blosxom.com_gerikson.com.rss.xml - sfeed_tests - sfeed tests and RSS and Atom files
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       blosxom.com_gerikson.com.rss.xml (27455B)
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            1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
            2 <rss version="2.0">
            3   <channel>
            4     <title>The occasional scrivener</title>
            5     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/</link>
            6     <description>Gustaf Erikson's weblog.</description>
            7     <language>en</language>
            8     <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
            9     <generator>blosxom/2.1.2</generator>
           10 
           11   <item>
           12     <title>Why Gemini is not my favorite internet protocol</title>
           13     <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2021 12:16:00 +0000</pubDate>
           14     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/06/11#Why-u-no-gemini</link>
           15     <category>/comm</category>
           16     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/comm/Why-u-no-gemini</guid>
           17     <description>&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: the Gemini protocol removes too much functionality for it to
           18 interesting to me.&lt;/p&gt;
           19 
           20 &lt;h3&gt;What is Gemini?&lt;/h3&gt;
           21 
           22 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gemini.circumlunar.space/&quot;&gt;Gemini&lt;/a&gt; is a simple web publishing protocol. It can be seen as a
           23 descendant, successor of Gopher. Gemini primarily emphasizes developer
           24 simplicity, and secondarily user privacy.&lt;/p&gt;
           25 
           26 &lt;p&gt;This comes with significant trade-offs for the author,
           27 however. Compared to standard vanilla HTML4, there are no inline
           28 links, no provision for media other than text on a page, and the
           29 styling of the content is left to the client.&lt;/p&gt;
           30 
           31 &lt;p&gt;My background in web publishing - I&amp;#8217;ve been fascinated by &lt;em&gt;publishing&lt;/em&gt;
           32 since I was a kid and I&amp;#8217;ve been involved in printing zines and in
           33 student newspapers etc through the years. The idea that I can publish
           34 what I want, when I want, at whatever lengths I want, for effectively
           35 free, is still mind-blowing to me, almost 30 years since I copied some
           36 &lt;abbr title=&quot;Hyper Text Markup Language&quot;&gt;HTML&lt;/abbr&gt; code and made it mine.&lt;/p&gt;
           37 
           38 &lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#8217;s where Gemini falls down for me.&lt;/p&gt;
           39 
           40 &lt;p&gt;First, there&amp;#8217;s no official client. The fact that it&amp;#8217;s so easy to
           41 implement a client means there&amp;#8217;s a Cambrian explosion going on, and
           42 the filtering die-back has not yet occurred. This might change in the
           43 medium future.&lt;/p&gt;
           44 
           45 &lt;p&gt;Second, the styling limitations are crippling. I can probably survive
           46 without having images etc. on the same page, but the lack of inline
           47 links (each link has to be on its own line) leads to stilted,
           48 quasi-academic jargony text like this:&lt;/p&gt;
           49 
           50 &lt;blockquote&gt;
           51   &lt;p&gt;Check out my cool blog[1]! It&amp;#8217;s full of cats! &lt;/p&gt;
           52 
           53 &lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://gerikson.com/blog&quot;&gt;https://gerikson.com/blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
           54 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
           55 
           56 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m not going to abandon three decades of hypertext authoring habits
           57 to make a developer&amp;#8217;s life slightly easier.&lt;/p&gt;
           58 
           59 &lt;p&gt;Third, Gemini puts the cart before the horse when it comes to
           60 privacy. The solution to widespread tracking and user surveillance
           61 isn&amp;#8217;t a bespoke hairshirt protocol that no-one is going to use. The
           62 solution is widespread legislation that makes using people&amp;#8217;s personal
           63 data for targeted advertising illegal or very expensive. (This is not
           64 limited to Gemini. A great many influential Internet people are
           65 convinced politics is utterly broken, so &amp;#8220;technical solutions&amp;#8221; are all
           66 that&amp;#8217;s left).&lt;/p&gt;
           67 
           68 &lt;p&gt;Gemini, to me, is part of the nostalgia for a past that never really
           69 was - the halcyon days of the Internet, before &lt;a href=&quot;https://gerikson.com/cgi-bin/eternal.cgi&quot;&gt;the Eternal
           70 September&lt;/a&gt;. But time is the
           71 great filter. What has survived from that era is not the spam, the
           72 pointless Usenet arguments, the shitposting, but finely polished
           73 nuggets. If you weren&amp;#8217;t there, it might have seemed a paradise, but I
           74 was, and it wasn&amp;#8217;t. It was today&amp;#8217;s internet, but text-only and with
           75 proportionally even more white dudes.&lt;/p&gt;
           76 </description>
           77   </item>
           78   <item>
           79     <title>Death of a channel</title>
           80     <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2021 14:32:00 +0000</pubDate>
           81     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/06/05#Death-of-a-channel</link>
           82     <category>/comm</category>
           83     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/comm/Death-of-a-channel</guid>
           84     <description>&lt;p&gt;This is a short write-up of how a channel on Freenode was hijacked by
           85 staff, and how it was effectively deleted.&lt;/p&gt;
           86 
           87 &lt;h3&gt;Background&lt;/h3&gt;
           88 
           89 &lt;p&gt;The channel #photography was founded on Freenode in 2001, as a channel
           90 to discuss photography. Its single-hash status was challenged by
           91 Freenode staffer lilo, and it was changed to #photogeeks to comply
           92 with the requirement for single-hash channels to be associated with a
           93 project.&lt;/p&gt;
           94 
           95 &lt;p&gt;In 2006, the channel #photo was registered to discuss photography per
           96 se, and not gear. Quite soon the channel became social in nature, and
           97 it was hidden and a password set.&lt;/p&gt;
           98 
           99 &lt;p&gt;Over the years, about a dozen people used this channel as a social
          100 space to discuss everything under the sun.&lt;/p&gt;
          101 
          102 &lt;h2&gt;Hijack&lt;/h2&gt;
          103 
          104 &lt;p&gt;When the takeover of Freenode by Andrew Lee occurred, the channel was
          105 registered on Libera.chat, and on 2021-05-21, the topic was updated to
          106 say&lt;/p&gt;
          107 
          108 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;09:07  -!- gustaf changed the topic of #photo to: this channel is now up and running on Libera.chat (same pwd), but this place is still the primary! | Discord bolthole - https://discord.gg/XXXX
          109 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
          110 
          111 &lt;p&gt;On 2021-05-26, the channel was hijacked:&lt;/p&gt;
          112 
          113 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;05:02  -!- freenodecom &amp;lt;~com@freenode/staff&amp;gt; has joined #photo
          114 05:02  -!- mode/#photo (+o freenodecom) by freenodecom
          115 05:02  -!- freenodecom changed the topic of #photo to: This channel has moved to ##photo. The topic is in violation of freenode policy: https://freenode.net/policies
          116 05:02 &amp;lt;@freenodecom&amp;gt; This channel has been reopened with respect to the communities and new users. The topic is in violation of freenode policy: https://freenode.net/policies
          117 05:02  -!- mode/#photo (+o freenodecom) by OperServ
          118 05:02 &amp;lt;@freenodecom&amp;gt; The new channel is ##photo
          119 05:02  -!- mode/#photo (-s+t) by ChanServ
          120 05:02  -!- mode/#photo (+spimf ##photo) by freenodecom
          121 05:02  -!- freenodecom &amp;lt;~com@freenode/staff&amp;gt; has left #photo ()
          122 05:02  -!- mode/#photo (+f ##photo) by freenodecom
          123 07:37 &amp;lt; gustaf&amp;gt; &amp;lt;abbr title=&quot;what the fsck&quot;&amp;gt;wtf&amp;lt;/abbr&amp;gt;
          124 07:37  -!- #photo Cannot send to nick/channel
          125 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
          126 
          127 &lt;p&gt;(all times are in CEST).&lt;/p&gt;
          128 
          129 &lt;p&gt;A few hours later, Andrew Lee (rasengan) sent a network-wide wallop
          130 informing users that an attempt to enforce newly instituted rules
          131 against advertising other IRC networks had been overly broad and
          132 targeted more channels than intended.&lt;/p&gt;
          133 
          134 &lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s clear that our channel was included in this.&lt;/p&gt;
          135 
          136 &lt;p&gt;Users were encouraged to submit a request to Freenode staff to get
          137 their channels back.&lt;/p&gt;
          138 
          139 &lt;h2&gt;Aftermath&lt;/h2&gt;
          140 
          141 &lt;p&gt;The &amp;#8220;regulars&amp;#8221; of the channel were contacted via PM and informed that
          142 the Freenode channel was now closed. Most moved over to Libera. A few
          143 mentioned that they were permanently leaving Freenode.&lt;/p&gt;
          144 
          145 &lt;p&gt;As a good faith effort, prompted by Freenode promoters, I attempted to
          146 regain control of the channel at Freenode, but was informed that
          147 having a single-hash channel was not according to policy. The request
          148 was denied.&lt;/p&gt;
          149 
          150 &lt;h2&gt;Discussion&lt;/h2&gt;
          151 
          152 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve written this post to present my side of the story. Over the last
          153 weeks, I&amp;#8217;ve been told on Freenode that the widespread channel
          154 hijacking of 26 May 2021 (some reports say that 700+ channels were
          155 affected) was either not as widespread as reported, or &amp;#8220;justified&amp;#8221; to
          156 stem the flow of users to Libera.&lt;/p&gt;
          157 
          158 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m also a member of the channel #lobsters, which suffered the same
          159 fate. However, in that case, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lobste.rs/s/1z77ly/libera_chat#c_vwmpgx&quot;&gt;the project &lt;em&gt;had&lt;/em&gt; officially moved, and
          160 the Freenode channel was
          161 locked&lt;/a&gt;. Based on
          162 Lee&amp;#8217;s rationale, I actually find the hijack justified, as there were
          163 presumably people who would prefer to remain on Freenode and discuss
          164 the site there. However, note that there very little warning before
          165 this happened. There was no attempt to contact the project to present
          166 Freenode&amp;#8217;s case as a better IRC host than Libera. Freenode instead
          167 unilaterally decided they knew better than the project&amp;#8217;s themselves.&lt;/p&gt;
          168 
          169 &lt;p&gt;When Libera was announced, I did not feel that the urgency presented
          170 by the staff there was entirely justified. Never would I imagine that
          171 Andrew Lee would, within a week, exceed those warnings by a wide
          172 margin.&lt;/p&gt;
          173 
          174 &lt;p&gt;He and the current Freenode staff have proven that they cannot be
          175 trusted to be stewards of communities, by hijacking channels and
          176 disrupting them. They have proven to be incompetent, by affecting more
          177 channels than intended. They have proven to be discourteous, by
          178 requiring channel owners affected by their incompetence to apply, hat
          179 in hand and papers in order, for their channels to be reinstated. And
          180 finally, they&amp;#8217;ve proven to be bad business people, by alienating
          181 their future customers and torching their future income stream.&lt;/p&gt;
          182 
          183 &lt;h2&gt;Future&lt;/h2&gt;
          184 
          185 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m nostalgic for my almost 17 year old Freenode account. But the more
          186 time passes, the more bitter I become. I&amp;#8217;m going to hang around in
          187 some channels to see how things work out. I&amp;#8217;m open to a more humble
          188 approach from Freenode staff and boosters. But if I feel I can&amp;#8217;t be a
          189 part of a network that treats its users as peons to be exploited, I&amp;#8217;m
          190 out.&lt;/p&gt;
          191 </description>
          192   </item>
          193   <item>
          194     <title>May</title>
          195     <pubDate>Mon, 31 May 2021 23:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
          196     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/05/31#2021-05</link>
          197     <category>/photo</category>
          198     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2021-05</guid>
          199     <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerikson/51192839579/in/dateposted/&quot; title=&quot;Sergels torg&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51192839579_c0a455be91_z.jpg&quot; width=&quot;512&quot; height=&quot;640&quot; alt=&quot;Sergels torg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;script async src=&quot;//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js&quot; charset=&quot;utf-8&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          200 
          201 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2020-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2020&lt;/a&gt; |
          202 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2019-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2019&lt;/a&gt; |
          203 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2018-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2018&lt;/a&gt; |
          204 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2017-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2017&lt;/a&gt; |
          205 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2016-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2016&lt;/a&gt; |
          206 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2015-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2015&lt;/a&gt; |
          207 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2014-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2014&lt;/a&gt; |
          208 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/May-2013.html&quot;&gt;May 2013&lt;/a&gt; |
          209 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2012-05.html&quot;&gt;May 2012&lt;/a&gt; |
          210 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/alt/Copenhagen-2011.html&quot;&gt;May 2011&lt;/a&gt; |
          211 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2010-05-02.html&quot;&gt;May 2010&lt;/a&gt; |
          212 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/Sicklasjon.html&quot;&gt;May 2009&lt;/a&gt; |
          213 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/Goin-pro.html&quot;&gt;May 2008&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          214 </description>
          215   </item>
          216   <item>
          217     <title>&lt;em&gt;Agency&lt;/em&gt; by William Gibson</title>
          218     <pubDate>Wed, 26 May 2021 19:02:00 +0000</pubDate>
          219     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/05/26#Agency</link>
          220     <category>/books/read</category>
          221     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/Agency</guid>
          222     <description>&lt;p&gt;This is Gibson&amp;#8217;s worst novel. Not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;
          223 
          224 &lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s in the same (multi)verse as &lt;em&gt;The Peripheral&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          225 
          226 &lt;p&gt;While that novel had engaging characters, this one doesn&amp;#8217;t. The
          227 Jackpot protagonist, Wilf, shows us the horrifying prospect of the
          228 repressed Englishman surviving global collapse and an 80% die-off of
          229 humanity. The present-day character has no inner life to speak of. I
          230 have no clue how she managed to get in a relationship with her world&amp;#8217;s
          231 Elon Musk analog. We&amp;#8217;re supposed to believe that Eunice, the AI that
          232 the Jackpot side uses to try to avert nuclear war, is this
          233 fantastically engaging personality everyone loves, but in the end
          234 she&amp;#8217;s basically sassy Magic Negro. The novel has entire chapters
          235 describing drives through the Bay Area.&lt;/p&gt;
          236 
          237 &lt;p&gt;In the end it reads as therapy for Gibson to cope with the Trump years.&lt;/p&gt;
          238 </description>
          239   </item>
          240   <item>
          241     <title>&lt;em&gt;The Mirror and the Light&lt;/em&gt; by Hilary Mantel</title>
          242     <pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2021 18:51:00 +0000</pubDate>
          243     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/05/20#The-Mirror-and-the-Light</link>
          244     <category>/books/read</category>
          245     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/The-Mirror-and-the-Light</guid>
          246     <description>&lt;p&gt;Mantel concludes the trilogy about Thomas Cromwell as he reaches the pinnacle of power and then plummets precipitously.&lt;/p&gt;
          247 
          248 &lt;p&gt;As I&amp;#8217;ve mentioned before about this trilogy, this is great historical fiction. Mantel deserves every ounce of praise for these. &lt;/p&gt;
          249 </description>
          250   </item>
          251   <item>
          252     <title>April</title>
          253     <pubDate>Fri, 30 Apr 2021 23:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
          254     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/04/30#2021-04</link>
          255     <category>/photo</category>
          256     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2021-04</guid>
          257     <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerikson/51127796049/in/photostream/&quot; title=&quot;Chasing the frame | Sakura 2021&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51127796049_eda8e4ec00_z.jpg&quot; width=&quot;428&quot; height=&quot;640&quot; alt=&quot;Chasing the frame | Sakura 2021&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;script async src=&quot;//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js&quot; charset=&quot;utf-8&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          258 
          259 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2020-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2020&lt;/a&gt; |
          260 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2019-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2019&lt;/a&gt; |
          261 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2018-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2018&lt;/a&gt; |
          262 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2017-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2017&lt;/a&gt; |
          263 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2016-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2016&lt;/a&gt; |
          264 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2015-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2015&lt;/a&gt; |
          265 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2014-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2014&lt;/a&gt; |
          266 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/April-2013.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2013&lt;/a&gt; |
          267 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2012-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2012&lt;/a&gt; |
          268 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2011-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2011&lt;/a&gt; |
          269 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2010-04.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2010&lt;/a&gt; |
          270 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/Cherry-blossoms.html&quot;&gt;Apr 2009&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
          271 </description>
          272   </item>
          273   <item>
          274     <title>14,000 dead in Sweden</title>
          275     <pubDate>Sat, 24 Apr 2021 12:28:00 +0000</pubDate>
          276     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/04/24#Corona-14000-dead</link>
          277     <category>/alt/corona2020</category>
          278     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/Corona-14000-dead</guid>
          279     <description>
          280 </description>
          281   </item>
          282   <item>
          283     <title>&lt;em&gt;The Pacific War Trilogy&lt;/em&gt; by Ian W. Toll</title>
          284     <pubDate>Tue, 13 Apr 2021 19:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
          285     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/04/13#Pacific-War-Trilogy</link>
          286     <category>/books/read</category>
          287     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/Pacific-War-Trilogy</guid>
          288     <description>&lt;ul&gt;
          289 &lt;li&gt;Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942&lt;/li&gt;
          290 &lt;li&gt;The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944&lt;/li&gt;
          291 &lt;li&gt;Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944–1945&lt;/li&gt;
          292 &lt;/ul&gt;
          293 
          294 &lt;p&gt;An excellent and readable account of the (US) war in the Pacific
          295 against Japan in World War 2. Highly recommended.&lt;/p&gt;
          296 </description>
          297   </item>
          298   <item>
          299     <title>March</title>
          300     <pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2021 23:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
          301     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/31#2021-03</link>
          302     <category>/photo</category>
          303     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2021-03</guid>
          304     <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a data-flickr-embed=&quot;true&quot; href=&quot;https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerikson/51009915462/in/dateposted/&quot; title=&quot;Vasagatan&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51009915462_2e09e5c194_z.jpg&quot; width=&quot;640&quot; height=&quot;512&quot; alt=&quot;Vasagatan&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;script async src=&quot;//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js&quot; charset=&quot;utf-8&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          305 
          306 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2020-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2020&lt;/a&gt; |
          307 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2019-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2019&lt;/a&gt; |
          308 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2018-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2018&lt;/a&gt; |
          309 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2017-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2017&lt;/a&gt; |
          310 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2016-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2016&lt;/a&gt; |
          311 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2015-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2015&lt;/a&gt; |
          312 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/2014-03.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2014&lt;/a&gt; |
          313 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/March-2013.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2013&lt;/a&gt; |
          314 Mar 2012 |
          315 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/March-2011.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2011&lt;/a&gt; |
          316 Mar 2010 |
          317 &lt;a href=&quot;http://gerikson.com/blog/photo/Last-day-of-winter.html&quot;&gt;Mar 2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
          318 </description>
          319   </item>
          320   <item>
          321     <title>&lt;em&gt;Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor&lt;/em&gt; by Paul Lutus</title>
          322     <pubDate>Sat, 27 Mar 2021 22:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
          323     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/27#Confessions-of-a-Long-Distance-Sailor</link>
          324     <category>/books/read</category>
          325     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/Confessions-of-a-Long-Distance-Sailor</guid>
          326     <description>&lt;p&gt;A self-published book &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html&quot;&gt;available online&lt;/a&gt; recounting the author&amp;#8217;s solo round the world sail.&lt;/p&gt;
          327 
          328 &lt;p&gt;A worthy entry in the long roster of such accounts.&lt;/p&gt;
          329 </description>
          330   </item>
          331   <item>
          332     <title>One year since WFH started</title>
          333     <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2021 05:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
          334     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/17#One-year-of-WFM</link>
          335     <category>/alt/corona2020</category>
          336     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/One-year-of-WFM</guid>
          337     <description>
          338 </description>
          339   </item>
          340   <item>
          341     <title>One year since WHO declared a pandemic</title>
          342     <pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2021 05:54:00 +0000</pubDate>
          343     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/11#Pandemic-1yr-anniversary</link>
          344     <category>/alt/corona2020</category>
          345     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/Pandemic-1yr-anniversary</guid>
          346     <description>
          347 </description>
          348   </item>
          349   <item>
          350     <title>&lt;em&gt;Libra Shrugged: How Facebook’s dream of controlling the world&amp;#8217;s money crashed and burned&lt;/em&gt; by David Gerard</title>
          351     <pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2021 19:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
          352     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/10#Libra-Shrugged</link>
          353     <category>/books/read</category>
          354     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/Libra-Shrugged</guid>
          355     <description>&lt;p&gt;A short account of how Bitcoiners tried to create a Facebook currency and how the rest of the world reacted. &lt;/p&gt;
          356 </description>
          357   </item>
          358   <item>
          359     <title>&lt;em&gt;The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte&lt;/em&gt; by Karl Marx</title>
          360     <pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2021 10:41:00 +0000</pubDate>
          361     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/10#18th-Brumaire</link>
          362     <category>/books/read</category>
          363     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/18th-Brumaire</guid>
          364     <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm&quot;&gt;Available online
          365 here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          366 
          367 &lt;p&gt;Come for the class analysis, stay for the &lt;em&gt;bon mots&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          368 
          369 &lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s probably fitting that the only way obscure French politicians are
          370 remembered today is through their skewering in this piece.&lt;/p&gt;
          371 
          372 &lt;blockquote&gt;
          373   &lt;p&gt;Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and
          374   personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first
          375   time as tragedy, the second time as
          376   farce. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Caussidi%C3%A8re&quot;&gt;Caussidière&lt;/a&gt;
          377   for Danton, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Blanc&quot;&gt;Louis Blanc&lt;/a&gt;
          378   for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of
          379   1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature
          380   occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth
          381   Brumaire.&lt;/p&gt;
          382 
          383 &lt;p&gt;The period that we have before us comprises the most motley mixture
          384   of crying contradictions: constitutionalists who conspire openly
          385   against the constitution; revolutionists who are confessedly
          386   constitutional; a National Assembly that wants to be omnipotent and
          387   always remains parliamentary; a Montagne that finds its vocation in
          388   patience and counters its present defeats by prophesying future
          389   victories; royalists who form the &lt;em&gt;patres conscripti&lt;/em&gt; of the
          390   republic and are forced by the situation to keep the hostile royal
          391   houses they adhere to abroad, and the republic, which they hate, in
          392   France; an executive power that finds its strength in its very
          393   weakness and its respectability in the contempt that it calls forth;
          394   a republic that is nothing but the combined infamy of two
          395   monarchies, the Restoration and the July Monarchy, with an imperial
          396   label – alliances whose first proviso is separation; struggles whose
          397   first law is indecision; wild, inane agitation in the name of
          398   tranquillity, most solemn preaching of tranquillity in the name of
          399   revolution – passions without truth, truths without passion; heroes
          400   without heroic deeds, history without events; development, whose
          401   sole driving force seems to be the calendar, wearying with constant
          402   repetition of the same tensions and relaxations; antagonisms that
          403   periodically seem to work themselves up to a climax only to lose
          404   their sharpness and fall away without being able to resolve
          405   themselves; pretentiously paraded exertions and philistine terror at
          406   the danger of the world’s coming to an end, and at the same time the
          407   pettiest intrigues and court comedies played by the world redeemers,
          408   who in their &lt;em&gt;laisser aller&lt;/em&gt; remind us less of the Day of Judgment
          409   than of the times of the Fronde – the official collective genius of
          410   France brought to naught by the artful stupidity of a single
          411   individual; the collective will of the nation, as often as it speaks
          412   through universal suffrage, seeking its appropriate expression
          413   through the inveterate enemies of the interests of the masses, until
          414   at length it finds it in the self-will of a filibuster. If any
          415   section of history has been painted gray on gray, it is this. Men
          416   and events appear as reverse
          417   &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schlemihl&quot;&gt;Schlemihls&lt;/a&gt;, as
          418   shadows that have lost their bodies. The revolution itself paralyzes
          419   its own bearers and endows only its adversaries with passionate
          420   forcefulness. When the “red specter,” continually conjured up and
          421   exercised by the counterrevolutionaries finally appears, it appears
          422   not with the Phrygian cap of anarchy on its head, but in the uniform
          423   of order, in &lt;em&gt;red breeches&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
          424 
          425 &lt;p&gt;The coup d&amp;#8217;etat was ever the fixed idea of Bonaparte. With this idea
          426   he had again set foot on French soil. He was so obsessed by it that
          427   he continually betrayed it and blurted it out. He was so weak that,
          428   just as continually, he gave it up again.&lt;/p&gt;
          429 
          430 &lt;p&gt;The army itself is no longer the flower of the peasant youth; it is
          431   the swamp flower of the peasant lumpen proletariat. It consists
          432   largely of replacements, of substitutes, just as the second
          433   Bonaparte is himself only a replacement, the substitute for
          434   Napoleon. It now performs its deeds of valor by hounding the
          435   peasants in masses like chamois, by doing gendarme duty; and if the
          436   natural contradictions of his system chase the Chief of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_of_the_10th_of_December&quot;&gt;the Society
          437   of December
          438   10&lt;/a&gt;
          439   across the French border, his army, after some acts of brigandage,
          440   will reap, not laurels, but thrashings.&lt;/p&gt;
          441 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
          442 </description>
          443   </item>
          444   <item>
          445     <title>On the dates</title>
          446     <pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
          447     <link>https://gerikson.com/blog/2021/03/01#On-Dates</link>
          448     <category>/alt/corona2020</category>
          449     <guid isPermaLink="false">https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/On-Dates</guid>
          450     <description>&lt;p&gt;When I started recording the dates when Sweden&amp;#8217;s death toll from COVID-19 exceeded round thousands, I did not foresee the project continuing into the next year. But here we are.&lt;/p&gt;
          451 
          452 &lt;p&gt;I used to set the dates when I noticed Swedish media report them, but I&amp;#8217;ve now gone to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/utbrott/aktuella-utbrott/covid-19/statistik-och-analyser/bekraftade-fall-i-sverige/&quot;&gt;FHM&amp;#8217;s stats page&lt;/a&gt; and got them from there.&lt;/p&gt;
          453 
          454 &lt;p&gt;This has led to some reshuffling - especially on &lt;a href=&quot;https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/Corona-10347-dead.html&quot;&gt;Jan 6 2021&lt;/a&gt; which now has its own tally.&lt;/p&gt;
          455 
          456 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/Corona-11000-dead.html&quot;&gt;This table&lt;/a&gt; has also been updated. &lt;/p&gt;
          457 </description>
          458   </item>
          459   </channel>
          460 </rss>