Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • migraine

• Technology and Free Software

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Creating full-text RSS/Atom feeds for any page with FreshRSS

      Reading RSS/Atom feeds as a way to aggregate and keep track of updated news, blogs etc. has been something that has accompanied me for around 20 years by now.

      Beyond following blogs and news websites, I use feeds to keep track of when pages I _watch_ on Wikipedia[1] (and other Wikis[2] are updated, get an aggregated list of commonly shared link from my Mastodon feed[3], figure out when someone made edits on OpenStreetMap close to my home, and even when it's time to update FreshRSS[4], my preferred self-hosted RSS web & API backend[5].

    • Announcing ROOPHLOCH 2025

      Dear Smol Friends, September is upon us once again! It is time to coat our wine vessels with pitch, to pick apples, and to loosen the compacted soil around trees. Straw must be cut, haystacks pitched, arable land ploughed, fodder gathered, and well-watered meadows mown. Yes, mown a second time! In amongst these chores, I hope that some of you will also find the time and energy to participate in the ancient and worthy tradition of ROOPHLOCH.

      The Remote Outdoor Off-Grid Phlogging Challenge lasts for the entire calendar month of September in all timezones of Earth. If you choose to accept the challenge, you must author and publish a phlog and/or gemlog post while not inside any permanent artificial shelter and without plugging your device(s) directly into "the grid", i.e. electricity and internet access must not come from a socket in the wall. Exactly how and where you choose to post and what you write about is entirely up to you. After making a successful post, please email solderpunk@posteo.net with the posts URL and you will have the mighty honour of being added, in alphabetical order of handle, to the official ROOPHLOCH 2025 participation list at the end of the month!

    • Announcing ROOPHLOCH 2025

      Last year we had 33 qualifying posts made by 31 distinct users, which was the best turn out in ROOPHLOCH's six year history! I look forward to a strong turnout for ROOPHLOCH 2025.

    • Sprout and Web Carbon Ratings

      This editor is designed/marketed mainly as the "sustainable" option. Publised sites are generally under 100KB, a big improvement over the internets' 2.5MB average! Images are second class citizens, where they get compressed down to 15-50KB with no option to turn this off, preventing overyly large images or the uneccessary banner image. Everything has a cost in KB that is visible to the user. For example a user chosing a non-standard webfont will see the size cost of the diffent options as well as a global size stat increase. Limits are built in, where users can't make additions or publish a site over 1MB. We also give the users the estimated carbon score as well as "x% better than the average website".

      On the sustainability adjacent front we get some accessibility wins from having simplified HTML5 structures. We also limit the colours the user can choose for their website to two text colours and two background colours, with a built in contrast checker.

    • Hosting Gemini

  • Software Releases/Announcements

    • Lagrange v1.19: Site Structure, Vertical Tabs, and Subscription Management

      Much like last year, after the summer break I've had time to work on features for Lagrange. Version 1.19 focuses on adding new sidebar functionality, but there is a generous helping of bug fixes and minor enhancements as well. The release is available for all platforms (except Android ¹).