a general template of my lecturer’s page (I no longer remember his name), giving some general background about who I was and more basic information. It still looks something like this.

I probably can pin-point the exact day/date of that, but it would require digging into very old E-mail archives, which I believe I still have. Or maybe my Palm PDA archives (todo), which I know I still have.

oday I had a long conversation with a friend about sites we catch cheating and plagiarising with slop. I pointed out many of them cease to release new material, with some going offline.

That serves to affirm my expectation and observation that sites which become slopfarms commit suicide.

When the bubble pops, which is inevitable and already “in progress”, all those sites will vanish faster.

oday we blacklisted two sites [1, 2], not only one, for using slop.

I blacklist sites when they become too risky to even consider for redemption.

My wife blacklisted these, I did the same, and even an associate has blacklisted what what not worthy of his time. As he put it, “if the slop blog feeds are commented out, then they are not fetched and that is a good thing, not just regarding RRRRRR’s speed, however the XML parser skips comments because it *cannot* process them by design which makes it harder to spot accidental re-inclusion” (we have tools to manage sites to curate).

still remember how, about a month before Tux Machines turned 15, we invited Susan (from the US) to join us. She politely declined only because of the distance but tactfully expressed gratitude.

Today I saw Susan’s name mentioned [1, 2], so despite her retiring from writing she is still remembered, appreciated, and loved.