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<h1>32-bit is still good, you freaks</h1>
<p>published: 2020-02-01</p>
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<blockquote>Node.js? More like... Nad.jiss!<br /> HA HA HAHA HA HAHA PENIS JOKE<br /> - You, probably</blockquote>
<p>I'm back in college again. I've been taking classes for about a month now. It's a hell of a lot nicer than the old one, because:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
<li>it's not a residential college, which means that, after financial aid, I only have to pay about $200/semester; and</li>
<li>all but one of my classes are online, and the one day a week I need to be on campus I can schedule a bus to take me there, so I'm not dependent on my father or anyone else's goodwill.</li>
</ol>
<p>That one class on campus is a "tech support" class. "Tech support" in quotes because very little actual support ever gets done. There are two boys in the back who are desperately trying to diagnose why someone's beefy 64-gigabytes-of-ram server only shows up as 48 gigabytes, and another boy who's trying to build their own desktop tower but is missing half the pieces, and a geriatric boomer with one leg who doesn't seem to grasp the concept that repeatedly clicking the login button on a page with autofill enabled will only ever log him into that specific account being autofilled.</p>
<p>But I somehow convinced my grandma to let me fix the broken desktop computer sitting in her den, the one that I wrote <em>The Samhain Files</em> and part of <em>The White Line Fever</em> on before the sudden move an hour away separated me from it. It was a faulty power supply, just like I'd always known, like I'd told my father in hopes that he would do something about it. He didn't do shit, just let it languish.</p>
<p>And now, since she's in the market for a laptop, the desktop is mine since I'm the one who fixed it.</p>
<p>So I did what I naturally do when I <del>steal</del> <em>receive</em> old electronics from my family members: I wiped the hard drive and installed Linux on it. But almost all of the distros I wanted to test on it either refused to recognize the Ethernet port in the back of the case (there's no wireless card installed), didn't support full-disk encryption in the default installer (I'm not spending all day fucking around with /etc/crypttab and GRUB), or... only supported 64-bit processors.</p>
<p>It's a Dell Inspiron 530. A 300 gigabyte hard drive and two gigabytes of RAM. <b>(EDIT 2020-05-29: And apparently 64-bit, and I only figured it out just now, but my point still stands.)</b> The processor's speed is a few hundredths of a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200408160102/https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/g/ghz.htm">gigahertz</a> less than the ThinkPad I'm typing this on right now, and the speed is barely noticable (in fact, it actually feels <em>more</em> responsive). Its only weakness is having one lonely compute core, which the OEM Windows Vista install absolutely <em>swamped</em> but Linux Mint handles just fine.</p>
<p>Here's where things actually get relevant to the title. I spent all of the last day of January's morning setting up the desktop and configuring all my dotfiles and toolchain just the way I like them.</p>
<p>Install Syncthing, and a few clicks away, and I can get files onto the clearnet, Tor, and I2P versions.</p>
<p>Throw my main ZeroNet install in a Syncthing folder, and I can sign changes to the zite as well.</p>
<p>Everything works just as it does on all my other systems.</p>
<p>Except for <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200131234126/https://beakerbrowser.com/install/">Beaker Browser. Because it only distributes 64-bit AppImages</a>. And you can't run it from source, either, because <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200131234227/https://github.com/nodesource/distributions/blob/master/README.md">Node.js dropped support for 32-bit in the 10.x series</a>. And I can't use an alternative client to update the Dat mirrors of my websites, because <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191213040841/https://docs.datproject.org/docs/dat-server"><em>those</em> are written in Node.js too</a>!</p>
<p>There is no technical reason I can think of why Node.js can't support 32-bit anymore. The most information I've found to absolve their decision is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190831054244/https://github.com/nodejs/build/issues/885"><em>one</em> Github issue</a> where an incompatible CentOS dependency is cited as the reason why they can no longer support... <em>all</em> the Linux distros they used to be able to. There <em>is</em> an <a href="https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/">unofficial build page</a> where there appear to be 32-bit binaries, but there's little to no quality testing to ensure that the binaries actually... work.</p>
<p>"But why can't you just update the Dat mirror when you're on a 64-bit machine?" I hear a strawman say. And the answer is twofold: executive dysfunction, and because <em>I shouldn't have to.</em></p>
<p>Executive dysfunction is a bitch. It's hard enough to keep my focus to remember to manually copy everything over to the ZeroNet mirror every time I update something on my site or add something new. It's part of why I killed the Gopher mirror. Having to remember to go onto my ThinkPad after every time I shut down the desktop, boot <em>that</em> machine up, and then copy everything over is a bunch of undue mental strain that disincentivizes me from updating the website at all.</p>
<p>And, frankly, it's quite ridiculous that my 32-bit machine is capable of fulfilling all the tasks that my 64-bit machines are, and yet it can't. It's not for <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190619012348/http://ask-leo.com/are_64bit_pcs_more_secure_than_32bit_machines.html">security reasons</a>, as the only major non-Windows-specific difference between 32- and 64-bit security-wise I've been able to find is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization">the implementation of address space layout randomization</a>.</p>
<p>"But what about the aging machines you decried a month ago? Isn't this the same situation, where you were left out in the cold because your machine was too old?" I hear another strawman say. And the answer to that: these two situations are <em>nothing</em> alike.</p>
<p>In the Gopher situation, these were machines that <em>couldn't</em> participate in the modern internet. Either they couldn't handle the modern encryption ciphers, or they didn't have the resources to run anything but the most lightweight of browsers, or they simply didn't understand the concept of a protocol more advanced than plain Gopher. The experience of using one of these machines would be vastly different than using one of my own devices. Either they <em>couldn't</em> be updated, in which case there's no point in continuing support, or they could and the owners refused to for the sake of the "retro experience", in which case they're not entitled to support just for their sole enjoyment.</p>
<p>In this situation, this <em>is</em> a computer that is perfectly capable of everything that I normally do day-to-day (except for the aforementioned Dat clients). I can use the exact same interfaces and commands and software (given that the software is compiled for i386). Everything is up-to-date. Other than the architecture difference, it is essentially the same exact system.</p>
<p>One could make the argument that we are already heading towards a future where 32-bit machines will be shut out defacto like the aging Gopher machines- in that programs are becoming, thanks to Electron and related frameworks favoring flashy interfaces over performance, too bloated to fit in 32-bit's four gigabyte maximum RAM address space. But that wouldn't be 32-bit's fault. What about all the 64-bit machines with less than eight gigabytes of RAM? Already I've had to switch multiple programs I used to use to lightweight yet modern equivalents because they grew too bloated for my ThinkPad (with six gigabytes of RAM) to handle and stay snappy. Like Cinnamon (the DE) to i3, or Firefox to Falkon, or Nemo (the file explorer) to PCManFM, or Tilix to lxterminal...</p>
<p>And those lightweight equivalents would continue to exist, if not thrive and expand in number because of more and more people pushed out from minimum RAM requirements.</p>
<p>Like gamer Eloi and disgruntled Morlocks lurking underground in resentment.</p>
<p>And as an addendum before I forget: I find it ironic that "solarpunk" and "green thinking" is in vogue in tech circles nowadays from the climate change scare, and yet Linux distros seem to be dropping 32-bit support left and right. Wouldn't you want to keep old hardware useful and out of landfills? And what about the people with low incomes who can't afford to upgrade their hardware? Either they have to cripple themselves in the bank to stay "up-to-date", or in computing power as they pick up a Chromebook or other cloud-dependent device and hand all their data and control over to Daddy Google.</p>
<p>And heaven knows we hate Daddy Google.</p>
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<h1>Consume Product</h1>
<p>published: 2020-02-05</p>
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<p>They go by many names. Normies, puppets, normalf&amp;gs, zombies, NPCs. <em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200205143543/https://old.reddit.com/r/ConsumeProduct/comments/dy27d9/at_what_point_does_one_become_a_bugman/">Bugmen</a>.</em> Those who accept popular culture at face value, the values passed down to them, the schooling that they received as children, without ever critically examining why they believe the things they believe- or if said things are even true to begin with.</p>
<p>While my family isn't completely bugmen, since they don't literally eat bugs and they still go out of the house to do sports and social activities with their friends (they live a more lively social life than myself, one might easily argue), there's still a strong "consume product" vibe that permeates every atom of the air I breathe in. The Dr. Who door that lies useless in the corner of the living room, the Star Wars merch lying scattered all around the house, the tons and tons of legos on the "Lego table" (really two workhorse benches and a wide square of wood) that rarely get played with anymore. Collecting more toys for the sake of collection, every brother's room a sea of toys on the floor, only purpose nowadays to be relegated to dust-collecting clutter and an everpresent excuse for a parent to yell at them to finally clean their room.</p>
<p>Sitting on one of the decorative bookshelves in the living room is an unopened Dr. Who Playmobil figure, encased in its plastic-and-cardboard coffin forever. Heaven forbid someone open it and play with it, you know, as <em>toys</em> are meant to be used.</p>
<p>Brothers lie in bed all day, burying their faces in YouTube. Days are made or broken on whether or not I let them borrow one of my video games, like an addict begging for their next hit. And nearly every night, a new church service at the Altar of Television, all but me staring listlessly at a glowing screen as the dreams of multi-billion-dollar corporations beam straight into their empty heads.</p>
<p>And <a href="../../../poetry/w/watershed.txt">Saint Sakura</a> stares at them as they surround the family altar, wondering when the rampant consumerism started- or if maybe it was there all along, and only just relatively recently has the curtain been pulled back. And then she turns back and returns downstairs, beats back the encroaching tendrils of consumerism creeping like overgrown vines into her last place of refuge: her room.</p>
<p>And <a href="../../../poetry/s/sakura.txt">Saint Sakura</a> has been fighting for what seems like forever. In elementary school, the constant passing fads, duck-tape flowers and stationery emblazoned with one's favorite cartoon characters. Kept sheltered from the brunt of it by caring parents, always out of the loop in a sea of peers. In middle school, waiting to get back to actual instruction when <em>High School Musical</em> fans derailed the class, bugmen then turning around to proclaim that anyone who didn't consume that particular movie series "didn't have a childhood" or that it had "sucked". And from then on and bleeding into high school, trap music blaring in the halls, biting my lip until it bled, trading the involuntary pain of a migraine from the bass shaking in my bones for the distraction of the taste of blood in my mouth.</p>
<p>"You sound very resentful of their sense of happiness and purpose, Vane," I hear a strawman say. "Their sense of community around the things they like. Why don't you improve yourself instead of complaining? Flourishing is the best revenge, after all."</p>
<p>And I'd agree with you on that second part, flimsy strawman, but what kind of happiness is tying so much of one's identity to the products of a corporation? What kind of false consciousness, <em>false sense of life</em>?</p>
<p>And by whose standards would I be flourishing?</p>
<p>The same people at /r/ConsumeProduct, who've kicked me off my throne of resigned apathy enough to write this post? (Although, to be honest, I can't remember if the post that inspired this one was on there or /r/CleanLivingKings, and in any case, it seems to have been deleted. Essentially the same ethos, anyway.) They're just strangers on the internet. They'll probably (hopefully, rather, for my sake) never know who I am. And besides, the kind of self-improvement they peddle would never leave me happy, orthodox NPCs in their own right: Eat only these approved foods. Partake in only these approved activities. Find only this type of person attractive. Worship only this one god in this one particular fashion.</p>
<p>Become a lumberjack to your own vast wilderness, razing the forest down to build a cathedral in its place that cuts into your ribs like a corset laced too tight.</p>
<p>To chain myself to a man, to bring children into this world, bourne from the void to know undue suffering... I would never be able to handle the constant responsibility with no break, no clear end in sight, the loveless sacrifice of it all. I would never be able to forgive myself for throwing away my dreams to continue the senseless story of the human race. There are almost eight billion people in this world; one less reproducing changes nothing.</p>
<p>My parents would ask that hell from me as well, although, to their credit, they <em>have</em> slowly grown more used to the reality of me being a lesbian, not likely to ever bring them any grandchildren ever. Not that home is any more welcoming than it ever was, as now one of my brothers has given himself the license to openly talk about how disgusting and unnatural he finds homosexuality at every given opportunity, <em>unless</em> he can "consoom" it in the form of preapproved fictional characters.</p>
<p>The horrifying reality of the situation is: there is no escape from the Cathedral of Consuming, for self-improvement in itself can be a product, a golden calf, another altar in the Cathedral to sacrifice oneself on. Hell, there's a whole <em>industry</em> centered around selling self-improvement as just another product you can buy off the shelf. You can purchase thousands of dollars' worth of gym equipment (or a gym membership to use once and promptly forget about) and self-help books and organic food... and yet, somehow, you're not magically any closer to an ubermensch than you were, just closer to broke and now with more things taking up space in your house.</p>
<p>Not to say that working to be a better version of yourself is bad. For example, cutting out soda from one's diet is universally good, as is not spending all of one's day sitting on their ass. But it has to be a better version of <em>yourself</em>, not someone else, regardless if you think that that persona of someone else would be better or healthier or <em>happier</em> than your own. It has to be in line with your own values and desires, not those of someone else, or else you'll live a shadow of a life, always grasping across the void at a forever-unattainable ghost of your ideal on the other side, unnecessarily suffering all the while.</p>
<blockquote>In any of these ways, you allow someone else to determine what you should think and be. You deny your own self when you suppress desires that aren't considered "legitimate"... or when you settle for a certain life because you've been told that's all you should expect in the world.<br /> - Harry Browne, <em>How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World</em></blockquote>
<p>I suspect the idolization of "self-improvement" is part of why cryptofascism has come out from the shadows so much in recent years, as it's one of the few ideologies that tackles the soullessness of bugman-style consumerism head-on and posits itself as the keeper of the antidote. (This isn't to excuse its collectivism or violence; just an observation.) So one, the bitter taste of being assaulted with demands to consume the popular media and opinions of the day still fresh on their tongue, wanders into places like /r/ConsumeProduct thinking they've found comrades to complain with and cope alongside. And sewn here and there, sometimes blatantly, sometimes implied, are blanket accusations of the groups they feel are at fault: homosexuals, Jewish people, women... anyone who does not fit neatly into their Cathedral.</p>
<p>And, if you repeat a lie long enough...</p>
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<h1>"Bro, literally none of this internet shit is real."</h1>
<p>published: 2020-02-03</p>
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<p>Today is the first Smash Sunday in what feels like a year. Probably because it <em>was</em> a year. There certainly weren't any while I was <a href="../../2019/november/masthead.html">spiraling into NEETdom</a>. I'm typing this right now in the same classroom as before, the same situation as before: my brothers and some of their friends are blasting two different games at the same time, screaming at the top of their lungs, sinking more and even more of their time into these fictional characters they cherish so much. (One of them, clearly lightyears ahead of the others in mental age, keeps complaining that he doesn't know any of the characters and that he'd rather be playing Call of Duty, so I guess there are always exceptions.)</p>
<p>I could go join them. I'm getting paid to essentially babysit them, after all. I could do what is essentially a glorified version of staring at a screen and twitching one's thumbs for three hours.</p>
<p>Or I could bury my face deeper into my computer and try to shut the repetitive music out and spend those three hours still staring at a screen, albeit twitching more fingers than just my thumbs, enveloping myself in the opinions of those I will never meet in real life.</p>
<p>Caught between two bad situations: mindless gaming, and mindless surfing.</p>
<p>Someone three months ago <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191210102551/http://misc-stuff.terraaeon.com/articles/miss-old-internet.html">shilled my website on a post of theirs</a> and then <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200104212041/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21402518">submitted their post link to Hacker News</a>. I'd known about the original site that the post was on before, but because they didn't have an RSS feed, I'd forgotten that the site existed until the owner let me know that they'd written a post about me.</p>
<p>And Hacker News was... less than enthusiastic. A statistically significant chunk of the comments were, as usual, complaining about Reddit. A few people got into a fight over what to do in a situation where one was hosting a site from home and their fifteen minutes of fame was too much for their residential internet connection to handle. Which I found funny, because I actually <em>was</em> hosting my site from home at the time, and my internet connection hardly felt the weight at all. (Although the router at home is shitty as is, constantly disconnecting everybody not plugged into one of the four Ethernet ports on the back, so I couldn't have told the difference anyway.)</p>
<p>Someone put my name in quotes. Who hurt you? Am I not real enough to you to warrant being believed that my given name is my name?</p>
<p>Actually, I don't give a damn if you think I'm real or not. I'm real regardless. My name is Vane Vander, and you're getting no other.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, there wasn't any criticism directed at <em>me</em>, only at the person who wrote the original post. Which is refreshing, I guess, but also a bit anxiety-inducing: I've escaped the fire this time, but what happens next time I do something to anger the geeksphere? What happens next time I hold some opinion that goes against the Church of Alt-Tech, and someone is incensed enough to sacrifice me on the public altar of the Cathedral of Internet?</p><!-- i hate you too lainchan lol -->
<p>This site used to be a hobby of mine. An escape from the mundane <a href="../../../poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt">trappings</a> of my situation. A valve for stress. A labor of love. But now I watch the access logs fill up, and every minute someone requests poor old <code>/feed.xml</code>, and hundreds of bots and crawlers I never even knew existed until that fateful day all run around as they please and steal all they can until I ban them first in Caddy and finally in iptables. The anxiety rolls in like a storm on the horizon, dark clouds constantly on the peripheries, and suddenly I have this audience that I never asked for, and I feel this constant pressure to perform for said audience, to structure posts so that they'll look good when submitted to Hacker News and similar places, to regurgitate the same opinions that I know are acceptable on there so I won't wake up one morning to hundreds of emails in my inbox from people telling me off.</p>
<p>And every few days, I still get a hit with <code>news.ycombinator.com</code> (no subpages, just the front page) in the referer header. And my heart rate kicks up: what if I'm on the front page? And I go to the front page, and, much to my relief, I'm nowhere to be seen. I've dodged the Cathedral for another day.</p>
<p>But why do I get anxious? Why do I even bother to have a reaction anymore? <a href="https://archive.is/nD5FJ">None of this internet shit is real.</a> At the end of the day, I'm just some asshole on the internet, and you are too. Just like the video games raging on right now in the background, we've accomplished almost nothing other than eye strain when we log off and shut down our computers for the night. (Well, I have stories and poems in my pocket, but those don't count since I wrote them offline.) There's no point in me trying to chase someone else's approval or work towards someone else's edification. My happiness is the only one I know for sure I can change, commenters be damned.</p>
<p>So for those who come from Hacker News or some other social discussion site in the future, please know: <strong>I am not your friend.</strong> But I am not your enemy, either. This website doesn't exist for me to regurgitate the same opinions or tutorials or <em>whatever</em> as any of the other tech-related sites you like to pin up on your technological walls. This site doesn't exist to fill some kind of niche, or to earn revenue for me. I'll never run or allow ads on this site- or any other site I run- ever again. It doesn't exist for you to debate over, or moral-grandstand about yourself. It doesn't exist to vindicate you, or validate your preconceived notions of who I am, of who I could become.</p>
<p>It doesn't exist for <em>you</em>.</p>
<p>It exists for <em>me</em>.</p>
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<h1>Law in the absence of law</h1>
<p>published: 2020-02-19</p>
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<p><em>In case you think you've wandered into a manifesto, or some kind of universally-applicable theory, close this tab now. It's not. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200409171906/https://nyxus.xyz/posts/theorypunk/">It never will be.</a></em></p>
<p>Let's say that your god has thrown me into some kind of hellscape where I have to relive the year I spent at a residential college, and one night I decide to go to the dining hall. I sit at a table. On the other side of a table is another person who I hold no particular ill will towards, but who I don't know well, and he the same towards me. Ambivalent strangers, if you will. And let's also say that I'm going through the hellscape this time around with my current possessions in their current states, which means my headphones are broken. (And let's assume I was thrust into this hellscape before today, where I got a replacement of sorts to tide me over until I can repair the older ones. And, while we're in the business of assuming things, let's assume that we're in some parallel universe where people universally use "headphones" to mean "the ones you put over your ears" and "earbuds" to mean "the ones you put inside your ears", which they <em>are</em>, and people should really learn that words have meanings.)</p>
<p>Around his neck is a pair of rather high-quality headphones. Not the kind you'd see hypebeasts wear, but high-quality nonetheless. They seem to be wireless, but have a port for an aux cord to plug in, implying they also have a wired mode. He takes them off to eat- but, out of forgetfulness, forgets to take them with him when he gets up to leave.</p>
<p>What do I do?</p>
<p>Should I steal them?</p>
<p>In the presence of law, the State-enforced law backed by violence, I wouldn't steal the headphones, because to do so would be theft, and I'd likely get thrown into a cage and fined more money than I could ever hope to afford, not to mention having my reputation tarnished beyond belief.</p>
<p>In the absence of State-enforced law, but in a parallel universe where we lived in an Ancapistan-like region where people followed the non-aggression principle and those who didn't were physically removed from said region, I still wouldn't steal the headphones, because that would be a violation of the NAP. Maybe the State wouldn't come after me, but either <em>someone</em> would, or I'd be ostracized beyond belief to the point where nobody would do business with me and I'd be unable to function in the society until I returned them. And since most (peaceful) people place trustworthiness so highly when doing business, State or without, who would want to do business with a known thief?</p>
<p>But I am an egoist at heart. And what about when I can't trust the people around me to follow the NAP? What if I set aside all notion of law and virtue and acted only with thought for myself and my own desires?</p>
<p>Well, I still wouldn't steal the headphones. The trust economy still comes into play. And I value my reputation more than some silly stolen headphones anyway, especially so when being well-loved by the potentially hostile surrounding community might be the difference between life and death. (Being at the mercy of a hostile community who could gang up and kill you at any moment leaves the door wide open for the pressure of coercion, which is its own can of worms and deserves its own future post.)</p>
<p>But even without the hypothetical community, and without any notion of the law or <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200409171927/https://www.the-philosophy.com/kant-categorical-imperative">Kant's categorical imperative</a> insisting that I don't because <em>what if someone stole from you, and how would that make you feel</em>, and even assuming that I'd never face consequences for the act of theft: I still wouldn't. Because it would make me <em>feel bad</em>. I'd be burdened with guilt every time I used them.</p>
<p>So I leave them on the table. Maybe I pick them up and run up to the fellow student who left them there. And he smiles at me and thanks me, and he thinks kindly of me for a few moments.</p>
<p>And it makes me feel good inside for those same moments, knowing I stuck to my morals.</p>
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