gopher.black

Moving Domains

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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Moving domains
February 11th, 2025
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I'm in the process of migrating away from Namesilo for my domain
hosting. They've been good for me for a long time, but it's time
to break my remaining connections with the US. I've picked OVH
Cloud for the new registrar since they seem to have good TLD
support. But I'll serve my DNS zones from 1984.is as I've been
doing. I like them. It's very straight forward.

I need to go back over my other recurring services and cancel more
things. I used to have a big list, but I think I need to look at
credit card bills now to piece them together. I just get this
feeling that with the uncertainty in the US it'll be smart to keep
myself lean.

What about you? Are you doing anything with your services?

Bye Bye Meta

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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Bye Bye Meta
January 22nd, 2025
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I nuked most of the content from my Facebook account today, and
completely destroyed my Instagram account. But tomasino, why were
you on Facebook? Great question, nerds.

Iceland runs on Facebook. It's really weird. Well, not really if
you consider that Iceland has been at the top of the charts of the
most online citizens in the world almost nonstop since gopher came
on the scene. It was number one for most of that time, but never
really lower than 4th on the list. People here are really, really
connected, and the circles are quite homogeneous. It's estimated
that 91% of all Icelanders are on Facebook. And that causes some
problems (obviously).

Since they can assume you're on there, most businesses don't
bother with websites. Restaurants, coffee shops, all of them, just
a Facebook page. I can order Indian food over Facebook messenger.
I signed my kid up for the summer farm camp over messenger. Worse,
my son's school communications come via Facebook group. It's
really not a practical option to not participate.

So when we moved here I got sucked back in. My wife avoided it,
and I took one for the team.

But here we are in this darkest of timelines, and I can't justify
giving Meta any more than they've already stolen. So what do I do?
I become a ghost.

I've deleted every bit of content I have on Facebook except a post
telling people why and where else to find me. But I kept the
account. I can see those school groups. I can book a table. I'll
use end-to-end encryption when I need to use messenger, and then
delete the chats anyway. Minimum viable engagement.

Instagram though... there's no reason to have it. Boom, gone.

I figured telling gopher was the best way to share. :)

Resolution

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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Resolution
January 02nd, 2025
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Be it resolved:

In the great year two thousand and twenty five I shall become the
official spokesperson for a brand of luxury toilet paper.

2024 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20240102-resolution
2023 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20221231-resolution
2022 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20211230-resolution
2021 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20201231-resolution
2020 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20200101-resolution
2019 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20181225-resolutions
2018 Resolution
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20180101-resolution

Circumlunar Updates

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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circumlunar updates
October 03rd, 2024
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I fixed solderpunk's circumlunar address a little while back
because I noticed the top level domain info wasn't updating
anymore, but the zaibatsu side was. Today dokuja pointed out the
same thing was happening to him. So I just went through and
updated all the phlogs that were at circumlunar.space to now be at
zaibatsu.circumlunar.space, and lo! so many updates. Enjoy!

moku-pona
    gopher://gopher.black/1/moku-pona

Roophloch 2024

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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ROOPHLOCH 2024
September 21st, 2024
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It's ROOPHLOCH time, right? I'm pretty sure that's in september.
Well, I hope so, cause this is a ROOPHLOCH post!

I recently bought a cabin [0] and this weekend is the first the
family is spending in it. My wife is up on the mountain behind us
right now exploring some of the sheep trails that lead through the
saddle. We hear there's a rumor of a mountain lake back there.
Below me sits the valley lake and river. Off in the far distance
to the south is Esja, the largest mountain in the capital region
here in Iceland.

[0] we bought a cabin
    gopher://gopher.black/1/phlog/20240829-we-bought-a-cabin

I'm on mobile internet here. I think that, together with the
remoteness of the place warrants a ROOPHLOCH post. We have
electricity and clean water utilities, but I also have a cistern
fed by the mountain creek that runs through the property which is
used to handle all the outside water needs: garden, mostly.

It's a super cozy place, and very quiet. I took an 8 second
exposure photo last night of the valley and still saw nothing but
darkness. It gets proper dark here, which is going to be excellent
for aurora viewing. It's also really great and inspiring for
writing. The remoteness gives a quietude that lets the mind race
with ideas. I'm going to put it some effort on the Solarpunk
Prompts podcast [1] in a little bit.

[1] Solarpunk Prompts
    https://podcast.tomasino.org

That series is coming to a close soon. I've got 7 or 8 more
prompts lined up to write about and then record, and then I'll
close it down as complete. But I'm not done talking about
Solarpunk. I want to do something new on the subject. Maybe
a discussion piece where I can interview people. Ideas are still
percolating. I think the place I can be most helpful to the cause
is in awareness, so interviews that amplify the voices of people
making Solarpunk a reality today would be the best. But ideas are
cheap. It's the doing that's hard. So lets see if I actually get
this one off the ground.

I think my track record for "getting stuff done" is pretty good.
I'm not perfect at it. I had a zine idea that never really got
anywhere, after all. But cosmic still exists, and tilde black had
a good run. The podcast is real, and CYOA ran until a legal
take-down. That's all in my favor. Sometimes I feel like I'm not
really doing anything, though. I guess it's that whole comparison
as the death of joy thingy. We can't all stand up in the face of
cat's creations. :)

Oh, non-sequitor: do you all know a good way to cut down on flies?
The cabin has a lot of water sources nearby and a pretty large
amount of native plants surrounding. The sunroom attracts flies
and they eventually make their way inside. It's not at problem
levels, but I'd like to minimize it. The former owner has a bug
zapper and some fly paper out there, but I'm not sure if that
helps or just attracts more. Isn't there something you can pour
into stagnant water? or is that for mosquitos? We don't have those
here (yay). Anyway, advice welcome.

That's it for now. I'm gonna go use this fancy-ass espresso maker
that came with the place and make a cappucino and sit on the deck
with my Dashiell Hammett book. Enjoy, gophs.

We Bought A Cabin

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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We bought a cabin
August 29th, 2024
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Hey! I bought a cabin. Well, it finalizes in a week or two. But
it's just about ours!

It's 40 minutes to my north, in a mountain valley well away from
any city lights. It's called a summer cabin here in Iceland, but
the name is a misnomer. It's accessible year round and commonly
used in winter. This one has 3 bedrooms, sleeps 6 comfortably, has
a big deck, play house for a kiddo, sand pit, yard, garden, and
all the comfortable utilities of home.

I can't wait to have TTRPG getaway weekends with my gaming group!

We're also going to rent it out a bit, but not a ton. The fees
aren't very high to keep it up, but we want to make the place make
enough income so it's self sufficient.

More to come!

Wegovy

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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Wegovy
June 04th, 2024
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I reached my heaviest weight ever last month and it coincided with
some health stuff that led me to a cardiologist. I'm going to
a follow-up today, in fact. Good news is that I'm not in danger
right now. Bad news is I have heart disease. I've got a family
history of it, and I'm overweight with borderline pre-diabetes,
high blood pressure, and low fitness level. All not great.

I've got some things in the works, though. I bought a desk
treadmill about a month back and that's been really good for
stepping me up in activity instead of sitting all day. My
cardiologist prescribed me regular swimming as well. And finally,
thanks to some info from a friend, I started Wegovy.

It's one of those weight loss drugs, like Ozempic, but indicated
specifically for weight loss, not diabetes. I'm in my fourth week
now and I've been shedding weight steadily. The first week was
awkward with some GI issues. It was so easy for my habits to have
me overeat and then wretch. I've adapted well and will step up in
dose size next week.

So far so good. I've a long way to go, but shedding the weight
will also help me as I increase my activity level again. Wish me
luck.

Shitposting

Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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Shitposting
May 22nd, 2024
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Don't forget to wet your dries, then dry your wets. That's the
secret.

Birthdays

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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birthdays
April 25th, 2024
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Today is my wife's birthday. We're heading into the city to find
tacos, some vinyl, and see some art installations for Design
March. Is Design March[0] a thing in other places? I'm really not
sure if it's a local-only or if it's world-wide. It's pretty neat:
art installations in March all over the city. Except it's April,
almost May, but they didn't change the name. No idea why.

[0] Design March
https://visitreykjavik.is/see-and-do/reykjavik-festival-city/design-march

My friends Lejla and Natalia built an installation called
InStability[1] which is about the earthquakes and detection systems
in the Reykjanes penninusla where we live. The piece is a giant
tactile map of the penninsula. You can touch the land anywhere
with your finger to create an earthquake there. As you do so
you'll see all of the earthquake detection sensors around the
country light up as your shockwaves move across the surface. It's
really cool and immersive, and I got to help a little bit!

[1] InStability
https://www.honnunarmidstod.is/en/honnunarmars/dagskra/2024/o-stodugleiki-reykjanes-rumskar-102

Assembly required a lot of textile work, and I'm apparently the
local sewer. Over the course of a few nights we stitched a lot of
capacitive and pressure-sensitive fabrics together in patches.
I can't wait to see the final product on display later today.

Today is also the first day of summer in Iceland, so it's a school
holiday. We'll go see some parades and there will probably be
pop-up concerts. I have a holiday vacation day today, so it's
going to be Fun Family Time™.

Here we go!