House of Legends

Thoughts and Ideas

  • 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
  • Agent Iverieli passed away

    Agent Iverieli passed away

    Today become known that the patriarch of Georgian Orthodox Church passed away.

    I picked as featured image for the post a photo of his pseudonym card from Soviet KGB archives. It shows that he had agent pseudonym/alias “Iverieli” there.

    BREAKING: Patriarch Ilia II, Leader of Georgian Orthodox Church, Dies at 93

    For me, main choice he made in his long life, is not only agreeing to become agent of Soviet KGB, but he never stopped to serve Kremlin and Russian Empire, even after USSR collapsed.

    This all said not to judge him or to blame for something, as he dead now and can’t respond to this post and clean his disgraced name.

    This is reminder to us, who still alive, that until last breath, there is option for us to repent in our sins and confess in our mistakes, even to public when necessary, and sometimes – to try to fix our wrongdoings.

    As soon as we passed away, there is no way to do anything of these, because nobody was able to return from beyond the Great Veil, and even in literature all what some can get is some chance to tell someone in dreams something as it recorded in the Greenbrier Ghost real US court case.

    No matter how much of evil you bring to this world via actions or word you say or who you serve to, you can stop, take a deep breath and don’t do it anymore, and start doing good deeds instead, or at least don’t do obvious evil anymore.

    Fediverse reactions
  • This is fascinating

    This is fascinating

    This is fascinating to see how organizations, institutions, and people in Europe, such as OSCE PA leadership, can’t see difference between polarization and total incompatibility with a dictatorship.

    To my understanding, polarization between pro-democracy/pro-EU groups or parties who all normally would have common ground, usually, happens if leadership succumbed to their personal ambitions and still there is some path back towards dialog, by fostering healthy political culture traditions and practices.

    Compare this with total incompatibility between pro-Russian forces (as usually they tend to usurper power and create electoral dictatorship) and everyone else who don’t want lick the Kremlin boots (and are against the mere idea of living under electoral dictatorship or any other dictatorship.

    This post is about these claims that there is just some polarization happens here in Georgia country between the “Georgian Dream” electoral dictatorship regime and pro-EU/pro-Democracy parties.

    There is simple way to spot the difference. In case of polarization multiple sides of interaction spread hate, distrust, or isolation towards political opponents. In case of incompatibility with electoral dictatorship one political actor builds whole their existence over idea of building an electoral dictatorship, and come with promise to outlaw most prominent political opponent(s) or mere option of being not loyal and obedient.

    The “Georgian Dream” regime of electoral dictatorship leaded by a Kremlin operative and billionaire Ivanishvili openly plans to outlaw the same parties EU asks GD to keep dialogue with. EU even asks these parties to keep dialog with GD, if I am correct in understanding some of news about recent OSCE PA officials visit to Tbilisi.

    OSCE PA Delegation Concludes Visit to Georgia, Notes ‘Absence of Political Dialogue’

    EU speaking about some polarization assumes that there are multiple sides inducing the hate towards each other.

    Meanwhile GD electoral dictatorship regime sends leaders of opposition political parties to jail. Peaceful protesters are being jailed for peacefully standing on sidewalks now. And the peaceful protesters have been tortured, beaten, and even poisoned with chemical weapon as BBC discovered!

    Use of camite during the 2024–2026 Georgian protests

    Would you try to keep political dialog with someone who literally tries to kill you? Poison you? Jail you for peaceful protest? Outlaw any foreign funding for you? And even local one, when accounts of local NGOs and foundations who try to help you are frozen.

    Funds Supporting Protesters Frozen

    Would you keep dialog with someone who falsely declare you “foreign agent” for not being loyal and obedient enough?

    It is fascinating to see that level of “verbal blindness”.

    Spock's Fascinating! face
    Fascinating!