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Short status updates regarding this capsule and my ongoing research.
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First some sweet news: My capsule got picked up by DiscoGem on 11 April.
Now some not-so-sweet news: I wanted to visit this year's "special area" but was greeted by too many clouds, mowed wastelands and groups of cyclists. Additionally, this year's Eurovision is set to be a catastrophy and the current amount of clouds will make it difficult to watch the ongoing aurora this evening. I'm torn between watching Malmö going up in flames and waiting hours just to capture a glimpse of my very first northern lights.
Capsules of the day - 2024-04-11 - 2024-04-11
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Because of the new format of the complete list of butterflies, the complete list of all dragon- and damselflies finally has been updated, too. This list also includes two locations previously undocumented.
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The list of all butterflies ever observed has been rewritten from scratch and now consists of two tables similar to those already used in the yearly summaries. If anyone should notice any typos, please keep in mind that I don't use autocorrect and thus will only correct typos when I come across them myself. Feel free to submit any corrections and tips on how I can further improve the readability of this sub-capsule via any address listed on the Contact page!
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What a day, and it's not even 1 PM, yet. Just before I was ready to head off to today's observation session, the USB drive hosting my local copy of my capsule got partially corrupted. I quickly rescued the remaining files and restored some broken ones, went outside, recorded my first butterfly observation of this year, and now I'm wasting my time documenting all of this. I need a nap before I can continue to restore the last set of corrupted files AND edit my shots.
Full gemlog: How I nearly wiped my local copy of my Gemini capsule
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Well, the scripts cannot be ported, so I spent a whole week not only writing a bunch of Polkit rules but also come up with a half-assed Fluxbox session for each root user (one on each computer, making it four root sessions overall). The one I initially wanted to merely copy/paste turned out to rely on many menu entries and toolbars that don't work on other machines, so a lot of manual tweaking was required.
Other than that, the current weather forecast predicts milder temperatures during the second half of this week. At least during the sunny days it may be possible for me to spot the first butterflies of this season but also finally need to get into some much-needed spring cleaning (and some repairs).
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Parallel to my surgery plans being reset due to some re-evaluations that make the best possible treatment a new option (which are some rare very good news), Automattic quietly signed a deal with OpenAI and Midjourney to sell all user content whilst already having compiled and submitted public and priva user data from between 2014 to 2023, plus the Opt-out having been introduced not only one day before this new "feature" is supposed to go live but also without a proper announcement BEFORE the leak (which are some really bad news).
Fortunately, I already did some spring cleaning years ago and thus the latest one only took me one hour of manual deleting some posts bordering on the more personal type. I really cannot bring myself to delete it entirely right now due to its age and the massive amount of memories it collected since having joined Tumblr in March, 2011. It's also my last fully-public profile many of my old mutuals are aware of that they still can rely on to stay or get back in touch with me for as long as I can't bring myself to managing my Neocities page.
It's really disappointing to witness more and more social media sites becoming like this. Not even a week ago, I already hat to delete my barely-used Reddit account and ended up also wiping a bunch of long-abandoned Google accounts hosting some very old and cringy personal blogs. I feels like I'm eradicating my own existence, given how much time I spent on them and why I invested my energy into those in the first place.
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One new HTTP link, a separate contact page, a bunch of typos fixed. Everything outside's still muddy, so I spend my time getting familiar with BusyBox, preparing a Gentoo VM... and, uh, playing Earthbound for the 6th time due to my 5th run not dropping any 1/128 items.
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This year's ecological summary finally is online! This will be the only yearly review as this file grew way too big, hence next year's summaries will be divided by its respective months. The "all" lists currently look a little stale and incomplete, so I'll start working on specific tables summarizing all years in which an individual species has been seen. Due to my studies at this moment only encompassing two years, those lists won't be added until the end of 2024.
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I replaced the battery right after it arrived, yet made the mistake of underestimating the state of my arthritis during the cold season, which forced me to limit typing activities to the bare minimum. To add salt to the wound, I developed a sinus infection last weekend, which made me unable to focus for two days and gave me a running nose and slimy throat prone to random sneezes on the third. While still noticeably sick, I managed to complete the July section of this year's ecological summary today. Typing still hurts my hands but this slower pace doesn't appear to extend my set schedule, so far. As baking season is about to kick off, this may change, though.
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Due to some incredibly dumb luck, I killed my Asus' battery with the help of an AUX cord, meaning I currently only got three devices at my disposal until the new battery arrives. My research files luckily are being stored on an USB drive, while my certs are hosted on my Acer and Medion.
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Just yesterday I came across an observation on Erynnis tages in Zone III on 3 May, which I missed to include in this year's list. It has been updated but at the same time I'm no longer satisfied with my season lists, considering the same species only showed up for approximately a little less than a week, encompassing calendar weeks 2023-W17 & 2023-W18 (ISO 8601). The first individual was recorded on 30 April, so just a day before May started.
While I hope that no other species will only show itself for a short period of time between two months, it now is even less in my interest to keep my collection of raw data to myself. On the other hand, I still don't trust public databases such as iNaturalist (due to severe privacy issues) and some local solutions (due to those demanding that all of my observations will be made public alongside my full real name).
I already gave my friend the allowance to use any of my raw data and observations as he pleases, as long as he keeps the pseudonymized credits intact (and shares his potential future profits with me). I will try to replace my current "All Rights Reserved" practice on here with a different license that will be mentioned on all relevant gemtext files and include a proper email address (that isn't pure cringe like... all of my current addresses).
For now, I still have to work on this year's general observations summary. I've only completed a little less than 3/9th of it, so far, so... only pre-season phenomena, March, April and half of May, with the latter currently making up the biggest section.
My math skills are poor, I know.
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The shop is opening its doors earlier than expected. While both my personal gemlog and the observation log still are empty, they will be filled with logs over time. One observation log already is in the making.
The only thing I'm still considering, though, is the inclusion of a tiny selection of my photos. All of them already have been compressed but they're hosted on my Medion Akoya and its archive hard-drive only – and I'm currently typing this on my tiny Acer that is incompatible with this HDD's proprietary port (and I lost its tiny USB cable).
Anyway, this is not the most important issue at the moment, in fact all of my shots currently include some metadata that is meant to come in handy in case of copyright violations. While I don't think Gemini would be vulnerable to this, I'm not exactly comfortable with leaking my full name. Not that many people on here would care, though, but I already had some interesting experiences on the WWW that got... rather risky, to say the least. But I disgress.
For now, this capsule is open to visitors that don't mind the lack of photos, despite my camera being listed in my setup gemtext. Once I decided whether or not to create more pages, I might add my capsule to either LEO or the Space Elevator.
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One more list to go and one post in need of some tiny adjustments. Still need to figure out what to do with my index page, though.
Considering that I'm growing to love Gemini more and more, it's no longer unlikely that my capsule won't just host some ecological observations. For now, however, this shall be enough until I'm fully comfortable with Gemtext.
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Still working on a bunch of gemtexts that may be ready for publishing near the end of the year, given that some involve some basic info regarding the ongoing research I'm working on. Due to the lack of support for tables, I have to get a little more creative, which consumes additional time.
Meanwhile I ditched Tumblr. I don't miss that junk in the slightest, yet I couldn't use this new free time to work on the writing part of my research, so far. First a messed-up sleeeping schedule due to partying neighbours, then an appointment I didn't expect to take half a day, closely followed – just two days after the appointment – by a serious family matter that will keep me on alert for quite some time until everything's settled.
At least I already got the toughest stuff done prior to this. One description needs a minor correction and some addtional information, while two location descriptions still need to be written and one list needs a new addition. But for now I need to collect a little more data and clean my car.
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Joined Yesterweb.
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