Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • A Somewhat Brutal Bongusta Cleanup

    It's the second half of February, the new year is not so new anymore, and that means it's time for the usual Bongusta list cleanup.

    This time, it was a bit brutal. At the start, the list contained 78 phlogs. Even though I removed only phlogs with broken links and those with no activity at all in 2024, I ended up with 64 remaining. After adding eight fresh new phlogs, the counter stopped at 72.

    I hope this was the last decrease in 2025 and that, from now on, gopherspace activity will only grow. And yes, I know, I need to start contributing myself again. My own phlog has been silent since August. What a shame.

  • Fickle Dreams

    Once one of my designs is completed, I submit it to my master for his review and approval. If it satisfies him - and there is need for it - I often see my templates take form in stone and marble.

    I should be extremely grateful for my master to continue selecting my templates, and seeking out contracts for which they can be put to good use. Unfortunately, the template - my template - that he selected, had not undergone his review.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Graphical Mode Links2 on Mac

    I consider myself a happy links2^ user. I tend to just use links2 in text mode but recently, I wanted to see the magic of graphical mode links2. There's just one issue: I wanted to set this up on my work computer and my work computer is a Mac.

  • My ideal operating system

    I’ve been watching fairly alternative OSs like Haiku (the BeOS clone) and I wanted to really clear the slate and assume multiple orders of magnitude of work done just for this OS. Otherwise an operating system is just a way to run stuff that people can already run on a Linux distribution or macOS.

    Originally, here I said “This is a desktop operating system” but increasingly I’m coming around to the notion that all great modern computing platforms are entire ecosystems and not just a pile of bits that one throws on commodity hardware. Because of this, I’m also specifying stock peripherals like monitors and keyboards and thinking about ways to have peripherals — like wireless headphones — shared between all your devices without an Apple Account coordinating permissions behind the scenes.

  • note browsing with fzf

    Since I now keep updated directories for tags and titles in my notes, I can just straight up call fzf instead of that complicated mechanism I was using for browsing notes by title and tag before.

  • Started a new web project

    Some of the more exciting news since my last week notes is that I’ve been working on a new web project. The idea is a searchable, curated directory of high quality and user-respecting web apps.

    I’m taking a pretty loose definition of “web app”, meaning almost any website that has a function beyond “hey here’s a document”. Basically I’ve found that search engines do a pretty terrible job of helping users find quality tools, so this is hopefully a remedy to that.

    I’ve got several dozen sites already in the directory, and I’m hoping to get that built up a lot through user submissions if this gains any traction.

    I’ll have more details to share later I’m sure. I’m pretty close to launching it. The main thing left is to clean up the code organization a bit, and there’s not very much so that should go quickly. In the meantime if you have any sites you’d like me to add or know of anywhere I could find more, feel free to let me know.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • AuraRepo Alpha

      I am almost ready to release a beta of AuraRepo! I have an alpha running on my server right now. I'd appreciate if people can browse it and provide any feedback on the UI.

  • Programming

    • Why I like simple code (1)

      So I was randomly browsing and found this talk by Peter van Hardenberg, “Why Can’t We Make Simple Software?”. [1] This YouTube comment summarizes it well: «This presentation is basically the talk I have with every stakeholder at some point but most of it just gets dismissed as “nerd shit”» - JordanManfrey

    • Why I like simple code (2)

      In the last post I focused deeply on the presentation itself, without much reflexion of my own. It is a long presentation, after all. But I'd like to introduce the topic of the title: why make simple code? Simple code is boring, like a game of checkers or tic-tac-toe, where the rules are simple, the number of states limited, and the straightforwardness of it is almost numbing. It's no surprise that people are more and more captivated by the concept of super tic-tac-toe, where you play 10 simultaneous games with extra restrictions. [1]