y webhost since 2003 is having issues with bots, but it has blocked Tor instead. We’re working to undo this.

If raw Web stats are to be believed, the main domain (not subdomains) of schestowitz.com got a million visitors last month. AWStats isn’t good enough at classifying bots, so this is overly flattering and… just false.

The state of the Web (noise as traffic, humans being a minority of the whole) is truly worrying. It wasn’t like this in 2003.

I am really not happy with the direction the Internet has taken.

N 2000 when I first began using GNU/Linux as a “desktop” (not just laptop) it ran GNOME, KDE, and all sorts of simpler environments. It was good for development but harder to “use” if something more advanced was required that assumed you were a Windows user. The Web, games, and proprietary Office formats were barriers.

Now, 26 years later, GNU/Linux makes huge gains and the above barriers are mostly a thing is the past.

The progress was gradual; many attacks (FUD and ‘cancel culture’) slowed down this progress.

oday the heatwave has begun, so we plan to go to the nearby park and feed the birds. It is not a good day to stay indoors and it’s also a chance to meet the birds we’ve not seen in 2-3 months (we focus on Mayfield these days).

Sleepy has begun moulting, as it is late summer. She is sitting next to me at the door right now.

If only I realise how fan birding can be… decades ago. At least I didn’t wait ’til 70.

‘ve begun doing a series about how Richard Stallman (RMS) came back to American campuses earlier this year. GNU/Linux turns 43 next month. RMS started it.

“If you have any questions at all,” one organiser told me ahead of the first such talk since 2018. “please don’t hesitate to reach out. We have several questions prepared for RMS during the Q&A, and if there’s anything you’d like us to raise as well, I’d be more than happy to include it!”

At the time I was too busy dealing with bullies.

To the host, Georgia Tech, there was a political burden. Quoting the organiser (definitely not a Cheeto fan): “P.S. I also really love that y’all hate on our Grand Cheeto Master. I know you’ve mentioned not being fond of air travel on your blog, which I completely understand – but if you ever find yourselves visiting the South, we would be more than happy to host you here at Georgia Tech for a session! Until then, we look forward to continued collaboration with y’all remotely – and, of course, welcoming the “devil” down to Georgia soon…”

“Thank you again for your time and support.”

I was not too far from Georgia on my last trip to the US, but that was 20 years ago and I don’t plan to come to the US again (not any time soon).

I hope RMS will visit the UK some time soon and preferably not too far from here (he was in Oxford).

AM trying to allow Tor users to access this site again. I’ve only just found out that they’re blocked. The webhost changed something and I’m not sure when this was done, I can guess guess why.

E are exactly two weeks away from Rianne’s birthday and gift ideas need to be based around sentimental value this year, not monetary value. Jewellery and other ‘vanity items’ have always been a waste of money (hard work and sometimes child labour for a bunch of pebbles or metals or whatever). Over the course of three weeks a lot can be done to convert time into joy and joy lasts much longer in the mind than in the shop.

It takes courage and work to make gifts that aren’t just something one scans at the checkout (till) but instead produces one way or another.

The older I get, the more obvious it seems gifting in the “Traditional” (with capital T) sense became merely consumerism and we’re far detached from real scarcities, which aren’t something one can purchase. I was never fond of consumerism and birthdays; over time it becomes easier to explain the “whys”.

probably broke some personal record by posting 13 blog posts in my personal blog today. Time flies. But in other sites I did in fact post well over 50 posts in one day, I think almost 70 at one point at Techrights.

I spent a lot of time writing about a million “posts” in social control media. What a waste that was! What a giant waste.

I have backups of it all, but good luck making use of that or searching through all that.

The issue isn’t just LLM slop, the issue is that there’s a lot of text out there. A lot of it is largely invisible, un-discoverable. LLM is just another layer of trash on top of that.