Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • the inevitability of time

    It's been a rough last few weeks in my family, which is why I'm just now getting back into the Pub for the first time in a few weeks. ~bartender, a black coffee please, I could certainly use a bit of a caffeine boost - damned insomnia.

    My father in law, who is in his mid-70s, has been diagnosed with cancer and is rapidly going downhill, unable to keep food or drink down and generally unable to get out of bed. I can tell the toll this is taking on my wife, though she is trying not to show it. It's having a bit of a rough go on me, as well, as I have had a great relationship with my in-laws over the years and hate to see them going through this.

  • 🔤SpellBinding: CIYPRSL Wordo: MALLS

  • annual august pep-talk

    ok, yes. it sucks. being a body in august. in a rooftop apartment, uninsulated, with aluminium single-pane windows. not being able to sleep from the heat, or the noise of the rackety ac unit in the one room that can accommodate it. from the mosquitoes getting in despite the bug-nets. the birds starting up at the ass-crack of dawn, just as you managed to close your eyes. and all the aches and pains - what do the tendons, muscles, and joints even want? shouldn't warmth be good for them? the mental and emotional well-being going down the drain the longer the physical torment persists. the exhaustion exasperating the inertia. and august is almost autumn, it feels even worse to be looking forward to relief, which might come much much later in reality.

• Politics and Religion

  • [poem] Jesus Christ, II

• Technology and Free Software

  • Terminal email clients are still cool

    Email tools are pretty interesting. A lot of people these days use whatever web client their email provider gives them: Gmail, Outlook Web, maybe something like Roundcube if they're on an independent host... they're all much of a muchness.

    For the most part, these are fine. Gmail and Outlook both suck for writing plain text email[1], but apart from that there's no real problem with it. However, I still prefer a good desktop client.

  • RAID-y Player One

    I bought RAID Ant and Cockroach killer. Which is an impressive substance. I did the entirety of the floorboards, all rooms, every crevass, every nook, crannies not ignored.

    The bedroom reels to high hell. But the rest of the apartment is airing out. Windows open, fan blowing out the front door, next to where I am sitting on my patio

    Yes, a patio. Lovely thing. Built in garden next to it. I will do lava rocks here soon.

    The RAID is odorless, to give you an idea of ita potency. I am effectively smelling raw poison. And yes, a small roach I came across in the bathroom closet b dead on contact, as advertised.

  • Upgrade of the OCC laptop

    During the 2024 edition of the Old Computer Challenge, I ussd an old Acer Aspire One 522 POVE6. This laptop came with a spinning disk and only 760 Mb RAM.

    I ran the challenge X-less, no X11 or Xorg. I did like the form factor of this laptop. It has a 10.1 inch display with a resolution of 1280x720.

    The challenge is over, and I wanted to see if this little laptop can also work as a X11/Xorg workstation.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Salix is on Gemini

      Gemini is relatively new, created only a few years ago. It's part of what's often referred to as "the small internet". This term describes a collection of alternative, decentralized, and community-driven networks that operate outside of the mainstream internet.

      Gemini is text-only. It's possible to include images and videos, or any other type of file, but it's up to the client to decide what to do with them. If it will display them in place, like a web browser displays images, or if it will only show the text and provide links for images and videos so that users can download them individually to view them.

      There's also no page styling in Gemini. The author doesn't decide how the content will look, as it happens in the web. The author only provides the content, and the only one who gets to decide how that information is presented is the client application, which in most cases can be configured by the user. There are many terminal-based clients, but there are also graphical clients.

      Gemini is never going to be the next big thing. It's never going to replace the web; it's not meant to do that anyway. Gemini is never going to be supported by big corporations. It's never going to be supported by anyone who cares about things like user conversion and retention. And that's a good thing.