Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gemini Links 24/06/2023: A Brief History of Internet E-mail



  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Threadiverse vs mailing lists

        “Threadiverse”, a.k.a. group servers on Fediverse like Gup.pe, Lemmy, and kbin (compatible with each other to some extent) are all based on the premise that each community (kbin calls communities "magazines") is hosted on one instance, but users and posts can come from all over.

        So it’s like any normal phpBB–style forum, except you use your own user instead of having to register and check everywhere.

      • More Cooling Hardware

        Cool packs don’t like to be stacked in a fridge when they’re warm; it means they only cool down slowly. Some kind of mechanical separation apparatus—more commonly known as a shelf—is wanted.

        I keep my cool packs in a mini fridge along with some fizzy water of the plain and flavoured, caffeinated varieties. The fridge came with shelves, but I had to take them out to make the drinks bottles fit. Disaster!

      • A Brief History of Internet Email: How Email Won

        I wasn't a participant in any of this history: just a teenager who read a lot and paid attention to what was happening at the time. I'm also oversimplifying, and I'm probably telling a lot of people things they already know or even things they know better than I do.

        Today, when you say the phrase "electronic mail", there's a nearly 100% probability that you are actually talking about Internet Mail: messages in a standard format exchanged using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). As recently as the 1990s, that statement did not hold true. There was a huge diversity of systems described by the phrase "electronic mail".

      • My server is getting scanned all the time

        My server runs a web server and an ssh server, there is nothing on the web server and there is no link on the internet pointing to it, all devices connected to the internet are getting scanned.

        Normally nobody would connect to port 80 since there are no links and no content, but there are lots of connections happening.

      • On creating useless things

        As an engineer, I enjoy solving problems and creating things that have practical value, which can also provide a decent lifestyle for my family.

        As a creator/artisan, I also find joy in making things that may not necessarily solve a specific problem. I allow my imagination to flow freely and practice by engaging in activities that 'may' benefit me (or someone else) in the future.

      • Communicating with my weatherstation

        In my original plan for my weatherstation, I would wirelessly send weatherdata to a ground station. I have given up on this idea primarily because managing a rechargeable battery would introduce too many variables.

        Now, I have decided to have a cable that connects between the ground station and the sensors. I will be using an ethernet cable as the medium, but I won't be using the ethernet protocol. Having a network card on the station is more overhead than I would like.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



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