House of Legends

Thoughts and Ideas

  • Self-exposure via too much security

    Self-exposure via too much security

    Reblog via 🦜 Civil Georgia

    Georgia Closing Airspace Over Abastumani ‘Ivanishvili Whim’, Sources Tell RFE/RL

    civil.ge/archives/730573

    On April 16, Georgia is to close airspace over the area of Abastumani, a health resort in the country’s south, with officials citing the need to ensure clear skies above the local astrophysical observatory. However, sources told Radio Free Europe/Radio…

    This move by Bidzina Ivanishvili with declaration of no-fly zone gives me some hint: if you want to fully unmask this putin pet faster, you should rally not on famous Rustaveli avenue or even near headquarters of his “Georgian Dream” pet party. The most sensitive place for Ivanishvili now is where he imposed so hardcore security measures, going so far up to declaring no-fly zone. So opposition should rally in Abastumani where his family residence is.

    I guess this kind of self-exposure via excess security is common among dictators and billionaires alike.

    The illustration picked as reminder that the Death does not care about your security measures. it even does not care whether you have enemies who ready to give you ticket for Kobzon concert. It simply comes in its own time no matter what you do.

    Fediverse reactions
  • Found a self-hosting compromise

    Found a self-hosting compromise

    I decided not switch for now from wordpress-based stack, but rather migrate from “raw VPS” setup on Hostinger to their dedicated hosting for WP.

    At first glance it looks as some balanced option between “you are admin of your server which demands attention all the time” and “you are just yet another account for some other admin without any customization options or some extensibility”.

    It is something between, when the most boring part offloaded to someone else who have dedicated skills and get paid for “the boring part” of server administration. Will check this setup for some time.

    May be later I will try to create something local-first with server working as more like relay or “briar mailbox” with support of ActivityPub and some UI suitable for long posts editing.

    Idea of creating something like this comes from fact that I don’t seen anything like that thing described above yet.

    Fediverse reactions
  • Now you can get deported from Georgia for burning Bidzina Ivanishvili portrait

    Now you can get deported from Georgia for burning Bidzina Ivanishvili portrait

    Here is quote from https://civil.ge Monday Cable for 6 April 2026:

    On March 31, less than a week before Afgan Sadigov’s deportation, the journalist publicly burned the portrait of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili during the daily parliament rally in Tbilisi.

    Simply speaking, now, if you foreigner in Georgia, you can be deported to country you run from for burning portrait of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Kremlin-friendly billionaire who “become rich” in russia’s 1990s, and who now being informal ruler of Georgia country. Bidizina hurry to build a russia-like dictatorship, and pushes via disputed parliament repressive laws that reminds me late-USSR jokes like this (voice of Gorbachev):

    Can’t I sleep, Raisa,

    Whole Russia is for Boris!

    You adopt a law, Raisa,

    That allow to love only us!

    Or in russian:

    Не могу уснуть, Раиса,

    Вся Россия за Бориса!

    Ты издай такой указ,

    Чтоб любили только нас!

    Boris Yeltsin is referred here, and his mass popularity in Russia in last years of USSR existence, what Gorbachev, the President of USSR, has been concerned about. Among that joke refers supposed leadership of Raisa, wife of Mikhail Gorbachev, in their family.

    So, this “Georgian Dream” leadership obsession over (their questionable, from my personal point of view!) legitimacy, matched the personal traits of Bidzina Ivanishvili, including paranoia and belief on supernatural effects of common protest performances like burning of his portrait and seeing them as magical rituals and spiritual attacks.

    Of course, any foreigners in today Georgia may notice that today Georgia is not a safe harbor like it was a decade ago.

    But note that Bidzina Ivanishvili is officially just a honorary chairman of “Georgian Dream” ruling party without any special duties and formal power or accountability. So why Bidzina Ivanishvili portrait that important? Because Ivanishvili is actual ruler of Georgia country and he builds a dictatorship here as soon as possible.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Question of deltachat is more complicated

    ↬universeodon.com/users/djembro/statuses/116347112682925351

    Later I was able to recover from a backup the related key. But Now I decided that I should not use same email for delta chat and normal email communication.

    I guess I either should use some standard relay or run own relay but for completely different addresses, like magical.cat@kitchen.legends.house or magical.cat@stove.legends.house but I don’t sure about it and how exactly organize it, because I just had to pour extra money into VPS, and due the way how WordPress + ActivityPub + Friends work, I can’t reliably be sure it will not require more monthly fees even for being single-person internet pod.

    Or I will have to write own Fediverse-friendly long-reads authoring-capable software, which would not use so much memory and CPU for very basic tasks.

    And I sorta have few ideas about that, but spend months of all that time on such thing?!

    Using same address for ChatMail and for classic email via thunderbird makes confused the both software, and me too with double notifications per email.

    This sorta would be a puzzle for me to solve or to decide to keep unsolved by doing nothing.

    PS: key I published on default Open PGP server is still usable, if need send encrypted emails to magical.cat@legends.house address.

    Fediverse reactions
  • This is how I feel after fixing the blog and reinstalling OS at my PC

    This is how I feel after fixing the blog and reinstalling OS at my PC

    Some may say I can’t use such image of tired and exhausted worker, wiping his sweat to describe myself ever, because I am not involved in physical work.

    But in my defense I can say that I used this image as metaphor. And I had to reinstall OS at my desktop PC from scratch, tried to install Debian but it seems PCs with Nvidia does not love Debian 13 with 6.12.74 kernel.

    Switched to Mint 22, now it works.

    Now I feel myself like an oligarch and billionaire, because of single way to fix my blog that was working – pour money into VPS.

    Image of boiling gold
    Image of boiling gold from a metal factory or mint

    Fixed finally this blog. Sadly, the single way to fix it was to enlarge the VPS resources, and also added some special voodoo with wordpress container env variables.

    I hope it will allow to work my server for longer.

    But eventually I may need to rewrite that into something like nodejs or something other tiny tech, some single-person internet pod in spirit of Small Web and Kitten.

    Also, I lost keys for my deltachat account in the process, so I don’t have other ways for direct message except email for now.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Good news from EU Parliament: ChatControl cancelled (for now)

    End of “Chat Control”: EU Parliament Stops Mass Surveillance in Voting Thriller – Paving the Way for Genuine Child Protection!

    My congratulations, Europeans!

    Fediverse reactions
  • Talk Georgia with Giorgi Rukhadze Episode 42. Guest: Giorgi Vashadze. Strategy Agmashenebeli Chair

    Talk Georgia with Giorgi Rukhadze Episode 42. Guest: Giorgi Vashadze. Strategy Agmashenebeli Chair

    Fediverse reactions
  • So many things got better!

    So many things got better!

    So many things got better with Friends plugin for WordPress update 4.0 !

    First things I noticed before even reviewing migration page and upgrade details, are these:

    1. Now finally I can set a reaction and boost a post without page reload and scroll position loss or scroll jump. It works even better than at original Mastodon web UI.
    2. Video controls are now available when expected.

    The list of fixes and improvements is big, I picked the most noticeable ones.

    If you already use Friends plugin, upgrade to 4.0!

    And if not use it, I recommend to try.

    PS: still there is some gotchas, but now it covers like 95.99% of my Fediverse daily usage, both as blog author and as Fediverse feed reader. Of course I will write another post to let you know when it will cover the remaining 4.01% .

    Big thanks @alex-kirk for great work!

    PS: and again thanks to Elena Rossini for inspiring me to try self-hosting.

    Fediverse reactions
  • Хокку про смартфоны

    Хокку про смартфоны

    Погоди умирать, Никодим,

    Нужно на смартфоне настроить

    Параметр ещё один.

    По мотивам сегодняшней поездки Орлеаны в город.

    Настроил ведь всё-всё, кроме собственно мобильного интернета (4G), от чего Орлеане пришлось возвращаться домой на автобусе.

    Тут-то и пригодились ей древние инстинкты автобусного жителя.

    Fediverse reactions
  • 1 year of prison for nothing

    1 year of prison for nothing

    Nikoloz Darsania now faces CRIMINAL PROSECUTION of up to 1 year in prison over standing on a sidewalk in protest. The Georgian Dream legislation says that merely standing anywhere beyond the Parliament’s steps is “hindering public movement.”

    Nikoloz Darsania now faces CRIMINAL PROSECUTION of up to 1 year in prison over standing on a sidewalk in protest.The Georgian Dream legislation says that merely standing anywhere beyond the Parliament’s steps is “hindering public movement.”#TerrorinGeorgia #GeorgiaProtests

    — Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) 2026-03-17T14:14:49.734Z

    Nikoloz Darsania now faces CRIMINAL PROSECUTION of up to 1 year in prison over standing on a sidewalk in protest.The Georgian Dream legislation says that merely standing anywhere beyond the Parliament’s steps is “hindering public movement.”#TerrorinGeorgia #GeorgiaProtests

    — Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) 2026-03-17T14:14:49.734Z
    Fediverse reactions