//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog
<name>szczezuja</name>
<title>How to strengthen the Small net</title>
<updated>2023-09-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-09-03:/gemlog/2023-09-03-How-to-strengthen-the-Small-net.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># How to strengthen the Small net

I was inactive here for a short time. During this time I've read about several hottest Gemini ideas, and the whole Geminispace went further. Now I'm like on a Gandalf meme with the "no memory of this place" caption. Many of my /Comitium/ feeds are inactive. Most entries on /Antenna/ or /GTL Tinylog Timeline/ were written by authors unknown to me. The more time I'm inactive more Gandalf meme is inside me. I haven't got the idea of /BBS Geminispace/. I wasn't moved by "The Gemini protocol seen by this HTTP client person". I was in, and now I'm out. 

This is good that there are many new ideas around Geminispace. That we are seeking the area for improvements. That we are stress-testing base technical concepts. But probably we start to lose the key assumption that we don't want to become the Big net. This is the Small net, the place for a small group of people. We are empowering each other, only when we know each other. 

So probably without those interpersonal ties, this place will be like any other place on the Internet. It's a common way of thinking that we must be doing our best. So we are pushing Geminispace to be superior to everything else. But it shouldn't be. 

So I'm feeling a bit more comfortable on Gophersphere. Because there are people who got the Gopher as it is. They won't conquer the Internet by it. They are gathered around their societies. The illusory atmosphere that nothing is going on there. There aren't any big things, but the Gophersphere is also evolving. There aren't many who quit Gopher because they burn out. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 03 Sep 2023 10:00:11 PM CEST

tags: #geminispace, #gophersphere
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-09-03-How-to-strengthen-the-Small-net.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>How to use Fediverse local timelines</title>
<updated>2023-07-31T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-07-31:/gemlog/2023-07-31-How-to-use-Fediverse-local-timelines.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># How to use Fediverse local timelines

It's my second year on Fediverse. I got to know the key concepts. I've tried several clients. I am used to its pros and cons. I had been thinking that there aren't anything that could surprise me. Then I started to use a client which supports several servers (don't be confused with several accounts which are also supported).

[Toot! for Mastodon] is a mobile client which looks a bit too colorful for a serious user. But it has two functionalities that are dedicated to this client and I haven't spotted in other ones. 

The first is pinning a hashtag (don't be confused with hashtag following added in the latest Mastodon specs) which is good for users who don't want to pollute their home timeline with random users' posts. A pinned hashtag is accessible from a special menu, without being visible on the home timeline. 

The second, which I've appreciated more, is several servers support. It's opening gates to the world of local timelines, things almost extinct in the wild. After all, the official mobile app removed them [2]. So I've pinned for example: /emacs.ch/, /tilde.zone/, /social.sdf.org/, and I have default /mastodon.online/ where my account is created. Because of the /mastodon.online/ server is one of the biggest ones, it's pointless to browse local timeline there. But it's interesting to browse local timelines for the Emacs server, Tildeverse server, or SDF server. Each local timeline is more probable to consist of interesting topics connected with the server theme. Sometimes it's also possible to look at the trending section. 

So I don't need to create many accounts on each server. It's handy to look at them and operate from my main account. I started to think that the original idea of many local servers could be so interesting. Unfortunately, Fediverse is overly grouped around flagship servers like /mastodon.online/ where the local timeline could be treated like a malfunctioned feature. 

So I'm looking for interesting themed Fediverse servers now. 

=> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/toot-for-mastodon/id1229021451 [Toot! for Mastodon] 
=> https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/221 [2]


-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 31 Jul 2023 10:11:29 PM CEST

tags: #fediverse
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-07-31-How-to-use-Fediverse-local-timelines.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>When /ChatGPT/ would actually be so smart and help the small net</title>
<updated>2023-06-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-06-08:/gemlog/2023-06-08-When-ChatGPT-would-actually-be-so-smart-and-help-the-smallnet.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># When /ChatGPT/ would actually be so smart and help the small net

There are several approaches to operating /ChatGPT/ from a command line, and there is still much hype about /ChatGPT/ at all. Many are aware that this is still just a statistical model. It's operating on training text and it's providing a result as the most probable letters, words, and sentences for asked questions. Sometimes the result is impressive because instead of many traditional searches, we get a full-sentence answer to one of our questions in natural language. Sometimes after a while, we see the imperfections of this answer. And sometimes it is of sufficient quality. 

Since today's large network is based largely on average-quality content, you can imagine how it fills up automatically based on responses from /ChatGPT/. Reportedly, legislative work is underway to [require marking of the automatic content generated].

However, I thought a truly smart /ChatGPT/ could be really helpful for a small network. In the same way as small-net proxies are providing small-net content in the big net, we could extract by AI the true content of the big net and automatically translate it to the gemtext. 

AI would remove decorations, interactive scripts, adverts, cookie pop-ups, affiliate texts, and so on. AI would merge all scattered information into a single content. AI could detect the real sources of copy-pasted text, and show the original and nondistracted content. AI finally will lay out that data into a gemtext form. It would be a kind of magic.

=> https://slashdot.org/story/23/06/05/1542243/ai-generated-content-should-be-labelled-eu-commissioner-jourova-says [require marking of the automatic content generated]


-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu 08 Jun 2023 11:25:45 AM CEST

tags: #chatgpt, #ai
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-06-08-When-ChatGPT-would-actually-be-so-smart-and-help-the-smallnet.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>From my bubble about Bubble</title>
<updated>2023-05-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-05-27:/gemlog/2023-05-27-From-my-bubble-about-Bubble.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># From my bubble about Bubble

There is much buzz about [Skyjake's project called Bubble] on the Geminispace. There was a long thread on Cosmos, which I can't locate now. A good start of discussion is Bacardi55's second gemlog article. So there are many points of view, as usual in today's world. 

It's something like the plot of /Silo/ (a TV series, according to Wikipedia: based on the /Wool/ series of novels by author Hugh Howey). /Silo/ is about the last ten thousand people living in the underground concrete bunker formed in a silo-shaped hole. They live according to the rules called the Pact, which origin is unclear. One of the Pact regulations forbade the installation of elevators. So they walk up and down the stairs. There are hundreds of floors, so such travels last all day. 

So we are also living in the artificial environment formed around pubnix culture. For me, those base ideas are the essence of the Gemini protocol and the Geminispace. There's a bit of religion in it. We believe that we could bring back the ethos of the early net and knowledge transfer. We believing in Dunbar's number effect. We believe in simplicity, it's why the Gemini protocol has an inextensible character. We believe in diversity, like every pubnix culture is different from others. So we won't build an elevator!

But the /Bubble/ seems to be an elevator. It could have a data export functionality, and so on. But for me, it's violating the above concepts. So we are creating a central point (versus Dunbar's number effect) of communication in the standardized way (versus diversity) for people who don't want to make an effort to do so (versus the early net ethos). 

But why is the /Bubble/ raised so much discussion? For me the main reason is the name, not the name of the project but the domain name. The /Geminispace.org/ is the name which could be confusing to separate the Geminispace at all, and one of the hobby projects, the same as for eg. the /Station/. So it's like the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, when people deleted it was thinking that they deleted the whole Internet. I think people will be looking at it in a different way if it would be set up on for eg. the Bubble.org domain. 


=> gemini://geminispace.org/u/skyjake/1 [Skyjake's project called Bubble]
=> gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2023/05/18/reflexion-about-bubble-part-2/ [Bacardi55's second gemlog article]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 27 May 2023 01:38:11 PM CEST

tags: #pubnix, #bubble, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-05-27-From-my-bubble-about-Bubble.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>To remember that ScummVM is great</title>
<updated>2023-05-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-05-21:/gemlog/2023-05-21-To-remember-that-ScummVM-is-great.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># To remember that ScummVM is great

I had a knowledge of ScummVM existence for a long time but I've been playing only occasionally in several games for a short while that way. /Pierre Gilhodes/ created this month Gobliiins 5 as the classical 2D original [Gobliiins] style game, so I've been made to run also the first Gobliiins again. I've tried the playable Gobliiins 5 demo, and then I've returned to the original Gobliiins series. 

The Gobliiins 5 is available at [itch.io] also as a playable demo. And the original Gobliiins series I've bought on /GoG.com/. Both titles are very playable today. The old ones are running in ScummVM in a perfect way. You are switching to the full screen and that is bringing back all memories from the past decades. It's worth trying. ScummVM is one of the most polished game platforms on Linux. 

=> https://pierre-gilhodes.itch.io/gobliiins5 [itch.io]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobliiins [Gobliiins]


-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 21 May 2023 10:50:04 AM CEST

tags: #game, #Gobliins, #ScummVM
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-05-21-To-remember-that-ScummVM-is-great.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Suckless window manager</title>
<updated>2023-05-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-05-08:/gemlog/2023-05-08-Suckless-window-manager.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Suckless window manager

One of my computer environments is a text-only session supported by tmux. I am using it with much joy for over two years. I'm working also with many true window managers, on Apple, Windows, and GNU/Linux systems. But I am enjoying that almost-true window manager made above of tmux the most. In the passing weeks, I read about Suckless Dynamic Windows Manager aka. dwm. Because of several holiday days, I had the possibility to install dwm on my own, and I realized that it's so similar to my tmux experiences but in a graphical environment. I've set it up as my main window manager and the time spent on playing with it was very good for me. 

When we are looking at [dwm Tutorial] we are able to get the whole concept of that program by looking only at the ASCII sketch which I copied below. So we have a base concept created by: /tags/, /title/, /status/, /master/, and /stack/ terms. And that is all! 

``` dwm window model
 +------+----------------------------------+--------+
 | tags | title | status |
 +------+---------------------+------------+--------+
 | | |
 | | |
 | | |
 | | |
 | master | stack |
 | | |
 | | |
 | | |
 | | |
 +----------------------------+---------------------+
``` 

The most common user interaction is launching a new terminal window on the one of window sets called /tags/. The main window is the /master/ one, and the rest tag's windows are grouped into the /stack/. 

The only thing which I want to set is my /status/. The last section of the tutorial is showing how to set information there by a simple script.

And that is all from the window manager. There isn't a need for any more features. I've got that big window managers like GNOME, KDE, and the same Windows or Apple one are so complicated. Even the main layout is extended by actions like operating the volume controls (I've used alsamixer instead) or the logout button (I've used the poweroff command) and so on. But we don't need them. 

There is the possibility to configure dwm for your own needs, but for me, the vanilla configuration is good and usable. Now I can use tmux in my text environment, and dwm in graphical one. They are similar feelings.


=> https://dwm.suckless.org/tutorial/ [dwm Tutorial]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 08 May 2023 09:22:55 PM CEST
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-05-08-Suckless-window-manager.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Matrix of Convivial Technology</title>
<updated>2023-05-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-05-07:/gemlog/2023-05-07-Matrix-of-Convivial-Technology.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Matrix of Convivial Technology

It's something about adding quote functionality to Mastodon. I was going through [GitHub discussion] and I came across interesting term /Matrix of Convivial Technology/. It was quoted from [The Matrix of Convivial Technology – Assessing technologies for degrowth by Andrea Vetter M.A.]. I thought that I should cite it on the small net because there is a place many new solutions has been creating. 

## Use; Procuring the task it was built for

### Relatedness; What does it bring about between people?

* Fosters competition -- -- -- -- -- Supports trust

* Fosters individual advantage -- -- -- -- -- Supports community

* Prefigured use only -- -- -- -- -- Allows creativity

* One solution fits all -- -- -- -- -- Respects local tradition

* Discourages care -- -- -- -- -- Simplifies care

* Uglifying -- -- -- -- -- Creates beauty

* Creates senselessness -- -- -- -- -- Creates art

* Alienating from own body -- -- -- -- -- Useful body enhancement

* Heteronomy -- -- -- -- -- Self-determination

* Compulsory -- -- -- -- -- Voluntarily


=> https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/22793 [GitHub discussion]

=> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652617304213?via%3Dihub [The Matrix of Convivial Technology – Assessing technologies for degrowth by Andrea Vetter M.A.]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 07 May 2023 01:10:18 PM CEST

tags: #ethic
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-05-07-Matrix-of-Convivial-Technology.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Why Gemini is (not) boring</title>
<updated>2023-04-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-04-10:/gemlog/2023-04-10-Why-Gemini-is-not-boring.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Why Gemini is (not) boring

In response to [Why Gemini is boring].

There were several discussions about the boringness of the Gemini. [The famous] and not-so-famous ones. People are complaining that is too much, or too less, technical, or nontechnical content. That there is not much content at all. That it will be great to come back with more people. That It isn’t the same as one or two years ago when all Gemini projects started from scratch. 

We can observe the Geminispace from the inside and the outside world. Sometimes external observer is looking only through a hole created by a graphical browser. And he can only see the top of that universe. Because text presentation of data, observed most often inside a complete-graphical environment or web proxy, is only the one outer layer of that complex and strange efflorescence. We shouldn't understand Geminispace as a catalog of text data. And we shouldn't measure it by an occurrence that or these topics. If Geminispace can tell me a pancake with strawberries recipe? Maybe it never will do so.

For me the main idea standing behind Geminispace is people. Geminispace isn't far from Gophersphere. That's why we call it the Small web. That ecosystem gathers people thinking in that way. It's the power of the last Usenet warriors, Finger users, Pubnixes scholars, last light of BBSes. It's a new lifestyle (someone called it [Neo-Luddism] but it is not so strict in my opinion). Communicate and cooperate in that certain way. Building new text protocol and spending free time in that sauce. There is not any goal to conquest WWW and big social networks. 

Because the Small net is also some sort of social network. With everything building on our own. Twitter build-up from a text file called Tinylog. Facebook set up on the top of the Antenna. Without powerful computers, and huge data transfers. With complexity managed with grace by Bash scripts. However, all this does not necessarily lead to the fact that only people from the IT industry are here. I know people from both side of the barricade and I want to read them with the same pleasure.

There was also a question: if the Gemini ecosystem died? My feeling is seeing as Gopher is still active, Gemini won't stop either. Maybe some of the hype has passed, and now things are moving at a normal pace.


=> gemini://rulmer.xyz/boring_gemini.gmi [Why Gemini is boring]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-04-17-Re-stepping-away-from-gemini.gmi [The famous]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism [Neo-Luddism]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 10 Apr 2023 09:17:17 PM CEST

tags: #people, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-04-10-Why-Gemini-is-not-boring.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Mastodon vs. Finger</title>
<updated>2023-03-19T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-03-19:/gemlog/2023-03-19-Mastodon-vs-Finger.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Mastodon vs. Finger

I am too young to use Finger protocol when it was a common thing. I got to know about Finger years later, as one of the Linux/Unix commands, and put into my head a theoretical description of it. But that theoretical description of Finger protocol and command can obscure the whole idea behind it. So imagine a world where an average user has access to a shell account and has the ability to operate on the Internet from inside of the chosen server. So an average user can read and write files, the same as today's average user. But that former average user had, almost forgotten today, ability to write and publish files for a wider audience. Because today most of us is thinking that publishing data is a big thing. So big that it need to use special tools for that. We can't put the data into a regular file, instead of we put that data on special platforms. 

That tools and platforms have grown over the years. It isn't only a web server for that, despite even a web server isn't a simple tool today. Everyone who was [Installing from source] Mastodon instance has knowledge that there are many tools for that. So there are PostgreSQL (relational database), Node.js (first runtime environment), Yarn(additional package manager), Ruby (second runtime environment), Nginx (webserver), and so on.

Even when we want to publish once a week what we do on our server, we are tempted to install so complicated stack to do so. Instead of publishing an ordinary file. We can go back to the Finger protocol, which was invented to simplify the use case of publishing [now page] data. With finger protocol, there isn't a need to install any additional tools. Because it's serving content from standard files .plan, .project, and several system information of the last login time or state of an e-mail box to other people.

It's easy to mix Finger usage with a single file acting like an archive of past Finger data, and we are creating almost (on the base concept level) a complete alternative for Mastodon. 

## Subscribe to an account and read the last activities from subscribed accounts 

The result of this section is a draw, we can easily subscribe for an account in Mastodon and Finger (run several times a finger command). 
 
## Read activities of any account 

A draw. It's worth saying that Mastodon wants to create an ability to run thematic instances, with public timeline functionalities but it isn't working for me on the concept level for now. So on the ability to read any given user name data, there isn't any advantage for Mastodon. 

## Publish an activity 

Mastodon content support is a more complex thing because it embeds text, media, and special interacting content like polls. But it seems that there are workarounds for all things on Finger. The result in this section depends on what the user needs.

## Set permission for an activity

Mastodon wants to add an extra layout over the data for: marking it as sensitive, for subscribers, or private. It can't be done with Finger. But users must be aware that part of that functionalities are illusory because so-called, private data could be accessed on the server (for example by its admin and so on). So it's some kind of a dead end, and maybe tools like Mastodon shouldn't wander so far. 
 
## Respond to an activity (make a thread of activities) and mention an account

It's easier to make a readable discussion and thread on Mastodon. But it's possible to do reply on Finger too. Mastodon is offering a notification for replies. But threading on Mastodon for a big thread is proving that it isn't a tool for discussions. So we are using it for discussions, and probably at the same time we are wondering for what sins we do so.

## Mention a hashtag and read activities by hashtag

The Finger doesn't have support for hashtags. Mastodon is using hashtags as a main thing for searching. It's useful for accessing the last activities of a certain topic. But it isn't working for advanced searches and it's not so convenient to scroll through the history of a hashtag. Probably it will be easier to implement a nonexistent Finger service for searching now. If needed.

## Read accounts in a catalog

Mastodon has the wish to build a working catalog of users. The Finger has a list of users but without extended descriptions. 

## Finger in the wild

You can run a [fingerclub.sh] script or go through users listed there manually. 


=> https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/install/ [Installing from source] 
=> https://nownownow.com/about [now page]
=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/fingerclub.sh [fingerclub.sh]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 19 Mar 2023 04:06:46 PM CET

tags: #finger, #mastodon
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-03-19-Mastodon-vs-Finger.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Pavlov's dog receives e-mails</title>
<updated>2023-01-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-01-28:/gemlog/2023-01-28-Pavlovs-dog-receives-emails.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Pavlov's dog receives e-mails

I'm a natural zero-inboxer. So from the first e-mail box, I am acting what I read afterward as inbox zero rules. All unwanted messages are flagged as spam. All quick matters are dealt with on the spot. The rest things are marked to deal with them at the proper time (invoices, birthday reminders, etc.). 

That approach trained me so after all that years I'm like a Pavlov's dog. 

So in the morning, I'm erasing all reminders from e-commerce sites (about things, which I'd love to buy). I'm clicking also on an annoying Kindle warning that my e-press won't be delivered to Kindle (probably I'm using too much of their "free disk" space). And so on. It's worth saying that I'm also the sort of person, who is always declining every marketing consent, from the first day of possibility to decline them. So my e-commerce communication is probably very minimal anyway. 

That continuing volume of e-mails made me blind that I almost don't receive real e-mails. There was a funny situation, one of that "real" e-mails was marked as spam and got lost unread.

So I've turned off the automated e-mails, which I've been deleting for a long time. And I have an empty inbox in the morning now. That was a strange feeling at first moment. But after that, I felt calm. I realized that I had basically returned to the atmosphere of the beginning of my adventure with e-mail. It's not necessarily true that we have to get an e-mail every hour. Just like we don't get letters to the traditional letterbox every day.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 28 Jan 2023 08:39:40 PM CET

tags: #email
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-01-28-Pavlovs-dog-receives-emails.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Perception of what the Internet looks like today</title>
<updated>2023-01-14T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-01-14:/gemlog/2023-01-14-Perception-of-what-Internet-looks-like-today.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Perception of what the Internet looks like today

I came across DOStodon, a Mastodon client for MS-DOS. I looked at screenshots and I saw today's Internet distorted by the crystal of time. So there is almost everything in its place, but it looks different. A similar feeling accompanies browsing a world map in MapSCII, and probably during the usage of other niche tools. 

So we have a vision of today's Internet in our mind. It could be similar to the vision of the black-and-white film era, which made our minds feel that people, cities, and their activities then were less colorful than now. Or characteristic colors of Kodachrome film, which is emulated today by software color palettes.

So today Internet is more beautiful because it's served over 4K screens with real black, and bright colors, fancy fonts without visible pixels, and emojis. But we could fit it into DOStodon or MapSCII and it won't lose its core functionality. The marketing people are trying to invent the next generation decoration for it, but virtual reality or augmented reality that they are possible, they aren't accepted by most the people. 

=> https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOStodon
=> https://github.com/rastapasta/mapscii

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 14 Jan 2023 08:14:28 PM CET

tags: #internet, #msdos, #mastodon
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-01-14-Perception-of-what-Internet-looks-like-today.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Games</title>
<updated>2023-01-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-01-08:/gemlog/2023-01-08-Games.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Games

I mentioned here several games and board games important to me. I am playing them occasionally, so I'm a casual player in today's nomenclature. I don't have any game console unpacked and set up in a living room or something like that.

There is also always difficult to find a proper environment to play. For example, Dwarf Fortress has high hardware requirements, especially in the later stages of the game. TTD is the most accessible thanks to its open port.

But there are many games that need advanced tweaks with DOS Box config to play, despite they are very easy to run in it. Most cases for me are connected with controls and mouse sensitivity. I am using also a ScuumVM for adventure games. This is also a good thing because it's very easy to run every supported game. 

I am using also GOG.com commercially configured games for modern platforms, but not every game is marked there as Linux supported, despite it being supported by DOS Box. 

So there are many problems and obstacles to enjoying your memories. And suddenly it turns out that it can all be much simpler. There is [Software Library: MS-DOS Games] on the Internet Archive site, and you can play about 8000 titles inside your web browser. There are classic games like Prince of Persia from 1990 and 3D games like NASCAR Racing from 1994. And it's working. 

Yesterday I played Centurion: Defender of Rome from 1990. And despite that 33 years, it was a great time. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-15-dwarf-fortress.gmi 
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-07-10-Ancient-Domains-Of-Mystery.gmi
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-09-21-Transport-Tycoon-Deluxe.gmi 
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-02-12-Board-games-in-times-of-pandemics-and-in-general.gmi
=> https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games [Software Library: MS-DOS Games]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 08 Jan 2023 12:00:41 PM CET

tags: #game, #boardgame, #dwarffortress, #adom, #transporttycoon, #centurion, #nascar
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-01-08-Games.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>What I wish 2023 will bring for me</title>
<updated>2023-01-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2023-01-07:/gemlog/2023-01-07-What-I-wish-2023-will-bring-for-me.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># What I wish 2023 will bring for me

I'm thinking about a whole small-net sauce and my text-mode hobby environment which I'm using for all interactions with it. 

* I'd like to write more text e-mails (Usenet articles included) and communicate more this way. This is sick that we stop sending e-mails! 

* I had been a big XMPP/Jabber enthusiast in the Jabber era, and I still almost don't use it. I'd like to improve that area and sometimes understand it more. I have a problem with unwanted OMEMO conversations during my 'mcabber' doesn't support it, and so on. 

* I've been thinking about moving my Polish blog from Wordpress to Gemini. I've done a successful test. I didn't go with it to the public, so maybe it will happen this year. I'm not sure about this yet. Despite this, on this capsule and my gopher hole I will try to write more in English.

* I'm proud of my `tmux` text-window manager configuration, but I wish to learn to use `emacs` more, and set up a more complete working environment there. I see that it could be easier to share that setup through different machines because `emacs` config files are more transferable. So maybe I will finally implement: `gnus`, `org-mode` or `org-roam mode`, more `tramp mode`, and I will get more synergy from the tools shared in my one workspace.

* I was scripting here in Bash through last year, so maybe I will go back to hobby programming in a new programming language. There are so many inspiring small-net tools here. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 07 Jan 2023 03:32:05 PM CET

tags: #xmpp, #emacs, #gemini, #usenet, #email, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2023-01-07-What-I-wish-2023-will-bring-for-me.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Purposeful effort</title>
<updated>2022-12-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-12-18:/gemlog/2022-12-18-Purposeful-effor.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Purposeful effort

I was absent for several days in the small net. I had busy weeks with many time-consuming home and work activities. So I was able to look at selected things and I was doing it irregularly. This was my first thought then I finally did my full small web routine. And then I thought that maybe it isn't true. 

Because I had free time, which was annexed by less demanding things. So there was for eg. non-committal scrolling of eye-candy things on YouTube. It was so comfortable to sit on a couch and do so. Without any entry threshold. With a dopamine award for finding "so pleasant images". A soft sofa didn't make me travel so far to a desktop computer. In one hand, one finger, and lazy scrolling through a mobile screen. Hah! Isn't that how the whole business is organized? It's easy to lull our vigilance.

So we need a purposeful effort to browse the small net. It could be not easy, but there will be a reward. It isn't the same to hustle an hour for scrolling a big net feed and a small net content. Despite that I will consume entertaining content, that small-net one will bring the feeling of doing things right. 

What is more, I started to rethink some earlier ideas. That it isn't necessary to change whole big-net activities for small-net ones. Because that world could be a parallel experience. Of course, it could be, and it isn't possible to be only in a small net for the whole net time. But we should be aware that nothing can be done without the consent of a certain effort. The next thing fits into [TANSTAAFL]. 

=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch [TANSTAAFL]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 18 Dec 2022 08:29:00 PM CET
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-12-18-Purposeful-effor.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The smell of paper</title>
<updated>2022-12-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-12-06:/gemlog/2022-12-06-the-smell-of-paper.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The smell of paper

I haven't seen that topic earlier in the Geminispace, despite it's connected with an overall retro and nostalgic theme, which I think is near the Gemini origins. Probably many of us prefer to read paper magazines or newspapers rather than their electronic versions. There is some kind of magic, which is connected with the smell of paper. Not that real one, although sometimes the smell of printing ink is a catalyst for memories, but that feeling that we can read the real paper thing held in our hands. 

My thoughts are about Pixel Magazine, a Polish retro computer magazine published by the organiser of Pixel Heaven Festival, which went bankrupt several days ago. It was published in the years 2015-2022, but it was a reincarnation of the older Polish magazines, which are surrounded by reverence and worship by many grow up computer players. I'd like to write about them because it could be interesting and unheard of in other countries.

## Wild, wild East 

In the late eighties, Poland was freed from the impact of the Soviet Union. For decades it was uncommon to have personal computers in Poland, what was caused by the weakness of Polish money and the technological embargo set on the whole Soviet block. But in the late eighties, more and more private people brought personal computers from the West. Richer people have computers, the rest want to read about them in magazines. The magazines were also the main source of information on the immature Polish computer market. 

It was not until the mid-1990s that copyright law was also regulated, which previously did not give real owners a chance against computer pirates. The situation was so bad that there almost wasn't any legal source of computer software in Poland until the nineties. Computer software was "purchased" on the bazaars, or copied from friends, friends of friends, and so on. So there were full of software without any instructions or other materials accompanying releases in the West. People want to play computer games, and don't know where to buy them and how to play them. 

## The first computer magazines

The first computer magazines were born in this harsh environment. I remember the most:

* Top Secret (1990 - 1996) with average 100 000 copies for one issue

* Secret Service (1993 - 2001) with average 150 000 copies for one issue 

* Gambler (1993 - 1999) with average 80 000 copies for one issue

And every Polish computer player who was a child or a teenager in the nineties knows those titles. That magazines are in an important position in every memory from that time. That articles sometimes created an imaginations, which lasted to this day. Sometimes people couldn't play a computer game, because they don't had a real computer, but they could see that game on the pages of a magazine. Sometimes articles are describing fake stories of computer game worlds, because authors wrote what they thought, without knowing the real facts. Weird things were happening from today's point of view. But everyone was satisfied. That was the colorful world of our childhood. 

Of course, Polish magazines were inspired by, for example, British Crash (1984 - 1992) or Zzap!64 (1985 - 1992) with 100 000 copies in a peak. The popularity and demand for that type of magazine shifted a bit in Poland. Their popularity in Poland collapsed in the era of greater access to broadband internet and CD-R drives because people could obtain information and games without the printed press. 

## Legancy

Several years ago, as a crowdfunding campaign (collected more than 50 000 EUR), Pixel Magazine was founded. Because many people wanted to return to their childhood. Past times of standing in a shop queue for their colorful computer magazines. For many of them that was the first printed magazine after almost two decades. They got what they wanted. Many old magazines authors joined Pixel Magazine and start writing again about computer games. It's said that the reborn Pixel Magazine was wiped out by paper prices, instead of Internet and CDs like the old ones. Or despite the joy of paper print it isn't possible to go back to that childhood times? 

There is only one computer magazine in Poland, which is monthly issued now, but it's focused rather on modern computer games, and it isn't referring to the old times. 


=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_(magazine) [Pixel Magazine]

=> https://zapach-papieru.pl [fan site about Polish computer magazines]

=> https://archive.org/details/gambler_magazine [Gambler on Archive.org]

=> https://archive.org/details/secretservicemagazine [Secret Service on Archive.org]

=> https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Top+Secret+%28Polish+magazine%29%22&and[]=subject%3A%22Top+Secret+%28Polish+magazine%29%22 [Top Secret on Archive.org]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@Tue 06 Dec 2022 10:58:24 PM CET
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-12-06-the-smell-of-paper.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Gemini and the Golden Age of Air Travel</title>
<updated>2022-12-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-12-04:/gemlog/2022-12-04-Re-Gemini-and-the-Golden-Age-of-Air-Travel.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain">#Re: Gemini and the Golden Age of Air Travel

In response to:

=> gemini://szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-10-30-Mayan-and-Gemini-priests.gmi Mayan and Gemini priests

=> gemini://jsreed5.org/log/2022/202211/20221115-gemini-and-the-golden-age-of-air-travel.gmi Rob S original thought, who said that there is a barrier

=> gemini://idiomdrottning.org/gemini-gatekeeping Response of Sandra, who said about Schapcom

=> gemini://gemini.hitchhiker-linux.org/gemlog/re_gemini_and_the_golden_age_of_air_travel.gmi Response of JeanG3nie, who said that there isn't any barier

My original narration was moved a bit. I was writing about a barrier that in my opinion is set by the knowledge required to participate in the Geminispace. So reading could be easy because it is possible to use a HTTP proxy. But every aspect besides that could be a high cliff for an average newcomer. In the world of the so-called modern browser, which had rid of a protocol name from the address bar, a gemini:// prefix could be mysterious. The concept of certificates, despite it's explored also by big tech companies, could be a question. Understanding the base idea of publishing easiness, that it's so simple text protocol and you put only a text file on the Internet, sounds like black magic when people publish every information in WWW by web applications. And of course, most utilities are outside the seen world of an average user, who can't operate on a text file through the net. So... we don't have many gemlogs of young mothers, who are discussing children feeding. But we have many gemlogs which are about programming. And probably in the world are enough young mothers who would want to join here, but? We are in the programmer's bubble. And it's a barrier to joining here. 

Rob S has written about air travel which transforms from a luxury for a narrow group of people to a service available to most middle-class people. I don't know if that comparison is true. Because it isn't the volume of travelers that changes a whole air industry. Probably it's technological development caused their change in business model. It's said that passengers of the first class are worth more than the rest of the passengers of one plane. But probably it's worth transporting economic passengers because of mass tourism. And those two areas are connected in a business way. That thought lead me to the point that it could be that similarity. 

WWW is damaged by commerce, which got control over many aspects of base activities. E-commerce is like mass tourism. It isn't about selling things on the web. But advertising and other ways to earn on the web (mass consumption, like mechanism, data profiling, and so on), change the whole experience of average people. They are knowing less. They have fewer network skills. People are shaped to fit it, and the more they fit modern WWW, the bigger barrier is set to join a different small-net world. And the most of modern WWW ideas are connected with a big group of people. Because it's better to scale their businesses on the wider data and it's worth collecting many small sums of money (aka. micro transactions). 

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is simply text protocol, and Geminispace scaled by Dunbar-number-sized communities. I agree that there shouldn't be a barrier. But I am also scared by a vision of trampling our green lane with big-net habits. I've written about Mayan priests because sometimes we are forgetting about that "young mothers". 

I've enjoyed the idea of Shapcom, which I learned today. Because it's some idea of what Geminispace could look like in some time. We shouldn't repeat today's Fediverse pattern, where some instances are growing exponentially. It would be great to set up a stable uptrend. With the possibility of baking many centers of Geminispace, gathered around not-so-big communities.

I'm observing Cosmos and Antenna, from the time they birth. It was more enjoyable when they had an unknown amount of "my" things (people I know). It's natural that people want to join such places. But now sometimes I can't see any familiar names, and I often give up. So maybe it's time for setting a standard like Shapcom?

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 04 Dec 2022 08:36:11 PM CET

tags: #geminispace, #barrier, #cosmos, #antenna, #dunbarNumber, #fediverse
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-12-04-Re-Gemini-and-the-Golden-Age-of-Air-Travel.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Fediverse is growing</title>
<updated>2022-11-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-11-11:/gemlog/2022-11-11-Fediverse-is-growing.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Fediverse is growing 

There is a long discussion about Twitter on the Internet. As the result, we are observing that many users joined Fediverse. Fediverse is very varied, so it's hard to measure that. But it is said for eg. by [Mastodon Users Bot] that in the last week there were almost 700,000 new users on Mastodon. It's about 10% of the overall user base. It has an impact on every server, and probably on every timeline, there were many introductions and new faces. Of course, in comparison to the 238,000,000 Twitter user base, it isn't a big deal. However, one can risk a statement that these are the users who are closest to the idea of Fediverse. Because they were able to make an effort to change their habits. The rest of the users could change their minds as a snowball effect, the last and biggest group of them will be the least important event. They will do what they will have to do after collapsing Twitter. 

I'm active on Fediverse for about two years. It isn't a very long time. I never was a social-media man. I never had been active on Twitter or Facebook. I don't need a social-media in the most common sense. Mastodon is important for me because I got to know about Gemini there. I'm mainly browsing #Gopher and #Gemini hashtags because it's easier to get the latest information. It's probably the easiest way to interact with the biggest groups of small-net users, besides the small net. It's a handy tool for that. 

With 700,000 new users I thought about looking at the #Gemini, #Gopher, and #Finger hashtags on Mastodon, and... there isn't increased activity there. So I'm happy that there are many new users, but that wave isn't important to me. It will change Fediverse, but probably in the other direction. Maybe there will be more politics, artists, writers, filmmakers, and USA presidents... but it probably won't be more small-net content there. I was joking some time ago that the #Gemini hashtag on Twitter is looking different from that on Mastodon. So how it will look in the future? 

I've realized that, and it isn't good information. The current situation is like a special breeding ground for rare bacteria. The thought of a small network is slowly developing. Information rarely infects a new user. By increasing the surface of the experiment, we only dilute the essences. Despite the larger base, the development will slow down.

The good thing is that there are special instances of Mastodon, like for eg. sdf.org and other Pubnixes. Maybe to reconcile users and their needs there will be introduced features with Local timeline, than Federated ones, in the future. Or maybe we are observing changes, which will be made small-net discussion go somewhere else? 

=> https://mastodon.online/@mastodonusercount@bitcoinhackers.org [Mastodon Users Bot]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri 11 Nov 2022 09:37:40 PM CET

tags: #fediverse, #gemini, #gopher, #mastodon, #twitter 
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-11-11-Fediverse-is-growing.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Mayan and Gemini priests</title>
<updated>2022-10-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-10-30:/gemlog/2022-10-30-Mayan-and-Gemini-priests.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Mayan and Gemini priests

There is a short discussion with #Gemini hashtag on Mastodon where a barrier term came up. It's about accessing Geminispace, where reading and writing is limited to people who has knowledge how to do this. It's true that there is a technical barrier. People must learn to do things in a special way to overcome that. I appreciate that it is so. Probably many of us appreciate that. So we are a new caste of Gemini priests? 

Like a Mayan priests (and several other historical examples) who had a power to rule (in a direct or indirect way) the whole society. Mayan priests had a knowledge of astronomy, astrology and calendar/time. Gemini priests have a knowledge to do a real network communication. There are no any abilities to control a whole society, but this is a key to enter or not enter that better world. So you can be an ordinary account in the world of big social network, or an awaken man. Is it some cyberpunk theme there? 

So maybe Gemini violates certain boundaries of equality? Because it is dividing people? In opposition stands an argument that theoretically everyone can learn and that knowledge isn't limited in any way. Practically it's obvious that not everyone can join that part of the net. And probably there are a group of people who isn't welcomed here. 

It's interesting way of thinking about Gemini. Because there were many positive way of do so. And accidentally we came up to thing that it's a special closed club. So we remember net from the several decades ago, where the net was driven by university graduates and widely understood people of science. So people then were taught how to use a net. The rest was outside a net. 

It's worth to say that the situation in the big net isn't better today. Because people are put on the net, but they can't use it. In the most cases university role is hijacked by a commerce. So we are selling you this and that, and you can use it in that way. But as the result of commerce movement a net became common. And the caste is dissatisfied. However it sounds, it could be true. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 30 Oct 2022 09:08:48 PM CET

tags: #smallnet

## Responses

=> gemini://idiomdrottning.org/gemini-priests
=> gemini://gemini.ctrl-c.club/~stack/gemlog/2022-11-01.mayan.gmi
=> gemini://gemini.hitchhiker-linux.org/gemlog/re_mayan_and_gemini_priests.gmi
=> gemini://jsreed5.org/log/2022/202211/20221103-barriers-to-gemini.gmi
=> gemini://gemini.clehaxze.tw/gemlog/2022/11-07-mental-barrier-and-culture-of-gemini.gmi
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-10-30-Mayan-and-Gemini-priests.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>We are obscured</title>
<updated>2022-10-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-10-21:/gemlog/2022-10-21-We-are-obscured.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># We are obscured

I visited friends. We have common interests, but many of them are separate. Many of them also have some affiliation with IT. We were sitting around a big table and chatting. There were many topics of discussion, but that wasn't a chitchat. Often there was some research studies theme, and there were many serious information source. 

One of the side topic of that discussion was blogging. The most of them took for granted that there are no blogs today. That there are no any people who will read two screens of text on a computer screen. That that times has gone.

I didn't want to start discussion from the technical side so I began to say carefully that maybe places like Neocities are an example of how otherwise. There was not much understanding of this topic. Perhaps they were not prepared to make such a discovery.

So we are obscured. The idea of make a step backward to the neo-WWW, or text-based Internet of Gopher or Gemini isn't attractive for everyone. Even for a group of curious people.

-- 
szczezuja.space
@ Fri 21 Oct 2022 09:59:24 PM CEST

tags: #smallnet, #gemini, #neocities
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-10-21-We-are-obscured.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The calming session</title>
<updated>2022-10-09T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-10-09:/gemlog/2022-10-09-The-calming-session.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The calming session

Sometimes a day is too short for every planned activity or we don't have enough energy to complete them all. I had been abroad for some time, and shortly before that, I couldn't focus on the small-net routines. The result was less visible writing here. And when you aren't regularly in, you start to become out. So I start missing more and more entries of Antenna and Bongusta aggregators. And I stop responding to the Cosmos threads. My capsule is moving in space silently and is invisible.

But it wasn't that I did nothing. I've tuned up my Astrobotany script, which frees me from the obligation to water the plant. I didn't want to kill my plant like Deerbard, but I was also a little fed up with looking after it. The Tamagotchi of the Geminispace is now operated from crontab, and the script is available on my Git repository. 

Despite this, I had felt like being outside of the Geminispace. I started thinking that maybe the feeling was gone and the routine was here. That's how many around, I got tired. No, it wasn't that!

Yesterday I sat at my table, with my second laptop (Linux one). It's bigger, and I haven't used it frequently. I've set the terminal application to full-screen mode, and then I've connected to my remote text-only environment. I'm browsing the Geminispace and Gophersphere from my mobile, tablet, and sometimes from GUI (Lagrange browser) but the most satisfying sessions I always made from the text mode. 

The screen is big, and the text on the larger laptop is sharp and in the color theme which I feel more old school, there is only tmux with many windows and panes. It isn't any fancy mobile screen with unnecessary decorations. 

The tmux panes and windows are set in the order of choice. I did as always read of weather forecast from fingerclub.sh script, reading from GTL, and a short look at astrobotanyring.sh. I looked at my mail on the SDF.org by neomutt. The next I refreshed my Comitium feed, and start browsing it in Elpher browser. It is always different with this, sometimes it seems more interesting to me is Geminispace, another time Gophersphere. Yesterday I browsed more the second one. It made me move quicker and quicker, so I add short status to my Tinylog and to my Gopherhole. I also browsed Mastodon #gopher and #gemini hashtag feeds. 

Because I was locked in the text mode, I start to adopting to it after such a long break. It's like an eye in a dark room. After a while, I feel satisfied and calm. There were so many interesting topics, and the text presentation is attractive. In the end, I went to the tilde.institute, where I picked up some interesting accounts and the quote of the day (mentioned on my Tinylog).

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 09 Oct 2022 07:33:29 PM CEST

tags: #life, #cli, #text
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-10-09-The-calming-session.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Transport Tycoon Deluxe</title>
<updated>2022-09-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-09-21:/gemlog/2022-09-21-Transport-Tycoon-Deluxe.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Transport Tycoon Deluxe

Many years ago I played Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The game with an isometric view, where a player can organize road, train, plane, or sea transport. I hadn't had any idea how to play this game then. So I was playing again and again. I've been discovering more and more game mechanics. I've learned also to like jazz music, because the original TTD has jazz like playlist, with the characteristic Moanin' by Art Blakey-like song. So TTD changed my life. 

I've read [Another Oldie but Goldie: OpenTTD] by ew0k and it's reminded me that I also must write about it. I still like to play, the same as it used to be. With the open implementation called Open Transport Tycoon, it's easy to play on today's hardware. There are also many improvements in the game controls, ergonomics, and new features. But the core is still the same, and it's so playable. Game graphics isn't aged too much. It's still so enjoyable to look at the developed company, with many vehicles. 

I've sat with my child to play OpenTTD, and it seems that the original idea of TTD is still attractive. There are many ways to play, but I'm always tempted by the long trains. 

* Choose the region with several bigger cities, which could be connected with rails (not too far)

* The cities should demand food or goods (some processed product)

* The cities should be near some factory, and some raw material which is accepted by that factory, and that factory should give a processed product

* You should share rails (for example the same route are going passenger train, the raw material train and the processed product train)

* I choose in most cases two trains with 5 cars, and two-platforms stations (per one material/product)

* I use semaphores for organizing rails (so as to keep the number of tracks as low as possible)

* The most problem is passengers (because in the short time they will be too many to transport with two trains)

With that starting point schema, you will be rich, and you could play longer. 


=> gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2022-09-17-another-oldie-but-goldie-openttd.gmi [Another Oldie but Goldie: OpenTTD]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 21 Sep 2022 08:24:27 PM CEST

tags: #game
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-09-21-Transport-Tycoon-Deluxe.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The best way to organize the catalog</title>
<updated>2022-09-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-09-18:/gemlog/2022-09-18-The-best-way-to-organize-the-catalog.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The best way to organize the catalog 

I've been writing about some experiences with the small-net [fog of war]. I'm facing a permanent state of forgetting and excitement of finding the same things. The search engines aren't providing the solution to this problem. Their results are almost always disappointing. There are also several catalogs, which try to organize things in an old-school way. The indexes are like it was used to be in the '90s. But they are also like a walk in a disorderly maintained garden. Some information is in good order, and the rest is obscured by bushes and black weeds. 

And we have [Collaborative Directory of Geminispace] announced. What are the most modern achievements in the internet directories business? It seems that there aren't many of them, and we are still in the '90s. So we had failed with the [medusae.space Gemini directory], and we have only a promise that it will be better with the CDG. And it's all. 

I have a strange feeling that we haven't achieved much in these decades of IT development. Because IT stands for Information technology, and it's all about storing data. And we don't have many good ideas about how to organize it. The only thing that we are knowing is that the Google's approach isn't good. So we are copying the '90s catalog concept. We can add to it some AI, but all buzzy artificial intelligence is about some simple heuristics and they can't revolutionize that problem. We can add social abilities, so if we can't do that then probably some people (but who?) will do it.

It is said that the beginning of the Gopher protocol history had some [librarian background], and the data was to be organized as the professionals want to.

> Gopher software has emerged rapidly as a powerful tool for providing library users with organized access to Internet resources. Building and maintaining Gophers is one way in which librarians' traditional knowledge and skills are being applied in a nontraditional area. In March 1992, the University of Michigan's ULibrary Gopher was created, mainly as a means of providing access to U.S. Census data and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Bulletin Board. In an effort to broaden the scope of the Gopher, librarians were asked to submit ideas for new resources to access. The result was the ULibrary Gopher Working Group, a team of eighteen librarians from six libraries on campus.

So we are looking for a professional librarian to enhance the Geminispace with a properly organized directory. But there is another possibility. That the whole concept of a well-crafted catalog, of every topic in the small net, can't be done. That it's impossible to change over time index, which should be capacious and fit every topic, which we even can't describe at the starting point. Maybe we are tempted by Google's marketing promises and it's some kind of the Perpetuum mobile. It is normal that we cannot see everything?

Last but not least is a question about seeing everything. Because if it's correct that we can't do so, we should focus on the idea of the local data. So we are set on some local context, where we are seeing some subset of the whole data. For example, the closest set of blogrolls (for example 10 people with the most recent 10 blogroll entries) is a whole zone of interest. And then, if there will be a need to direct attention to something new, probably it will show on one of the local blogrolls. And that will be enough. I think I lean towards the latter approach.


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-04-22-The-fog-of-war-and-the-smallnets-search-engines.gmi [The fog of war]
=> gemini://gemini.thegonz.net/glog/220914-collaborativeDirectoryOfGeminispace.gmi [Collaborative Directory of Geminispace]
=> gemini://medusae.space/index.gmi [medusae.space Gemini directory]
=> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC226032/ [librarian background]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 18 Sep 2022 07:15:16 PM CEST

tags: #searching, #gemini, #gopher, #directory
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-09-18-The-best-way-to-organize-the-catalog.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The most popular Gemini hosting</title>
<updated>2022-08-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-08-28:/gemlog/2022-08-28-The-most-popular-Gemini-hosting.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The most popular Gemini hosting

I've constructed some (ugly) one liner:

* Connect and get the list of capsules from [auragem.space]
* Filter gemini:// addresses (first grep)
* Filter domain names from above (sed)
* Filter second-level domain names from above (second grep)
* Sort, count unique names and sort by counted 

> openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -connect auragem.space:1965 <<< gemini://auragem.space/search/capsules 2>/dev/null | grep -oP 'gemini://[^ ]+' | sed -e 's/[^/]*\/\/\([^@]*@\)\?\([^:/]*\).*/\2/' | grep -oP '[^\.]+\.[^\.]+$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less

Bellow the current output of this script. 

```
 551 flounder.online
 157 yesterweb.org
 152 smol.pub
 27 srht.site
 19 pollux.casa
 19 midnight.pub
 16 e-worm.club
 8 archipielago.uno
 7 chilliet.eu
 6 omarpolo.com
 6 glv.one
 6 geminet.org
 5 thebackupbox.net
 5 ddns.net
 5 circumlunar.space
 4 tilde.cafe
 4 sysrq.in
 4 shpakovsky.ru
 4 mozz.us
 4 mooo.com
 4 lyk.so
 4 hispagatos.org
 4 gluonspace.com
 4 co.uk
 4 clttr.info
 4 capsule.town
 4 bacardi55.io
 3 wetterberg.nu
 3 smol.space
 3 sdf.org
 3 retroforth.org
 3 phreedom.club
 3 opossum.digital
 3 om.gay
 3 dimakrasner.com
 3 bortzmeyer.org
```

=> gemini://auragem.space/search/capsules [auragem.space]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 28 Aug 2022 05:25:52 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #bash
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-08-28-The-most-popular-Gemini-hosting.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Why is the cosmos the theme of Gemini?</title>
<updated>2022-08-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-08-21:/gemlog/2022-08-21-Why-is-the-cosmos-the-theme-of-Gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Why is the cosmos the theme of Gemini?

It's interesting that the Gemini protocol is in most cases identified with the cosmos. It's probably the first time when raw technical specification in the common belief is fitting some theme. There are of course lots of clues. So the origin of the Gemini is the Circumlunar Space, which mentions its [backstory] as one of the space opera novels. The second important place is the Gemini protocol [faq] which is describing the protocol name origin. But there is no obligation to follow this route. 

So there aren't many things in the Gophersphere that are connected with a gopher rodent. Gophersphere isn't conceptually related to a burrow. But the Geminispace, with its space prefix, for me, is a very cosmos-oriented name. 

And we are browsing the World Wide Web for many decades, and again there aren't many things that are connected with a spider or a spider's web. Or I missed something. I am reading now on Wikipedia that for eg. "A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler". I hear such a phrase for the first time, and it's obvious to use a word crawler for it. [History of the web browser] doesn't show any important spider-themed web browsers. 

But in the Geminispace we have: capsules, Station, Antenna, Cosmos, Lagrange, Constellation, Transit, Orbit, Wormhole (updated courtesy of ew's) and many cosmos ASCII-arts decorating many places there. It's said that Gemini protocol is a representation of The Dark Forest theory (mentioned in Liu Cixin's Sci-Fi novel) but besides the theory name, it's also connected with space, not with woodland.

So there are not many Gemini Woods in the Geminispace. 

``` ASCII-art of a forrest with Gemini Woods caption
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ _( ___ _ ) __ ( ┃
┃( _( )_ ) ) _( _)_ ( / _ ┃
┃ (_ \ ) ) ( ) (_ ( ) ┃
┃(_ ) ) (_, _) ( _) ┃
┃ (__. :__) _) || _ ( _)┃
┃ | | || |/ (*)_ || ┃
┃ \ | __||_,|.,_|| ( * )_| ┃
┃ _| |_ ( * * ) ┃
┃ ```` _____ll __ ┃
┃,_'__ ___..,___ .., `` ┃
┗━━━━━━━[ GEMINI WOODS ]━━━━━━━━┛
``` 

=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/backstory [backstory]
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi [faq]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_web_browser [History of the web browser]
=> http://www.photonstorm.com/tags/ascii [forest ASCII-art inspiration]
=> gemini://ew.srht.site/en/2021/20210706-terms-in-gemini-space.gmi [~ew's list]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 21 Aug 2022 05:32:07 PM CEST
@ Sun 21 Aug 2022 08:51:02 PM CEST V1.1 [~ew's list]

tags: #ascii-art, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-08-21-Why-is-the-cosmos-the-theme-of-Gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>WordPress to Gemini</title>
<updated>2022-07-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-07-30:/gemlog/2022-07-30-Wordpress-to-Gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># WordPress to Gemini

I was surprised by the response in the poll about [which link mode would feel the most natural for Gemini?], there were several options and to put links at the end of the article was almost the least popular answer. 

Some time ago I've started to organize my articles in the same way. I had been adding links in the Gopher style, with numbering them like [1], [2], [3], ..., [n], and puting the index of links at the end of the article. But then Przemek said, that he had an idea to put descriptions of the links, instead of their occurrence number. And I liked that idea. It's better when we can read an article without looking at the links, and after that to look at the index of every link with their description. So we can process an article, or an index in a separate way. 

This whole thing reminded me that I have been thinking about migrating my WordPress blog to the Geminispace. I was even writing some script to migrate XML export on my own. But as I've seen (the obvious thing) that there is [a script for migrating from Markdown to Gemtext]. So I also found (the second obvious thing) that there is [a script for migrating from WordPress to Markdown]. 

So I don't have to write a script on my own. I don't migrate at this moment, but I'm getting closer to this decision. Probably I would move my Polish blog here, rather than only duplicate it. 


=> https://mastodon.technology/@rysiek/108727227462469203 [which link mode would feel the most natural for Gemini?]
=> https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/md2gemini [a script for migrating from Markdown to Gemtext]
=> https://github.com/lonekorean/wordpress-export-to-markdown [a script for migrating from WordPress to Markdown]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 30 Jul 2022 05:34:06 PM CEST

tags: blog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-07-30-Wordpress-to-Gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM)</title>
<updated>2022-07-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-07-10:/gemlog/2022-07-10-Ancient-Domains-Of-Mystery.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM)

I have two text UI games which I love. I had played them once, then I was playing them many times through time, and I can always play them again. It doesn't matter if I haven't played them for some time, because I'm feeling always like I am at home. One of that games I described almost a year ago in [Dwarf Fortress]. The second one is [ADOM].

I don't remember how I started to play. ADOM is so old that in my memories it's convergent with the beginning of the PC's gaming era. I must read about it in one Roguelike-games article. Why did I start to play the text UI game? Probably because I'm writing many simple text games of life in BASIC. With colorful ASCII characters. So the ADOM must had been looking very familiar to me. But all of this is unclear now. Especially that there were many games, with hi-res graphics mode, which I also want to play then. For unknown reasons, however, I played in ADOM.

There were many attempts. In ADOM you must learn how to survive.

* So you are walking on the world map (arrows keys), or inside highlighted places like towns or caves (to go down or enter > key, to go up < key). 

* You must look (l key)

* You must search (s key) for hidden doors, open them (o key) or kick them out (k key).

* You must look for food and eat (e).

* You should learn to read to cast spells (Z key), or use a magic wand (z key). 

* You can also shoot arrows or throw a rock (t key).

And probably you will die in the wilderness attacked by a group of wolfs. And again, and again the same. You must start from the nearest town and the first cave. The next caves aren't for a newbie. So you aren't allowed to enter the Tower of Eternal Flames without protection from the heat. You will search the Dwarftown, and if you wouldn't be prepared you will also die. If you don't die, a curse awaits you when you will spot a karmic lizard. ADOM was created before the special game term "iron mode" was invented, and after the death the save file is automatically deleted.

I didn't play ADOM for a few years, and I've discovered that there is a graphic version now. I've chosen the ASCII one again, and I was surprised that there were many improvements also. So now playing in ADOM is so comfortable. There are many hints of useful in current situation keybindings. And there is 0 key, what is something like an autopilot for rougelike games. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-15-dwarf-fortress.gmi [Dwarf Fortress]
=> https://www.adom.de/home/index.html [ADOM]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 10 Jul 2022 03:14:24 PM CEST

tags: #game, #adom, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-07-10-Ancient-Domains-Of-Mystery.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Terminal Programs I Like</title>
<updated>2022-06-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-06-26:/gemlog/2022-06-26-Re-terminal-programs-i-like.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Terminal Programs I Like

Inspired by [Kelbot's list], [Www-gem's list] and [Agk's article]. 

My daily routines include working in many different environments. So I'm working on a Windows platform at work, an Android platform on work mobile, an Apple platform on all home mobiles and one home computer, a GNU/Linux platform on my home laptop.

For the last two years, I'm also using the command line and text-only user interface (aka. TUI) in my free time, when I'm browsing the small-net. Each platform is built on different goals and purposes. But the most attention now I'm paying to the TUI environment, which I'm building from the scratch, solving new and new needs, and exploring the new functionalities. I'm GNU/Linux user for about two decades, but working only in text mode is a new challenge. It isn't a sort of ascetic experience, but it requires a change of point of view. Which then leads to surprising conclusions and convenient processes.

While I'm getting into the TUI, I'm thinking about how to bring people closer to that idea. It seems to be the basis of computer use, what is forgotten. Probably it isn't too many places, where people could be teach taught. For me, the most inspiring things were the list of using software, so I made the list as below. 

## ssh, ssh-keygen, sshfs, sftp

It's obvious but maybe would be helpful for some newcomers. Rather than setting up your own computer, you can obtain a free shell account (for eg. SDF.org, Tilde.club, RawText.club) and connect to it via SSH. You should use the public key authenticate method, instead of ordinary password. You could also use remote directories via sshfs, or publish to them by sftp. 

## git, gitui

After a while, it is a good idea to backup your text files to the remote repository. Git could do that, and at the same time, it's solving things with files version control or automation (hooks could for example publish after commit, etc.).

I'm using gitui for TUI for git.

## mutt, gpg

The first thing to work in TUI is to set up an e-mail client for an e-mail account, which probably exists on the system from the beginning. I'm using mutt for it. 

You should use Pretty Good Privacy via gpg and communicate with public and private keys to sign or encrypt your messages. 

## vim

To create messages in mutt you will need a text editor. I am using vim as the default one, so I set in $EDITOR environment variable. Vim could extend its functionalities with options in a configuration file or by plugins. For mutt it's a good idea to set `set textwidth=72` for wrapping text after the 72nd character in a line. 

Every editor could also use system spelling, by setting for eg. `set spell spelllang=en`.

## emacs

As a text editor, I'm using also emacs. You could use it, but emacs is far more than only a text editor, what you can explore later.

## finger

The next built-in command is finger. It's a forgotten technology from the past century, which could provide information for users on every machine on the net. Because you could also publish content of a .plan and .project file people are saying that it's the first social network in the world.

You could check my last status via finger szczezuja@szczezuja.space.

## gtl

The easiest way to publish on the Internet is to publish a text file. If you have a possibility to use a Gemini server you could put a diary into the so-called Tinylog format. I'm using a gtl aggregator to read many tinylogs in one place. 

## $BROWSER

To surf the text-Internet you will need a browser for several protocols like Gopher, Gemini, and WWW. To unify that world, I've set up a Bash [script] in the $BROWSER environment variable.

### amfora

Geminispace browser. 

### elpher

Gophersphere and Geminispace browser mode for emacs. 

### w3m

WWW text browser with the ability to render images. 

## toot

For browsing Fediverse, I'm using toot with tui option. 

## mcabber

For real-time communication, I'm using XMPP/Jabber client mcabber. 

## slrn

The next forgotten and ancient technology, which I try to use is Usenet. For it I'm using slrn client. 

## Bash scripting, less

I've written several [scripts] to process output from the above commands for my convenience. It is easy to write into a temporary file and look at it via less command (where you can scroll up and down, or search for text). 

### sed

It is convenient to know the basics of sed command to process a line of text.

### awk

It is convenient to know the basics of awk command to process tabular text data.

### openssl

You could use it to read Gemini page from the command line or script. 

## tmux

The last word must be about managing many windows. In TUI environment we have tmux, which is the same thing as any graphical windows manager (especially tilled one), but made in text. So I write the next obvious thing, that you can have many windows, split main view into several windows, have many views, switch between views and windows, select text and do copy&paste... without mouse and drawing fancy icons or decorations. 


=> gemini://gemini.cyberbot.space/terminal/termprogs.gmi [Kelbot's list]
=> https://mastodon.online/web/@wwwgem@social.linux.pizza/108501596821025037 [Www-gem's list]
=> gopher://sdf.org/0/users/agk/phlog/2022-06-07-sdf.txt [Agk's article]
=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts [scripts]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 26 Jun 2022 01:18:33 PM CEST

tags: #cli, #howto, #tmux, #life
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-06-26-Re-terminal-programs-i-like.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Astrobotany plant ring</title>
<updated>2022-06-19T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-06-19:/gemlog/2022-06-19-Astrobotany-plant-ring.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Astrobotany plant ring

I had written earlier that it would be great to have a finger interface for checking plants on Astrobotany. It's sometimes a waste of time to check every plant of our interest. Sometimes it's hard to remember all plants of our friends. So I could use my [finger club.sh] to check them all at the one time. But there isn't finger support on Astrobotany. 

On the other hand, the Gemini protocol is thought to automate simple tasks. So we can in an easy way parse every page and to summary information that we are interested in. So I've written a second script [astrobotany ring.sh] which is doing that.

So every time we ran the script, we are launching the Gemini browser of our choice (for eg. amfora) with Astrobotany links in water status order, from the most withering plants. The link of every line is set to the app page, where a user with a valid certificate could water that plant. Swiftly and with style, as Monsieur Alfonse was saying.

=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/fingerclub.sh [finger club.sh]
=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/astrobotanyring.sh [astrobotany ring.sh]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 19 Jun 2022 03:37:10 PM CEST

tags: #astrobotany, #bash, #script, #cli
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-06-19-Astrobotany-plant-ring.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: using Vim and Emacs</title>
<updated>2022-06-16T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-06-16:/gemlog/2022-06-16-Re-Using-Vim-and-Emcas.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain">#Re: using Vim and Emacs

In response to [Embracing Vanilla Emacs as a Vim user].

In the first words, I'm happy that Matto is mentioned in [smolZINE - Issue 28] and he is publishing on the Geminispace. We were mailing about one article on his Gopherhole, and as I saw then, he had been publishing only there, and on the Web. 

Backing to the main topic, after my [Enlightenment in Emacs] I'm still using Vim and Emacs at the same time. I've organized it by some use cases. I'm using Emacs for Gophersphere, with Elpher for reading, and as an editor for writing. I've choosen Emacs for writing because it has superior text alignment functions, as I've written in [Emacs and Gopher]. 

It isn't a problem to do all tasks in Emacs, but the rest things I'm writing in Vim. Sometimes Vim can be better to do some things, for example, it has a better auto-completion function. In Emacs, there isn't a built-in function like Vim's CTRL+N dialog. Some corresponding functions, like for eg. spelling, are still handier in Vim for me. Separating modes in Vim are cool on the one hand and not on the other. Sometimes is more natural to just write text, as in Emacs. 

Of course, Vim and Emacs are two different worlds, with several totally different base concepts. Emacs goes outside an editor area as a full programming environment, while Vim is mainly a text editor with a (advanced) plugin system. And it's ok, I can live with both of them. 


=> gemini://box.matto.nl/vim2emacs.gmi [Embracing Vanilla Emacs as a Vim user]
=> gemini://gemini.cyberbot.space/smolzine/smolzine-issue-28.gmi [smolZINE - Issue 28]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-03-19-Enlightenment-in-emacs.gmi [Enlightenment in Emacs]
=> gopher://sdf.org/0/users/szczezuja/phlog/2022-03-22-Emacs-and-gopher.txt [Emacs and Gopher]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu 16 Jun 2022 11:53:37 AM CEST

tags: #vim, #emacs, #cli, #elpher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-06-16-Re-Using-Vim-and-Emcas.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>ThinkPad T530</title>
<updated>2022-06-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-06-12:/gemlog/2022-06-12-ThinkPad-T530.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># ThinkPad T530

I am using a ThinkPad T530 laptop, which I bought brand new. It was shipped with Windows 7, but from the first time, I installed Ubuntu. I'm using this OS from the beginning of Ubuntu distribution and my everyday GNU/Linux usage. There were two laptops before this Thinkpad. The last one is now ten years old, and it let me down almost two years ago. It shook the entire look on GNU/Linux of my own. Because after the last upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS it failed all the way. 

I had been doing many dist-upgrades, in the early years to almost every alpha, and beta version. Later due to a lack of free time for the LTS version. And latest upgrade leads to the situation where OS stops to support properly graphical and a WiFi card. I tried to figure out the cause, but the quick fixes didn't work. I had read about `backport-iwlwifi-dkms` which should support my Intel card. I had been proud of Intel hardware, because of its hassle-free support of GNU/Linux. So it was shocking to me that it stopped working in the LTS version. I didn't have free time, and WiFi support and the whole OS is terribly slow because of a problem with the graphical card. And I gave up for many months. 

Today I accidentally fixed it up by switching from kernel 5.4 (GA) to 5.13 (HWE). I was afraid of doing this, because I had been thinking that situation could be only worse, but it isn't. I still had a problem with `backport-iwlwifi-dkms` on 5.13, but it isn't necessary. The problem with graphic card is also solved. Everything that I saw on /linux-hardware.org/, which confirmed to me that there could be a problem with the hardware support, isn't true for me.

So I bring this machine back to the GNU/Linux world. I put my specification probe to the public as below. 

=> https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=cf21c4e831

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 12 Jun 2022 07:16:13 PM CEST

tags: #linux, #life
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-06-12-ThinkPad-T530.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>My map of the galaxy</title>
<updated>2022-05-29T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-05-29:/gemlog/2022-05-29-My-map-of-the-galaxy.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># My map of the galaxy

``` ASCII-art representing the nearest objects in my neighborhood 
........................................+...............:..........+............
'.........................sky.....sol'........................ged...............
................smo.......j*a.....e*n.........................d*i...............
......+.........l*........ke-:....e--....mat..................t--....'..:.......
................pub...............'......t*o........'...........................
........flo..............................---.dee.................zai............
........u*n........................'.........r*b.................b*a............
........der......................tin.........ard.................tsu:...........
.............................gop.y*l........bon........'........................
...................+.....cos.h*c.ogs........g*u.................ngh......'..'...
.........:...............m*o.lub..+......szcsta..'..............t*c.............
.....................bac.s--.............z*e....................ity.............
...............:.....r*d............ant..zja..:......:.....ew0..................
.......+........'....i55............e*n....................k*-..................
....................tom.............na-..ast....'....bau...---..................
...............:....a*s..................r*o...dis...d*b.+..................+...
...............:'...ino..................btn...c*r...aby........................
.......................nyt.....................ust..............................
..................:....p*u......................................................
.......................---...spa................................................
.....................+....:..c*w.....................+..........................
.............................alk....:.csv..................................'....
......................................o*y.......................................
..........................+...........age.........+.....................'.......
...........................................................'...............+....
```

We all are in the galaxy of small-net. Our Gemini capsules are considered lonely objects lost somewhere in space. They could be known, or go unnoticed for eternity. Sometimes we are communicating to the nearest and known object, which is creating a galaxy neighborhood. I always want to create a map of that, so here you are. It could be useless, it could be beautiful.

=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/galactic.sh [galactic.sh]

=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/galactic.dat [galactic.dat]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC SA-BY
@ Sun 29 May 2022 03:54:06 PM CEST

tags: #bash, #script, #map
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-05-29-My-map-of-the-galaxy.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>What is the difference between Usenet and social media?</title>
<updated>2022-04-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-24:/gemlog/2022-04-24-What-is-the-difference-between-usenet-and-social-media.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># What is the difference between Usenet and social media?

There must be some link between Usenet and social media. Even in the Wikipedia article on [Social media], the Usenet is mentioned in the "Early computing" paragraph. There aren't direct connections between them, but for common sense, they must have something in common. Social media for sure could be one of the causes of a decrease in Usenet popularity. 

Wikipedia's definition of social media noted key concepts like: so-called "web 2.0" applications; with user-generated content; with users profiles; with ability to create social networks. For "web 2.0" applications: tagging; dynamic content; mass participation (from "people who tended to be hackers and computer hobbyists to a wider variety of users"). 

So the main distinction here is a package. Because the Usenet isn't an application or service (there are many such applications, called clients). But people on the Usenet generate content and have some sort of profiles. Their profiles (internet avatars) of course are limited to their e-mails footers, and information provided that way; or simply by sending address. There is always the ability to create social contacts on the Usenet. In every group people, after a while, people are knowing each other. Sometimes it's involving contacts besides the Internet. 

But the Usenet doesn't fit "web 2.0" guidelines. Many groups have rather strict rules for posting (which involve client settings, the technical side of posts like encodings or substantive content connected with group topic). The Usenet is more serious. So it couldn't be mass participated.

Usenet is also well categorized. There isn't a need for tagging, because its content isn't ad-hoc, and it should be planned (for eg. I will post my article about fishing to the fisher's group, nor teacher's group, and so on. 

The above could lead us to a thesis that social media are less serious. I don't know why "serious" people were moved to them and left the Usenet rather empty. They abandoned the established order in favor of content in quite random or short form. 

The next thing which I am thinking about is the purpose of publishing. It isn't mentioned in Wikipedia's definition. But it seems that publishing on social media is self-centered. So it is my profile, and I can put on it what I want to do. If you "like" it, you could join my profile. The Usenet seems to be more conversation-centered. So if I post an article to the Usenet, I am planning to discuss it with others. And with that expectation, my article must be more complex and more thoughtful. If they wouldn't be other users could even blame the author for it. 

So we could fall in love with "web 2.0" abilities from the technical side, and that could lead to left more complex opinions in the flavor of ad-hoc flying thoughts. It could be at the beginning also motivated by the technical side of "web 2.0" applications, where short content fits better their limited functionality. After some time we are stuck with that stopgap, because - if something works then why overpay? 

However, not all is lost. I was surprised by [Statistics about a group] on the aioe.org news server. There are still many active groups! There is also [Big-8 Management Board] which start working. The `comp.infosystems.gemini` group was created, and the `comp.software.shareware.announce` was removed. Now the Usenet needs active users only. 

=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media [Social media]
=> https://news.aioe.org/tools/statistics-about-groups/ [Statistics about a group]
=> https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Main_Page [Big-8 Management Board]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 24 Apr 2022 10:49:06 AM CEST

tags: #usenet, #socialmedia
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-24-What-is-the-difference-between-usenet-and-social-media.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The fog of war and the small-net search engines</title>
<updated>2022-04-22T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-22:/gemlog/2022-04-22-The-fog-of-war-and-the-smallnets-search-engines.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The fog of war and the small-net search engines

The more I browse the small net, the more I'm suffering from a lack of reliable search engines. We have several projects, which are aiming to build a search engine that could be the same as their big-net relatives. The truth is that they are not working too well. During the writing of this paragraph, I tried to search Gopher Lawn and Medusae Gemini Directory with them, and I failed. So the common result of current search engines is many entries in, what seems to be, random order. We are at the beginning of the path. It's worth saying that during gathering answers about how Gophersphere was in the 90s' one of the common answers was the problem with slow search engines!

When I am getting unsatisfactory results I start to think about a better form of a query string. Maybe that search engines are good, but it's some lack of my skill causing lots of random entries. But probably they don't, and it's caused by too simple algorithms of the search engines or limitation of indexed content (for eg. only titles). 

We are like in the fog of war. I'm repeatably discovering the same addresses, which I am forgetting later. The most information on what is trendy now on the small net I obtain on recent Gemlogs' entries, and Blogrolls on various Capsules. On the one of the Gopherhole, I learned by accident that /taz.de/ (it's one of the biggest newspapers) offers its sites on the small net (Gopher and Gemini). How can such information be found less randomly?

I'm thinking how it was about the WWW years ago. The situation was probably the same. The first advanced algorithm was introduced in the Altavista search engine (1995-2013). The first version of the Google search engine was published in 1996. Of course the current situation of the world visible on the first pages of Google is sick, and the original PageRank algorithm now is distorted. It's supporting goals for which searching for an ordinary user isn't a priority (more collecting data and selling products based on that data).

I don't remember how "everything" on the WWW was settled down. I was then an active user, and this is a forgotten part of my Internet experience. How is it that the use of certain websites or services is obvious? So for searching, I am doing that pattern of activities. For checking the weather another one. For news the third one.

That knowledge of how to use the small net isn't set up for me yet.

## Search engines

### Gopher

=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/7/v2/ [Veronica II]

=> gopher://gopher.icu/7/quarry [Quarry]

### Gemini

=> gemini://geminispace.info/ [Geminispace.info]

=> gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev/ [Kennedy Search Gemini space]

=> gemini://tlgs.one/ [TLGS]

=> gemini://auragem.space/ [AuraGem]

## Indexes or catalogues 

### Gopher

=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr/1/ogup [Observable Gopherspace Universe Project]

=> gopher://bitreich.org:70/1/lawn [Gopher Lawn]

### Gemini

=> gemini://gemini.bortzmeyer.org/software/lupa/stats.gmi [Lupa]

=> gemini://medusae.space/index.gmi [Medusae.space Gemini Directory]

If you are aware of addresses which should be added here, contact me by e-mail.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri 22 Apr 2022 12:00:18 PM CEST
@ Sun 24 Jul 2022 10:54:31 AM CEST V1.1

tags: #gemini, #gopher, #smallnet, #searching
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-22-The-fog-of-war-and-the-smallnets-search-engines.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Is the ancient gophermap concept still a good idea?</title>
<updated>2022-04-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-18:/gemlog/2022-04-18-is-the-ancient-gophermap-concept-still-a-good-idea.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Is the ancient gophermap concept still a good idea?

One of the most visible differences between Gopher and WWW or Gemini is the concept of Gophermap. This concept is something that could be easily misunderstood. Because there is not any distinction between menu or structure pages and content on other platforms. It’s hard to get all nuisances of that division. 

We could imagine that in the early years of the Internet it had been handy to extract the structure of site navigation. The main purpose of that must have been an efficient way of transferring that part of every site. It could have been also the only way to minimize things which are needed to be done on the client side. All that things are now only artificial limitations without any purpose in the modern fast and broadband networks. 

But the idea of overall hierarchy of Gopher holes (sites) could be not so obsolete as it seems to be. After all, on every modern site, we invent a way to create a navigation structure. And after it, we build it into page content. If we would think about it, it doesn’t make sense to do so. 

We have now also the whole movement of making that mixed structure and content pages more readable (so-called WCAG specifications). Because many of that self-made ideas, of menu and sites structure, aren’t well done. Sometimes there is problematic to navigate them for ordinary people. 

So we are trying to invent the wheel again. We started from the Gophermap idea, then make the step into the world without any limitations in the area of site navigation, to realize that this simple element of every site takes too much effort to be well done and start to standardize it. 

The second interesting thing about Gophermaps is that such a solution is back link safe. If we start to do some site we could have no idea how to organize it. We start to put some content and after some time we could want to change the structure of it. For example, we could want to organize content into a year-by-year archive. With Gophermap we can do it easily by creating the new one, without moving content, and by preserving all backlinks. 

With Gophermaps we could also do any presentation of the most important current content by extracting some lead paragraph or content quotes to Gophermap. Again without moving base links of the core content. We could imagine it as some kind of editorial. 

And hypothetically we can emulate Gophermap by special page (also with planning our site to be back link safe), but it would be nice to have such a standardized possibility, without any additional efforts, in every modern browser as it was in Gopher’s one.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA 
@ Mon 18 Apr 2022 10:08:10 AM CEST

tags: #gopher, #map, #smallnet, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-18-is-the-ancient-gophermap-concept-still-a-good-idea.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Stepping away from Gemini</title>
<updated>2022-04-17T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-17:/gemlog/2022-04-17-Re-stepping-away-from-gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Stepping away from Gemini

=> gemini://drewdevault.com/2022/04/16/Stepping-away-from-Gemini.gmi Stepping away from Gemini

I had been writing about it earlier. Many of the Gemininauts who I am reading had their one-year anniversaries in the last months. The same I. Many people joined the Geminispace around begging of 2021, or it’s only my projection and I’m focused on that date because I also joined the Geminispace then. 

Naturally, many people are quitting the Geminispace. It’s always up to you if you want to be somewhere. Gemini protocol isn’t any kind of magic, which healed any sort of disturbance of the big-net. It’s only a protocol. Description of how things are going to be interchanged over the net. 

But for me, naturally, we are writing about Gemini mainly over Gemini. We want to have "everything" that is on the big-net. Reflection of that world in a small-net manner. Every person are discovering it on their own and starts writing about that discoveries. It could be secondary things, writing again and again. But if we should stop it? I don’t think so. 

But what is the main thing in the Geminispace? I’m always repeating that the answer is people. Gemini protocol gathered people who were attracted by its idea. It isn’t only loving to the protocol specification. It needs to explore the forgotten world, of the so-called, small-net. We won’t find each other on the big-net. It’s hard to find any old-school bloggers there. Big-net is dominated by products of GAFA monopolies. That products are creating needs of people in the natural for commerce way. There is not much space for ideas that people are attracted here. 

So Geminispace is a bottom-up platform for growing ideas behind small-net. The plea that every person is writing only their software (Gemini server and client) is miss understanding. It’s confirmation of small-net ideas, that there isn’t a need to have 100 developers to create a tool. Software like Apache, IIS, Firefox, Chrome, and so on, are wasting resources. If you want and have enough time, you can do the tools by yourself. From that swarm of ideas, projects in progress, and released small-solutions we could choose what we consider appropriate. Projects like Lagrange, Antenna, Lace or GTL, Station, Offpunk, Konpeito (and many which I forgot to describe here) were born here, and probably they wouldn’t be, without small-net’s atmosphere. 

So you can do everything that Gemini protocol is offering in a big-net manner. Gemini protocol doesn’t give you any solutions which are better from the technical point of view. But it could be hard to be there with such an audience of people thinking in a small-net way. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 17 Apr 2022 03:57:19 PM CEST

tags: #people, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-17-Re-stepping-away-from-gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Text-only user interface environment</title>
<updated>2022-04-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-07:/gemlog/2022-04-07-Text-only-user-interface-environment.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Text-only user interface environment

It is probably not an uncommon thing, nor am I the first. However, I might surprise myself that I am working this way now. My environment for spending free time in Geminispace and Gophersphere is text-only environment. Which I've set up from nothing, and without any special experience. 

## The current state and twenty tools

* I'm using for it SSH connection to my remote shell account, where I had set up `tmux` (1). I'm using about 10 windows. For those unfamiliar with tmux, it allows you to freely juggle multiple windows just like in a graphical interface. I saved tmux configuration file with `tmuxp freeze` (2), and I can restore it after restart of my server. With `tmux` it's possible to copy&paste text between any window or pane. 

* The first window is divided into two panes, the first pane for editor; set up on tinylog.gmi in `vi` (3) and the second pane is for `gtl` (4; "A TUI for the tinylogs format on the gemini space").

* The second window is `git` (5) directories for publishing Gemini and Gopher content. I'm sharing them for `vi`, `emacs` (6) and `gitui` (7; "Blazing fast terminal-ui for git written in rust").

* The third one is working directory for all binaries, tools and scripts. There are several scripts, for eg. for refreshing `comitium` (8; "comitium is a Gemini, Gopher, and HTTP feed aggregator") or `feed2toot` (9; "Feed2toot parses a RSS feed, extracts the last entries and sends them to Mastodon"). 

* The next one is for `toot tui` (10; "Toot is a CLI and TUI tool for interacting with Mastodon instances from the command line."). With special script set up with $BROWSER environment variable I can launch from it: `w3m` (11), `emacs` with `elpher` (12; "a gopher and gemini client for GNU Emacs") and browse WWW, Gopher and Gemini links spotted in `toot`. I'm not using `amfora` (13) from `toot` for Gemini because it has some problem with screen refresh. 

* The next one is for `mcabber` (14; "mcabber is a small XMPP (Jabber) console client.").

* The next one is for `amfora` (13; "Amfora aims to be the best looking Gemini client with the most features... all in the terminal."). I'm using it mainly to view my bookmarked Gemini capsules. 

* The next one is for sdf.org, inside that there are panes: `mutt` (15; "Mutt is a small but very powerful text-based mail client for Unix operating systems.") with `gpg` (16; "GnuPG allows you to encrypt and sign your data and communications"), `bboard` (17; "threaded multi discussion bulletin board. It goes back when the original SDF was just a BBS") and `slrn` (18; "slrn is a Usenet client, a newsreader that can read and respond to posts on newsgroups."); in such configuration is need to have full screen mode of each tool so I'm using tmux's CTRL-A Z for zoom pane while using one of them. 

* The last window is for system's interactions, for eg. `apt` (19; "apt-get is the command-line tool for handling packages") things or `pass` (20; "the standard unix password manager")

## Future possibilities 

And it isn't the last word in the text-ony user interface environment. There are still many possibilities for improvement. 

* Include some image to text mechanism, like for eg. `chafa` ("With chafa, you can now view very, very reasonable approximations of pictures and animations in the comfort of your favorite terminal emulator.").

* Do things faster by `fzf` ("fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder").

* Explore `emacs` and `org-mode` ("major mode for keeping notes, authoring documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, maintaining to-do lists, planning projects, and more — in a fast and effective plain text system").

And probably more. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu 07 Apr 2022 08:54:08 PM CEST

tags: #cli, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-07-Text-only-user-interface-environment.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part IV - a shining old man and the only gifted grandson)</title>
<updated>2022-04-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-04-03:/gemlog/2022-04-03-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-iv.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part IV - a shining old man and the only gifted grandson)

Cont. [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part III)].

## Usenet and Eternal September

I have been writing about it in the previous posts. Yesterday I set up Usenet on my shell account. I had been using Usenet almost thirty years ago. I had a problem figuring out what is the best, or simply the best from available for now, server for that. Then I must configure the proper client. But after a while, I was able to use it. I thought that this knowledge could be unique, and there are many people who don't know what Usenet is. 

It's not like I know everything. So I was using Usenet in the late '90s. In the time, when I was part of the Vandals horde sacking ancient Rome. I didn't know that, and of course, I was exploring Usenet on my own then. [Eternal September] continues to this day, but a horde of Vandals went further away many years ago. And Usenet needs to be renovated. 

I've read in the last few days several mentions about Usenet on Mastodon. So maybe the idea of Usenet is waking up now. 

## Slrn

I'll note a few lines for those willing to try. Today Usenet sometimes is brought back to Torrent alternative, filled with binaries groups. But there are available text-only servers for free, for everyone. One of the clients is slrn. 

> $ NNTPSERVER=nntp.aioe.org
> $ export NNTPSERVER
> $ slrn -f ~/.jnewsrc --create

It's enough to read and write test posts on some `misc.test` group.

For the Geminispace users, it is important that there is `comp.infosystems.gemini` group.

## Usenet in 2022

So we can use Usenet, the technology of the '80s, in the 21st century. And it could be competitive, and everything is set up and ready. It's waiting for new users. There is no need to be like welded to proprietary and centralized solutions. Many people don't aware of that forgotten alternative.

## Afterword (about the only gifted grandson) 

As we can look at the passing almost half of a century, people aren't too creative. There are not many new solutions similar to Usenet. For several decades people lost the ability to do distributed discussion because most concurrent solutions aren't distributed. It seems that role of Usenet took over proprietary services like Reddit, digg.com, and then social media and micro-blogging platforms. Most of them are more like to be web fronted for simplified Usenet assumptions.

I don't know if I'm not too pessimistic. But if the current atmosphere of the net had been at the beginning of the net, standards like SMTP, Usenet, and IRC wouldn't be popularized. 

Also, it could be that the only big change in the last two decades was Git. There were many revision control systems, but only Git makes bottom-up standardization. Today it's so obvious that everyone could pass their source, project, or any content via Git, that it's easy to forget how complicated it was before. We packed all complicated server environments into a regular file, which is more robust, effective, and fast than it was. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-iii.gmi [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part III)]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September [Eternal September]
=> https://www.aioe.org [aioe.org]
=> http://www.eternal-september.org [eternal-september.org]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 03 Apr 2022 09:41:52 PM CEST

tags: #usenet, #software, #cli, #slrn
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-04-03-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-iv.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Sunday coffee - Part II</title>
<updated>2022-03-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-26:/gemlog/2022-03-26-Sunday-coffee-II.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Sunday coffee - Part II

Cont. [Sunday coffee].

I noticed that a slow-coffee topic had got some attention here. 

I had discussed my way of preparing the best coffee at home, without too much effort and too big equipment. As I said, for the best espresso-like coffee in that category, I've chosen the coffee pot. Later I was thinking, that I hadn't been too precise and I should use the Moka pot name instead of Coffee pot. It is worth to saying also, that I like original [Bialetti] stuff. Sometimes other brands, I had been using, seem to have some construction problems. It is so simple design, that there isn't there is no room for compromise. Also, the price of the original Bialetti's Moka pots is not excessive. 

But what if we are cappuccino gourmets? Making a cappuccino in seems to require a professional coffee machine, with enough pressure to warm, and to froth the milk. 

It isn't hard to do the same cappuccino at home, without any special equipment. We must only remember: 

* a normal pot on the stove is needed to heat the milk; cold milk will not froth,

* remember not to heat the milk too much, because then it has a milky smell that will kill the coffee, 

* for me the easiest way to froth the milk is with a hand kitchen blender (without any special attachments).

When practiced, it only takes a few moments. The effect is the same as in the cafe. You can also froth so-called vegetable milk, which are labeled as coffee milk.

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-03-20-Sunday-coffee.gmi [Sunday coffee]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot [Bialetti]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 26 Mar 2022 09:25:33 PM CET

tags: #coffee, #life, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-26-Sunday-coffee-II.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Listen to the radio and live without commercials</title>
<updated>2022-03-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-24:/gemlog/2022-03-24-Listen-to-the-radio-live-without-commercials.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Listen to the radio and live without commercials

I was surprised by myself some days ago. I hadn't remembered if the public radio channel, which I was listening to some years ago, has advertisements. My current everyday radio station doesn't broadcast any commercials. I used to good things so much, that I have lost touch with reality. After all, most TV channels and radio stations broadcast advertising in large amounts.

But the situation in Poland is in some cases interesting, so I must write about it. Like the rest of the world, most private TV channels and radio stations are serving commercials. Probably as the rest of the world, also public TV channels and radio are serving some commercials. Theoretically, there are some limits for public broadcasters. But, we have also two quite big and successful broadcasters born on Patronite. 

[Radio Nowy Świat] with about 30 000 patrons and income of more than 3 000 000 euros, and [Radio 357] with about 40 000 patrons and income of about 2 500 000 euros. It is said that two radio stations, which were created from bottom to up by people, with so much money collected by people, it's a unique thing in the world. I am contributing monthly to one of them also. 

So I am listening to the like-traditional radio (on the Internet) which has an all-day schedule. With professional radio editors, many music genres, types of radio programs. There are also some Polish radio stars, which have recognizable and had an impact on the radio market in Poland. With original content produced by them. But without advertisements. It can spoil you. This situation could go on forever. 


=> https://patronite.pl/radionowyswiat [Radio Nowy Świat] 
=> https://patronite.pl/radio357 [Radio 357]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu 24 Mar 2022 06:47:38 PM CET

tags: #life, #radio, #people
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-24-Listen-to-the-radio-live-without-commercials.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Sunday coffee</title>
<updated>2022-03-20T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-20:/gemlog/2022-03-20-Sunday-coffee.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Sunday coffee 

It's good to have some time on the weekend to have a cup of coffee and surf the small-net at the same time. Small pleasures and rituals.

## Coffee

I've tried many ways for preparing coffee. It seems that the most balanced way, in aspect of inputs to effects, is coffee pot. Coffee pot is simple tool, which is is designed to always make good coffee. We put always the right amount of coffee and water. Coffee pot produces the right pressure. We taste good coffee.

The pressure of coffee isn't the same as big coffee machine, but it's enough to taste in very similar way. Comparison of coffee machine and coffee pot is like a big-net to small-net. It's close enough, and without cluttering the kitchen space.

You should also know that the preparation of coffee requires the right proportions of coffee and water (for real espress as in ["certified Italian espresso"] outlined by the Italian Espresso National Institute). However, we do not have to bother with them, because the construction of the coffee maker takes care of it for us.

For me, the coffee ritual is also a manual grinder and a suitable cup. A white cup, especially for espresso.

## Text-coffee

Sitting in a good mood you can start unhurriedly surfing the text-based web. Sipping your (almost) espresso. 


=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso#Brewing ["certified Italian espresso"]

-- 
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@ Sun 20 Mar 2022 10:45:13 AM CET

tags: #life
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-20-Sunday-coffee.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Enlightenment in Emacs</title>
<updated>2022-03-19T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-19:/gemlog/2022-03-19-Enlightenment-in-emacs.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Enlightenment in Emacs

Today's day must be noted. I experienced enlightenment in Emacs. I have been aware of everything. I had been trying Emacs several times, and had been installing it many times more. But today's attempt was groundbreaking. Everything seems to be clear, of course I know only a little. And I didn't even make any editor configuration for myself. But I start to understand it. 

I've been looking many of tutorials. They could be less important than we think, and of course there is full manual inside Emacs. It's funny to advise somebody who doesn't know nothing to use manual inside what you are learning. So there must be some sort of guide. 

I started from installing the [Elpher] browser. It's canny to use complicated program, as the Emacs is, in some basic way. I've learned `M-x package-install`, and then `M-x elpher`, and `C-x C-c` for quitting. And that is enough. I wasn't sure if so complicated shortcut for quitting is good thing. 

Today I came through [Practical Emacs Tutorial] and realised that `M-x` key is the essence of Emacs. And there are many functions, which could by executed by `M-x`. So we have for example:

* calc - calculator buffer;

* calendar - calendar buffer; 

* dired - file manager buffer;

And what is more, we have supporting functions:

* describe-function - where, it is possible to find out for eg. elpher, calendar, calc and dired functions;

* describe-key - where it is possible, to obtain key shortcuts for functions; 

* describe-mode - where it is possible to describe actions inside function; 

That's all. You are fully independent in Emacs. If we suspect there is a buffer list function then we can do `M-x describe-function` RET `list-buffers` (with function name completion) what we see as output, is where described also `C-x C-b` key shortcut and so on. 

Piece of cake!


=> http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs.html [Practical Emacs Tutorial]
=> https://thelambdalab.xyz/elpher/ [Elpher]

-- 
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tags: #emacs, #elpher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-19-Enlightenment-in-emacs.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part X.</title>
<updated>2022-03-13T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-13:/gemlog/2022-03-13-Gopher-novice-part-x.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part X.

## Internet resources for business

I've been looking Usenet (alt.gopher, comp.infosystems.gopher) but there is also Internet Archive, which started to index research articles. It's next big source where it is possible to find texts about Gopher. I was writing about one survey in last article, now I'd like to write about [Internet resources for business - Leslie M. Haas, 04/1994]. 

> Approximately a year ago, a question was posted on BUSLIB-L asking for help finding such a guide for business. On discovering that there wasn't one available, several librarians decided to create one. The result was Business Sources on the Net (BSN). Currently, BSN is divided into nine different files, each on a different business subject. There are plans to add new subjects as more sources become available on the Net and to update the existing files.

There are several memories about insufficient Veronica search engine capabilities in 90's, so it isn't surprise that someone asked about list of URLs on the [BUSLIB-L Archives Business Librarians]. What may be surprising in terms of today's times, however, is that the article says that the list was developed by professionals. Today, the Internet is flooded with information of poor quality and unknown source.

So, professional librarians maintain catalogue of sources. But when we look at article and these sources, we realise that most of them is hosted by .edu hosts. So they were official data prepared by other professionals.

I thought what a different world it was. The internet was not a toy. Originating from the military network, provided by the state to the academic network, it produced real information that was not intended for entertainment. In this atmosphere, the Gopher protocol, which is sometimes described as a derivative of the organization of data in a library, was quite natural. Serious use for serious things.

I don't know if if you analyzed all the URLs mentioned in this article, the data would be easily accessible today. Today's network has a completely different goal - sales. It is possible that some scientific institutions publish such data, but today it is a niche of what is on the web. 

What is more, it's worth to say that the most of URLs in article is Gopher ones. So in 1994 the most of serious sources about business were held on Gopher servers, despite other indexes (sometimes with less serious theme) were splited between WWW and Gopher. 


=> https://scholar.archive.org/work/mj6oaiz4bjar5oln3vkx2pquiu [Internet resources for business - Leslie M. Haas, 04/1994]
=> http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=BUSLIB-L [BUSLIB-L Archives Business Librarians]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@Sun 13 Mar 2022 02:55:23 PM CET

tags: #gopher, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-13-Gopher-novice-part-x.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Three decades of easy public key cryptography</title>
<updated>2022-03-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-12:/gemlog/2022-03-12-Three-decades-of-easy-public-key-cryptography.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Three decades of easy public key cryptography

## My journey with mutt

Today I set up GPG in my mutt on sdf.org account. It wasn't as easy, as it could be. As always it is need to search some manual on the Internet, and look under the hood of the car.

First, we need a pair of keys. We could use [some tutorial about GPG]. 

Then we need a config file, as listed on [UseGPG]. We must remember to set own key in this config. 

Then, we found that there is a problem with that config file with passphrase. So we must change official config file as mentioned on [gpg: can't query passphrase in batch mode] - "remove --batch" and "--passphrase-fd 0".

After that we are able to read and write key encrypted or signed mail in mutt. We are using "p" key before sending mail to choose mode: sign or encrypt. Mutt is showing automatically in incoming mails signed and encrypted content. To proper decryption and signature verification we must import sender's key (like mentioned in tutorial above). 

That's all, but I need about 1 hour to set it up, and test it. 

## Public key cryptography in general 

People today are sometimes terrified of being able to track or interfere with their own correspondence. There is an ongoing discussion whether to use e-mail services with the leading GAFA operators. Alternative solutions such as Proton Mail (it seems that this is mainly a "nice" packaging of what GPG offers) are also recommended. In fact, however, for three decades, we've had the ability to easily configure our keys and use them on any of these sites. Even if the website does not support it directly, you can encrypt it outside of it and pass secure content there.

In fact, in the real world, it's hard to meet anyone who uses public-key cryptography. 

### Update 

I've got some indirect response for my thoughts. [idiomdrottning.org] mentioned Autocrypt, which looks like very nice. But... because it's three decades of easy public key cryptography neomutt (which implemented this) seems be instaled, on sdf.org, in version without support it. I wish it would be a standard. 


=> https://www.howtogeek.com/427982/how-to-encrypt-and-decrypt-files-with-gpg-on-linux/ [some tutorial about GPG]
=> https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/wikis/MuttGuide/UseGPG [UseGPG]
=> https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/247780/how-do-i-tell-mutt-to-ask-for-a-gpg-passphrase [gpg: can't query passphrase in batch mode]
=> gemini://idiomdrottning.org/yay-autocrypt [idiomdrottning.org]

-- 
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@ Sat 12 Mar 2022 06:03:47 PM CET - Revision 1.0
@ Sat 12 Mar 2022 10:25:06 PM CET - Revision 1.1

tags: #gpg, #cli, #mutt
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-12-Three-decades-of-easy-public-key-cryptography.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>So how much time people spent on Gopher in nineties?</title>
<updated>2022-03-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-12:/gemlog/2022-03-12-So-how-much-time-people-spent-on-gopher-in-the-90s.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># So how much time people spent on Gopher in nineties? 

While I was asking a question today about how the Gopher was used back then, someone already asked the same question (16-23.02.1994) and wrote down the answers back then. These are not just any data, because the questionnaire was made in accordance with the art and was published as a scientific article.

It is also interesting that the survey was conducted within a group of secondary school and college teachers. So where we expected a lot of interest in Gopher. Additionally, school teachers in the US and their counterparts in the world were listed.

We can read all survey in [Journal of Science Education and Technology 1995-09: Volume 4, Issue 3.]. I wrote down the most interesting fragments.

The survey shows what came out of the earlier responses collected today. Of all the activities on the web, Gopher was far from the most popular. BBS surpassed the popularity of Gopher in every category. Additionally, universities outside the US appear to have the slightest interest in Gopher.

It can be suspected that outside the academic environment, the data would be even lower for Gopher, and higher for others.

## An Exploratory Study of Science Educators' Use of the Internet

Carol Landis, Tony Murphy, Teresa Schretter, and David L. Haury

> [...] The Internet survey was posted to 27 news groups on February 16, 1994, with responses re quested by February 23, 1994. See Table I for the list of newsgroups. Respondents to the Internet sur vey were asked to reply to an e-mail address of one of the researchers and were assured of confidenti ality. The survey responses were then printed for analysis. [...]

> Electronic Survey
> 
> ARE YOU A SCIENCE TEACHER?
> 
> A group of us are interested in finding out about science teachers' use of electronic networks. Any science teacher that responds to the following short survey will subsequently be provided access to electronic resources of interest to science educators. When responding, please enter your answers after each statement or question. If possible, please respond by Wednesday, February 23rd. Your responses will remain confidential. Thank you.
> 
> Send your completed survey to: amurphy@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu [...]
>
> 9. How would you categorize your time (by percentages) online?
> % of time on e-mail? % of time using bulletin boards?
> % of time gophering?
> % of time doing other things? (please list and give %6)
> 
> Fig. 2. Internet survey instrument.

> Table III.
> 
> Question (See Fig. 2 for complete questions)
> 
> U.S. secondary (N = 11)
> -----------------------
> 
> 9 % of time using
> 
> e-mail (5%-100%)
> 5 @ 5-30%
> 5 @ 40-50%
> 1 @ 100%
> bbs (5-60%) 7 users
> gopher (5-40%) (7 users)
> other (i.e., ftp, exploring, newsgroups, Archie, Mosaic, word processing, online notebook)
>
> International secondary (N =4)
> ------------------------------
>
> 9 % of time using
> 
> e-mail (20-80%)
> 3 @ 20-30%
> 1 @ 80%
> bbs (0-70%)
> (0%, 10%, 50%, 70%)
> gopher (10-40%) (0%, 10%, 10%, 40%)
> 2 "exploring" (15% and 40%)
>
> U.S. college (N = 8)
> --------------------
> 
> 9 % of time using
> 
> e-mail (10-90%)
> 5 @ 10-40%
> 1 @ 80%
> 1 @ 90%
> bbs (5-80%)
> (6 of 7 users reported bbs use) 4 ranged from 5% to 25%
> gopher (5-40%) 5 users reporting 
> 1 @ 80%
> other (i.e., ftp, exploring, newsgroups, telnetting, research database use)
> 
> International third level
> -------------------------
>
> 9 % of time using
>
> e-mail (10-95%)
> 4 @ 10-33%
> 1 @ 60%
> 1 @ 95%
> bbs (0-50%)
> (5 of 6 users reported bbs use) (0%, 5%, 20%, 33%, 50%)
> gopher (0-20%)
> 2 @ 0%
> 3 @ 10%
> other (i.e., ftp, articles, writing)

=> https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-science-education-and-technology_1995-09_4_3 [Journal of Science Education and Technology 1995-09: Volume 4, Issue 3.]

-- 
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@ Sat 12 Mar 2022 11:25:58 AM CET

tags: #gopher, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-12-So-how-much-time-people-spent-on-gopher-in-the-90s.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>So what Gopher looked like in the nineties?</title>
<updated>2022-03-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-03-06:/gemlog/2022-03-06-So-what-gopher-looked-like-in-the-90s.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># So what Gopher looked like in the nineties?

Archives of what was available on the Gophersphere in the 1990s are virtually nonexistent. Some files and servers from later years have been preserved. However, on the Internet you can find some databases of what the user should know then.

## BIGSURF Netguide

From the [BIGSURF Netguide vol 3.1 July 1995]:

> Starting points for Gopher users
>
> [...]
>
> Gopher Jewels
> gopher to: cwis.usc.edu
> then select /Other Gophers and Information Resources/Gopher-Jewels
>
> Or use this URL:
> GOPHER://cwis.usc.edu:70/11/Other_Gophers_and_Information_Resources
> /Gopher-Jewels
>
> - as it says... neat places to gopher - constantly updated and changing.
>
> Too much to list here. This is *the best* single gopher URL I could ever
> give to you. Mountains of info available here with pointers and gopher
> links to elsewhere. Nearly every topic is covered - even WWW access via
> Telnet is possible through here. Also includes search engines to find your
> way around gopher-space. It just doesn't get any better than this.
> For "burrowers" everywhere - give this Gopher Jewels URL a workout -
> you'll come back here time after time after time.... [...]

Gopher Jewels was mentioned in the most of sources. The list is accessible at [Gopher Jewels on Web Archive]. There is also "Gopher_Jewels.zip" file at [Gopher Protocol repository] (content is similar to that in previous link). It must been big thing then, but now plain list of Gopher URLs isn't too useful. More readable are descriptions from BIGSURF Netguide. 


> The WELLgopher
> Gopher to: gopher.well.com
> 
> Holy cow! This is a *monster* site (and that's good!). This gopher site is
> like hitting paydirt - in fact - this site is near legendary on the 'net.
> This gopher site houses a huge library of things to read all laid out in
> an organized fashion. There are things here you just won't get anywhere
> else and if you really want to keep up on the 'net scene and beyond you
> really *must* come to this site and read up. No excuses. Period.

The Well was also mentioned in the most sources. What is nice, it is available on [The Well on Wayback Machine]. 

I've gone through the rest of the BIGSURF Netguide and noted out URL which are known only by its description today. 

> K-12 Dinosaur Unit
> Gopher to: informns.k12.mn.us
> /Minnesota K-12 Resources/Dinosaur Unit
>
> Created by the Internet for Minnesota Schools (InforMNs) this site has more
> than 40 text files and plenty of downloadable pictures of dinosaurs. There
> is a host of information that every one can easily understand and that will
> keep kids interest. Reports on dinosaur eggs to whether Godzilla was/is a
> real dinosaur will keep the reading interesting. Also included is much
> information about theories of dinosaur extinction and the possibility of
> dinosaurs being warm-blooded. This gopher site also contains a few links to
> other dino-related gopher sites as well as a time line guide of dinosaur
> existence on earth. A great K-12 resource for the classroom... or at home!

> NEB Newswire Service Gopher
> Gopher to: gopher.voa.gov
> select --> VOA News and English Broadcasts Wire Service
> 
> This site contains the week's complete radio transcripts from the "Voice
> of America" radio network. Very informative especially for those in areas
> and regions that do not receive such news. World-wide news made easily
> accesible is what the Internet is all about and here is a resource that
> delivers on that premise. A great way to catch up on world happenings.
> You don't even need a web browser or WWW access - a simple Unix dial-up
> will do and away you go to this informative gopher site.

## Information Sources: the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication

Less descriptive list is on the [Information Sources: the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication, 01 Sep 95; Release 3.999]. This index is interesting because author listed all interesting URL regardless of protocol. So we can obtain the information of Gopher vs. WWW URLs from that time, which was the best on the net. It was 197 Gopher links, to 720 WWW ones. 

> PURPOSE: to list information describing the Internet and computer-mediated communication technologies, applications, culture, discussion forums, and bibliographies. Areas of interest include the technical, rhetorical, social, cognitive, and psychological aspects of networked communication and information.

These two files are extensive data that requires more detailed analysis. A cursory glance at this list gives an additional answer to the earlier supposition. You can hardly see anything resembling private websites known from the times of the WWW.

## All of the Gophers in the World [Update 2022-03-10]

Accidentally I came on [All of the Gophers in the World]. This is next index, which origin is unknown. Its Internet Archive webpage is described as below. So we don't know who is "charlote", if this index was created in 90's, why its creation date on Internet Archive is 1994 when description is mentioning 1995. 

> All of the Gophers in the World
> =======================
> 
> A list of all (possibly all, well a list of most) of the Gophers on the internet around the time of 1994 to 1995. Though I can't remember where it came from at the time, it was probably another Gopher on NSF's network.
>
> Not sure where these are now. On someone's tape no doubt..
> 
> charlote, october 2016 

Index consist only titles of Gopher sites, without URLs. It's unclear what was the purpose of index with that construction. Index has also odd start and end. There is sentence "search Gopherspace using Veronica" in the beginning, and 12 end's lines which don't fit the rest. One of the first title seems be placed in the bad order "The Online World resources handbook (de Presno)", and maybe it reveals name of the index author - [Odd de Presno]?

If the index actually came into existence in the 90's, then the Gophersphere was supposed to have:

* About 2600 servers
* More than 900 servers for "universities"
* More than 50 for "institutes"
* More than 50 for "libraries" 
* More than 50 for "schools" 
* Servers owned by companies: Microsoft, IBM, Apple
* One server of embassy
* Five servers described as Polish - it's interesting for me because I'm Pole, and I had thought there wasn't Gopher in Poland!

This index need also detailed summary, however, you can see that only half of the entry is typically academic.

The question is what the [Content of Gopher sites] was look like, and there is no clear answer for that. The same, there are no answer for the same titled question from 2003 asked on Gopher mailing list. 

> when I first encountered gopher in 1995, it was that part of
> cyberworld to go to when doing academic research.
>
> Most of the gopher sites I find now are interesting for research only
> in a historical manner; either I'm not using Veronica correctly or
> there are no new research papers in gopher-space. I have looked for
> sites on Organisational Behaviour (Conflict Management) and on
> Wireless Networking (IEEE 802.11) with no success.

### Probable origin of All of the Gophers in the World [Update 2022-03-11]

I've got a walk through "comp.infosystems.gopher" and "alt.gopher" Usenet archives and it seems that I was able to trace the probable origin of [All of the Gophers in the World] index. In that index are about 2600 sites, and in the [Usenet 20-10-1994 about Minnesota Other Gophers Directory with 2500 Gopher sites] we can read that the similar number of records were in Minnesota Other Gophers Directory. In mentioned post someone asked about it, and in response is also information about possibility of saving that file to the disk. Probably it is why there are only a names, without URL's - saving to disk only a text, not full content of that index. 

> > How to get a list of all gopher servers in the world ?. Through gopher
> > i can see the list as directory names. Is there any way to copy these
> > names (around 2500) in a file ? . If any one have the list, please
> > send one copy to me.
> you can also get othergophers.tar.Z from boombox.micro.umn.edu
> under pub/gopher/misc and open it under gopher data area and
> have a mirror of Minnesota Other Gophers .. Directory. 

The earlier indication of de Presno seems unverifiable. I tried to send an email, but both of the email addresses mentioned there are not working.

## SPECIAL INTERNET CONNECTIONS aka. Yanoff's list [Update 2022-03-11]

These indexes are like they are like dinosaur footprints frozen in the mud. Gophersphere of the 90's seems to be covered like fog of war. People stuck in not efficient Veronica servers, like mentioned in [Usenet 22-06-1994 about Veronica servers]. Since it was not easy to search for information, another index is created. [SPECIAL INTERNET CONNECTIONS: LAST UPDATE 5/16/94] called in short by author's name - Yanoff's list. 

Interesting findings are:

> CAREER CENTER ONLINE
> 
> Jobs database, resume listing service, search by location/keyword
> Also: mail occ-info@mail.msen.com
> * gopher gopher.msen.com
> * H.E.A.R.T. Career Center telnet career.com [157.151.1600.1] 

and:

> AMIGA USER AREA
> Lots of useful information for Amiga owners.
> + telnet gopher.unomaha.edu

## Number of Gopher sites

Going through Usenet archives give also some informations about number of Gopher sites:

* [Usenet 08-07-1993 about 1600 Gopher sites]
* [Usenet 26-07-1994 about 4600 Gopher sites]
* [Usenet 05-10-1994 about 4809 Gopher sites]
* [Usenet 20-10-1994 about Minnesota Other Gophers Directory with 2500 Gopher sites]
* [Usenet 07-03-1995 about 5772 Gopher sites]

Again, we can't see how the dinosaurs looked like, but we have their footprints. The funny thing is that some of these posts were treated as an unnecessary question and a waste of time. If it were not for them, this information would be lost forever.


=> http://cd.textfiles.com/roadsider2/FAQs%20&%20Information/Site%20lists/BIGSURF.TXT [BIGSURF Netguide vol 3.1 July 1995]
=> https://web.archive.org/web/19980212210352/http:/galaxy.einet.net/GJ/index.html [Gopher Jewels on Web Archive]
=> https://www.jumpjet.info/Offbeat-Internet/Gopher/Repository/Articles/hist.htm [Gopher Protocol repository]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/wayback/2007/gopher.well.com/70 [The Well on Wayback Machine]
=> http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/INTERNET/INTERNET.TXT [Information Sources: the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication, 01 Sep 95; Release 3.999]
=> https://archive.org/details/allgophers_all_the_gophers_in_the_world_when_i_was_in_1995_charlote_greenwood [All of the Gophers in the World]
=> https://www.puc-rio.br/parcerias/presno/presno.html [Odd de Presno]
=> gopher://gopher.quux.org:70/0/Archives/Mailing%20Lists/gopher/gopher.2003-08|/MBOX-MESSAGE/27 [Content of Gopher sites]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.infosystems.gopher/c/boLeac_UCWs/m/iLDynYxi78wJ [Usenet 22-06-1994 about Veronica servers]
=> http://www.textfiles.com/hacking/INTERNET/yanoff.txt [SPECIAL INTERNET CONNECTIONS: LAST UPDATE 5/16/94]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.gopher/c/rnZzO0marG4/m/63PjUU9abrcJ [Usenet 08-07-1993 about 1600 Gopher sites]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.infosystems.gopher/c/bwtiL6NzBK0/m/BKfGa77gZjMJ [Usenet 26-07-1994 about 4600 Gopher sites]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.infosystems.gopher/c/Ety0-a9joXg/m/_-Z09k2G1JEJ [Usenet 05-10-1994 about 4809 Gopher sites]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.infosystems.gopher/c/NQWs82MaUA4/m/u75cL5_ZXxgJ [Usenet 20-10-1994 about Minnesota Other Gophers Directory with 2500 Gopher sites]
=> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.gopher/c/rnZzO0marG4/m/63PjUU9abrcJ [Usenet 07-03-1995 about 5772 Gopher sites]

-- 
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@ Sun 06 Mar 2022 05:54:47 PM CET - revision 1.0
@ Thu 10 Mar 2022 04:35:15 PM CET - revision 1.1
@ Fri 11 Mar 2022 05:51:02 PM CET - revision 1.2

tags: #gopher, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-03-06-So-what-gopher-looked-like-in-the-90s.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Have one's cake and eat it - likes, comments, backlinks and so on</title>
<updated>2022-02-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-27:/gemlog/2022-02-27-Have-ones-cake-and-eat-it-likes-comments-backlinks.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Have one's cake and eat it - likes, comments, backlinks and so on

Inspired by [My take on gemlog responses] by Bacardi55. On the one side is so convenient and tempting to have the whole achievements of the modern web. It's not that I oppose it, or I don't want it at all, and I renounce it. On the other hand, are we not creating mechanisms for small-net whose distorted operation drives the big-net in the opposite direction to what is expected? 

## Likes

The main purpose of [like button] isn't to serve the people. It's been introduced mainly to fuel data-mining algorithms, and only a few of this functionality is given to people. For "likers" sometimes is hard, for example, to browse or export liked things. For ones "being liked" it is also ambiguous information to have 0, 10, 1000... likes. Is it important to us to collect such noise of people, who have less than one second for that response? 

For me it's also the base of sick mechanism of content scrolling, where the main aim is to like or being liked. And that is causing shortening and simplifying the information, which only must be attractive for likers and it doesn't have to be a carrier of information at all. What is leading to surprising conclusions if [Are Our Smartphones Making Us Dopamine Addicts?].

## Comments

Theoretical ancestor of likes are comments. While a liking carries only one bit of our reaction instead of being complete, comments convey the full message. 

There weren't comments in the beginning of the web. This was because there were some technical limitations (the pages were not dynamic and didn't have advanced background management systems). But I think that there was also some other way of reaction flow in pre web 2.0 era. Interactions in the beginning were more personal, aiming to interact from sender to recipient. There were some ease of sending it from the web forms. 

After it comments became sometimes more important than commented content. People realised that they could became famous, and collect many comments. Or create some commenting platform, where would be many commenters. If one social platform were successful, so everyone can also build the same. Or advertise in the places where the comments are numerous... Whatever the purposes, it is certain that the purpose was not primarily to convey the message from the sender to the recipient. The initial ease created a new channel of influence. 

I don't know what is the main reason of drifting comments in this worse direction. Comments and comment-forms are working good in not very large scale environment. Because only then they are working as they were invented. 

## Backlinks

Comments have one more problem - whether the comment is a common part or a separate entity to the commented content. This case is more and more important in the era of GDPR. If we are obligated to publish every comment under our content? If we can moderate comments? If we can migrate content with comments? The most of these questions are answered with mechanisms like backlinks, track-backs and mentions. 

Backlinks are essence of comments interaction, without creating comments at all. So we are provide own content on our site, and only help others to learn about it. But who really?

I'm not sure if the presenting backlinks for everyone and under the content is a good idea. Because we can easily come in to mass-comments problem mentioned above. For example it is natural that many people would comment Solderpunk idea, but that doesn't need that Solderpunk should / must / want to know about them, or that everyone else must spot them instantly under the main idea.

Maybe backlinks are also can't be easily scaled? They could help with some automation in not so big group of people, but could be a noise generator above some limit. 

This also worth to say that, especially in small-net, what we receive as noise is also expectation of an immediate response. There are many mechanisms which try to instantly inform us about many things. And we want to manage that information on our own, and in the time we want. So maybe it isn't natural that knowledge of response, which is provided by backlinks, is essential? What if we will found that response in one week / month / year? 

## Centralizing 

Some other aspect of this thoughts is also centralization. I like Antenna and Cosmos projects, and I'm using them on everyday basis. But I realised that they slowly go beyond being a content aggregate. The scattering of content, which was the initial state, also had some effect on all of Geminispace. The content were like that "capsules in the space", not distorted by any strong center. If you are interested in some topic, you will finally found it. Now content start to orbiting around that projects, which start to have some impact on it with a promise that this place gives the most appropriate / relevant / full content.

Maybe it is about scale again? I saw this for the first time in the small-net that [the Small-net is finite!]. I'm advocate of the idea of hard limitations of users gathered around some projects / societies. Some of them could be global of course, but they should be projected as the global from the beginning. That which are local should be local to their end. Small-net should keep the local character for as many of them as possible. Local character is helping to avoid superficiality of big-net and engage in the deeper interactions between people. 


=> gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2022/02/27/my-take-on-gemlog-replies/ [My take on gemlog responses]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_like_button [Like button]
=> https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/08/22/2157225/are-our-smartphones-making-us-dopamine-addicts [Are Our Smartphones Making Us Dopamine Addicts?]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-03-Small-net.gmi [The Small-net is finite!]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 27 Feb 2022 10:26:45 AM CET

tags: #backlink, #software, #smallnet
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-27-Have-ones-cake-and-eat-it-likes-comments-backlinks.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>One year on Gemini</title>
<updated>2022-02-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-25:/gemlog/2022-02-25-One-year-on-gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># One year on Gemini

Inspired by [1 year of gemini by Bacardi55], and possible several other Geminauts who celebrate their first year in Geminispace. It's interesting that many of people from the closest Geminispace started their journey from the similar point of time. Today I am celebrating one year here.

I wasn't fed up with the big-web in a special way. Of course I don't use Web as the average user, I omit the parts of it, which I don't need. And accidentally I saw something about Geminispace. It wasn't a special plan, and in the beginning I try to avoid spending here to much time.

It wasn't also technical or privacy need. I'm aware of how the big-web is working, especially in that less well-done parts which could be dangerous for their users. I used to that. 

It was a bit of a case that I might have missed.

Only after a long moment, as I've written in some posts before, the main aspect were people. I was searching in general for, what I call it, old-school bloggers. Blogs, which are like decades ago. It's hard to find them in the big-web, but surprisingly it's easy to find them in small-net. Geminispace, and as I found later Gophersphere, are full of people who are old-school bloggers. Gemini as the technical ground is common base for they activities. I'm back in 2000's! So we are in the best times of the big-web. 

After one year It's worth to say that Geminispace makes it easier to see that the web is varied and heterogeneous. It's opposition to atmosphere of the big-web where everything seems to be packed into Facebook (and other GAFA) soup. Where we almost don't have options to choose - for example is it worth to exists outside Facebook pages? Taking it as the greatest achievement that is impossible to argue with. But without whole that billions of dollars it is possible to create a new protocol, many great tools, and gather many writers and readers around it. It wasn't so hard? It's like learning to light a fire again with a tinder.

=> gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2022/02/21/1-year-of-gemini/ [1 year of gemini by Bacardi55]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri 25 Feb 2022 09:02:59 PM CET

tags: #gemini, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-25-One-year-on-gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part IX.</title>
<updated>2022-02-20T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-20:/gemlog/2022-02-20-Gopher-novice-part-ix.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part IX.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part VIII].

## Zines

Unexpectedly, I got an answer to a long asked question (at the beginning - [Gopher Novice - Part II]). Is there any zines in Gophersphere? I've been browsing through it, and I didn't spotted to many evidences for that. As if they weren't there. Last memories of people who I've summarized in last entry pointed to two hypotheses which could explain this state. Gophersphere could be less social than we think, and local communities of that time prefer BBS. Some people seem to be so engaged in BBS, that they didn't noticed Gophersphere at all.

So if the zines were probably outside Gophersphere, I should look at them, in aspect of what they are showing about Gopher. Earlier, I ignored this website because it seemed to be overwhelming. But [Textfiles a BBS dump] has many of zines, which were published inside various BBS. So I try to find something about Gopher. 

## "The Journal of American Underground Computing" zine

### "Review Of Slipknot 1.0" by Scott Davis

I found something about [SlipKnot at Wikipedia], and I hadn't know what is it. Today's information from Wikipedia was precise. 

> SlipKnot was one of the earliest World Wide Web browsers, available to Microsoft Windows users between November 1994 and January 1998. [...]
> [...] SlipKnot version 1.0 was released on November 22, 1994, approximately 3 weeks before Netscape's Netscape Navigator version 1.0 came out. It was designed to serve a significant fraction of PC/Windows-based Internet users who could not use Mosaic or Netscape at that time. (Internet Explorer was released in the following year after SlipKnot, in August 1995.)

So this was exactly the time Gopher was about to end. From the 1995's zine [REVIEW OF SLIPKNOT 1.0] inside "The Journal of American Underground Computing", where we can read that many users of "first" web browser were certain, that it need to support Gopher also. We can read on [Features (as of version 1.40)] that Gopher was finally supported - only for registered users. 

> On December 23, 1994, I contacted Felix Kramer (felix@panix.com) to let
> him know that I would be happy to run his article/promotion for the
> software called 'SlipKnot'.
> [...] I polled some users on the Internet regarding their
> experiences with the software and here's what some of them said;
> [...] Other than that, SLIPKNOT is highly recommended for a
> low-budget approach to WWW. [one@netcom.com]

Steve:

> Very nice and easy to use developmental software. Web works well [...]
> Inability to support ftp and gopher from within the html page is a
> bother, but as development continues I hope Peter Brooks will be able to
> add that capability. [...]

Jeff:

> I have used SlipKnot for about six weeks and have come to rely on it for
> an easy alternative to mistyped Unix commands. [...]
> While I approve of Version 1.0e as far as it goes, I can certainly suggest
> a number of needed improvements:
> 1. gopher support
> 2. telnet support [...]

Bill:

> Another problem is the inability to use gopher servers, something
> that's still widely implemented and integrated with the Web.

Tom:

> The program is not perfect. It still has some bugs to work out, and
> lots of features to be developed (forms, gopher, etc do not work at
> this time).

### "WWW - The Junkyard Of The Internet" by Ram Samudrala

In the same zine (listed in [Volume One, Issue Seven - January 17, 1994] - there could be mistake in year, I think that it should be January 17, 1995) was also article "WWW - The Junkyard Of The Internet by Ram Samudrala" which I can't find on the textfiles.com. But fortunately it was archived by author, on his [The WWW: the junkyard of the Internet] page. 

> I happened to get seriously addicted to the Web at the beginning of this year, but I got over it soon. [...]
> the Web incorporates several existing information retrieval mechanisms out on the net, primarily gopher and ftp. I never thought gopher would be a big hit, and with the advent of the numerous Web browers for almost any imaginable platform, there really is no need for gopher clients. [...] 

> There are a lot of advantages to having entertainment information available on the net---but it also results in a lot of spam. [...] 
> A few months ago, an advertisement on the net would've been flamed to ashes. Now there is a weak response, and the people who opposed this are fighting a losing war. [...] 
> The ease with which computers can transmit hypermedia (pictures/movies/sounds) has not only furthered the Web revolution but is pushing bandwidth to its limits (a state that we may perpetually exist in). All this has contributed to an increase in the noise:signal ratio on the net as a whole, but particularly in USENET newsgroups and the Web. [...]


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2022-02-19-Gopher-novice-part-viii.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part VIII]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-06-27-Gopher-novice-part-ii.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part II]
=> gopher://0x1bi.net:70/1/textfiles [Textfiles a BBS dump]
=> https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/textfiles.com/magazines/JAUC/juac09.txt [REVIEW OF SLIPKNOT 1.0]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlipKnot_(web_browser) [SlipKnot at Wikipedia]
=> http://www.micromind.com/slipknot.htm#Features [Features (as of version 1.40)]
=> https://rap.mirror.cyberbits.eu/textfiles.com/magazines/JAUC/juacind.txt [Volume One, Issue Seven - January 17, 1994]
=> http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/www_junkyard.html [The WWW: the junkyard of the Internet]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 20 Feb 2022 02:30:56 PM CET

tags: #gopher, #question
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-20-Gopher-novice-part-ix.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part VIII.</title>
<updated>2022-02-19T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-19:/gemlog/2022-02-19-Gopher-novice-part-viii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part VIII.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part VII].

I'd like to summarize answers for my question about [Cont. how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?] in aspect of Gopher, what was the main intension of that question. I got about thirty answers, and they are describing about twenty people who were using the net in that times. They could use Gopher, sometimes they did so, sometimes they didn't (what is also some information). All answers can be found by the links at the bottom, or on the SDF internal board. I try to respect privacy and cut only essence of Gopher topic from every answer. I used given names or nicks to mark that they aren't my thougts. If someone would like to modify their statement or hide some information, please contact me.

## Hypotheses

After I've read answers I have the following hypotheses:

* The most answers are connected with academic theme for using Gopher.

* There was Gopher in non-academic environment, for eg. private companies. 

* Active BBS users didn't need Gopher.

* Gopher didn't have many personal thoughts or less serious stuff (which were distributed for eg. in zines, BBS, e-mail).

* Problem with finding things on Gopher could be crucial, and Veronica-like services didn't have time to became mature.

* People weren't impressed with Gopher then, as they were by other net's goodies (for eg. BBS).

* Gopher was available for some years, but it wasn't developed in new content. 

## How often did you use Gopher in 90's?

``` How often did you use Gopher in 90's chart?
Normally | #### (20%)
Occasionally | ########### (55%)
Never | ##### (25%)
```

## Years mentioned in answers

``` Years mentioned in answers chart
General 90's | #######
1992 | #
1993 | ###
1994 | ####
1995 | ###
1998 | #
```

## Answers 

1. Alex:

> [...] I took me a while until I finally did get access. When I went to university in 1994 [...] There was a young dude there telling me a thing or two. How to use finger.
> I think I learned about the tools available from welcome messages and local help menus. I suspect it was all Gopher, back then. [...] 

2. Gerikson:

> [...] I moved to Stockholm and started at KTH in 1992. [...] 
> In our class about information retrieval held by the university library I read about Gopher and something new from CERN called the "world wide web", which looked interesting but was way less structured than Gopher. [...]

3. Kelson:

> By 1990 my family had moved [...] to what was then known as an "IBM Compatible" PC. [...] Then I got to college and discovered "Mosaic" at the computer labs.
> [...] Gopher was still around but fading fast. I remember looking things up occasionally, mostly using Netscape or Lynx. I'm half-convinced that I used a gopher-specific client once or twice in one of the labs, and there was one on the floppy full of internet utilities, but I can't remember anything specific about it. The school had a gopher space, but it may have only been official documents like course catalogs. If they had student space available, I never set up on it. [...]

4. Jeffrey:

> I was born in 1988, so I was too young during 1991-1995. My first time using the Internet was in 1998. [...]

5. Beto: 

> [...] I applied for college at the end of 1995. I don't remember using a Gopher a lot in this period, but I used it to access the university and check the results from the entrance examination. That's how I discovered I was going to college: via Gopher. [...]

6. Sandra: 

> [...] That was my 90s. Email, email, email and IRC. [...]

7. Tomasino:

> i was basically just on BBSes and Prodigy at the time. Email through FidoNet in 1995 I was a beta user of (Skimmer) what would become Prodigy Internet, finally getting truly online. I also got USENET access around then.

8. Lux:

> Mix of ftp discovery (through http sources usually) and gopher itself. Mostly the http route tbh. Gopher indexing was developing at the time but didn't really make the cut before it got devolved. It was promising, but FTP / HTTP at the time got you more "interesting stuff" most of the time.
> Was a long time back. [Gopher] Accessed through uni network when I was working there, so was mostly tech related info I was looking for. Did have lunch breaks though, so did explore a bit for "what else is on here?". Memory isn't great on how well it went, feels like it was more of a novelty / last option at the time

9. Everbern:

> My first tech support job was with IBM. They had an amazing, surfable LAN. Internal FTP and Gopher sites, accessible modem banks for BBSing. It's a wonder I got any work done.
> [Gopher sites] I'm not sure they were "official". I remember there being all sorts of stuff: from tech info to ascii art to fiction. A subset of what you'd find on textfiles.com now. I recall reading many Lovecraft stories someone had taken the time to type into text files.

10. The Doctor:

> Dial up BBSes. The odd BBS network (LilNet, VampNET). No real net.access until maybe '94 when I stumbled into a certain SunOS network.

11. Kermode:

> n 91-93 a friend in govt gave me the credentials to his internet account. They charge by the *byte* back then where I live!
> I used my Amiga to log into various universities around the world ftp-ing stuff I found with gopher back to UBC. Finally, I'd pull everything down from there to my local computer in Terrace.
> Not long after that, I got into linux.

12. Fuuma:

> I was using CompuServe and Usenet in the early 90s, and then I started using IRC with mIRC in the early 2000s. I did use gopher once or twice in the early 90s as well.
> [Using Gopher for] I think it was using Netscape Navigator... and it wasn't anything academic, just wanted to browse around and see what it offered at the time.

13. Michael:

> [...] around 93-94, began using Usenet, ftp, gopher, and some www from college. 
> If you were doing real research from the library, it seemed like ftp and 
> gopher were more information rich, and there were lots of gopher sites with 
> "tunnels" to other sites. For me as young and kind of immature, the www 
> seemed mainly for entertainment, though more and more useful things started 
> creeping in, and then it exploded. In short order, the www was the place 
> to be, and development of gopher sites stopped. I'd say by 1995 this was 
> true. The gopher sites that were already there hung around for some time 
> after, but with no improvements. They were allowed to wither. [...] 

14. Anna: 

> [...] I briefly saw gopher circa 1994, I think, on a green-on-black terminal in 
> the school library, as a research tool. It is a front-end to FTP that 
> allows imposing a web structure on hierarchical filesystems networked 
> across great distances, designed by librarians. 
> I never saw the humor, enthusiast, etc content from the (later) '90s you 
> link to back then. I saw that type of material in 'zines at the time. Other 
> people saw it on BBSs, usenet, and email lists. My understanding of gopher 
> was it was like an encyclopedia, or a card catalog linked directly to 
> library materials.

cont. Anna:

> Maybe gopher acquired social media vibe in wake of atrophying pre-http 
> "social media" (like BBSs, USENET, and MOOs).

15. Secretdecoder:

> [...] Then I got to college in Fall 1993. [...]
> Quickly figured out how to use email, gopher, & lynx. Archie. Veronica.
> Gopher did indeed have the most content. But it was a bit of a treasure 
> hunt. Linking through and trying to find stuff. [...]

16. Dan: 

> [...] Gopher in particular never made much of an impression on me. It
> was marginally useful for accessing specific information, but
> USENET as both a collaborative space and directory of pointers
> to other resources elsewhere on the net, coupled with telnet and
> FTP were much more broadly useful. The "archie" protocol was
> similarly useful for finding things across anonymous FTP sites. [...]

cont. Dan:

> [...] I have fond memories of telnet,
> talk, and VMS phone. Even using a 3270 terminal to access a
> mainframe to some extent. The early wide-scale information
> systems including gopher and the early web were less interesting [...]

17. Anna about Wayne:

> Wayne was administering a BBS when gopher was in its growth phase, so kind 
> of missed it. By the time he got interested in browsing linked documents 
> via internet, http was ascendent.

18. Anna about Christina:

> Christina's primary internet social world was MOOs and MUSHs. She remembers 
> gopher had the library vibe you noted, downloading software via FTP, 
> content reposted from USENET.

19. Xiled:

> Around 1993 [...] 
> Also around that time, I attended a local university, [...] 
> It also had access to gopher, veronica, jughead, and WAIS (Wide Area 
> Information Server.) [...]
> Back then, gopher and WAIS didn't have much appeal for me, 
> especially since it was used mostly for academic stuff. Nobody 
> that I was aware of had personal gopherholes and the personal home 
> pages were on the web. I was still drawn to the BBS communities, 
> but the new SLIP/PPP accounts and the Internet that it connected to 
> had my curiosity as well.

20. nm03:

> I found Gopher in 1995 and accessed it through a VAX terminal. I didn't have
> anyone to tell me what it was, so I exlored it on my own. I remember there
> being Telnet links, like places to check the weather, and humor collections. I
> soon moved on to using Netscape and didn't get back into Gopher until joining
> SDF a few years ago.


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-09-12-Gopher-novice-part-vii.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part VII]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-12-11-Cont-how-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi [Cont. how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?]
=> https://mastodon.online/@szczezuja/107605562986447761 
=> https://archives.anonradio.net/202201260200_openvoip.mp3 Anonradio archives 2022-01-26 at 0:53-1:10
=> gopher://sdf.org/1/users/xiled/phlog/2022/20220125_intarnets_2of2

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 19 Feb 2022 10:32:02 PM CET - Revision 1.0
@ Sun 13 Mar 2022 02:07:26 PM CET - Revision 1.1

tags: #gopher, #question
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-19-Gopher-novice-part-viii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher and Fediverse</title>
<updated>2022-02-13T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-13:/gemlog/2022-02-13-Gopher-and-fediverse.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher and Fediverse

I haven't been aware that for almost four years (sic!) Pleroma has as [Alternative client protocols] functionality of [Gopher Support]. I did research, went through many sources, articles, phlogs and so on, and I haven't spotted that earlier. 

We can look at [fediverse.party stats for Pleroma] and we can see that is about one thousand of servers, and about 80 000 of users. I don't know how many of them have Gopher support. 

On the screens we can see, that interface is allowing us:

* to read posts by public / federated timeline

* to read thread of single post 

* to read posts of single account 

* to read number of likes, repeats of single post

I don't know if it's convenient to manually browse posts without ability of being logged in. I don't found any information about logging functionality in the Gopher alternative interface. 

But I thought out one killer functionality, we could link to own account from Gophersphere, without need to put HTTPS links. It makes sense, that someone who is visiting our Gopher hole, could take a look of our posts in Fedvierse without need of changing browser. I don't know if it's a real world example. 

There is of course always that sort of question: if people in small-net are interested to social-app ported to small-net, in place of the phlogs and other native solutions? 

=> https://docs.pleroma.social/backend/configuration/cheatsheet/#alternative-client-protocols [Alternative client protocols]
=> https://pleroma.social/blog/2018/04/01/gopher/ [Gopher Support]
=> https://fediverse.party/en/pleroma/ [fediverse.party stats for Pleroma]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 13 Feb 2022 05:18:23 PM CET

tags: #gopher, #fediverse
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-13-Gopher-and-fediverse.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Board games in times of pandemics and in general</title>
<updated>2022-02-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-02-12:/gemlog/2022-02-12-Board-games-in-times-of-pandemics-and-in-general.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Board games in times of pandemics and in general

It's about two decades since board games came back on my table. I abandoned them in my childhood (titles like Talisman or Monopoly), in favor of a computer games. After years I discovered that they changed a lot. It was a new era of board games, with new mechanics and ideas. The most interesting for me was new type of games, which was called as [Eurogame]. That games are like cage fight - there is only a player, and a game mechanism, which player must bend to win. Bending of the mechanism excludes: game randomness and direct interactions with other players (owe it to this: low level of annoyance to each other). So we must defeat the game, and win. 

When I'm talking about Eurogames firstly I'm always thinking about [Puerto Rico] (2002). For me it's essential example of such games, it was also long time winner of Board Game Geek (BGG) ranking. My mine objection is only, that is so hardcore, that sometimes I am feeling literally like moving inside wired cage. It seems to be so straight in comparison to today's titles. But even today, one game is enough to see its masterpiece. 

## Last years in board games 

Board games are so popular, that big industry entered also in that corner. There are so many titles, and so many of them are totally rubbish. There are so many overpriced titles, which seem to say that expensive is always very good. There are also many crowdfunding projects, which seem to have every piece of the game forged in metal or cut from diamonds, as if it were to prove the quality of the game. In short words, the world has gone mad like everywhere. Even the holy BGG rankings sometimes give weird information.

It just means that if someone starts playing board games they have to be very careful about their choices so as not to get discouraged without even getting to the bottom of it.

## Times of pandemics 

I was frequent player before times of pandemic, and I have been always playing with my friends in "paper" board games. Of course times of pandemics brings that strange limitations also to my board game habits. 

But we try to play online, in "electronic" versions of board games on sites like [Tabletopia.com] or [BoardGameArena.com]. It's interesting because it is possibble to play for free, or only with one premium account in many of advanced titles. First site is 3D/virtual board game sandbox, in theory, for every game, second site is "electronic" implementation of selected board games. 

During almost two years we were playing mainly:

* [Puerto Rico]
* [Terra Mystica]
* [Terraforming Mars] (only when the pandemic was waning - there are no version for [Tabletopia.com] or [BoardGameArena.com])
* [Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization]

## Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

It isn't the purest example of [Eurogame] but it's one of my favourite board games. I know it from the first "paper" edittion, and I was amazed by how it is close to the Civilization 1 computer game. It's funny, because it even doesn't look similar in general (computer game is showing world map, board game is showing several cards and piles only). But the overall feeling is like sitting inside computer game, with whole complexity of it. We can't eat or produce to much, or to little. We can't have to much army. We can't be to weak, or to strong. Under or too developed in culture points, or having to much/little science power. When we would rule in bad direction, it will end with fighting phalanx leaded by tribal chief against modern army with air forces. 

I don't know how that game could be received by people who didn't play in "paper" version, but this game has also awesome iPad implementation. Everything which is good, except time lose for game preparation (this game has many elements). 


=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurogame [Eurogame]
=> https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico [Puerto Rico]
=> https://tabletopia.com [Tabletopia.com]
=> https://boardgamearena.com [BoardGameArena.com]
=> https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167791/terraforming-mars [Terraforming Mars]
=> https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25613/through-ages-story-civilization [Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization]
=> https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/120677/terra-mystica [Terra Mystica]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 12 Feb 2022 08:19:10 PM CET

tags: #boardgame, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-02-12-Board-games-in-times-of-pandemics-and-in-general.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>BBOARD - Version 23</title>
<updated>2022-01-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-01-23:/gemlog/2022-01-23-BBOARD-Version-23.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># BBOARD - Version 23

At the sdf.org there is internal command called `bboard`. I am must be still very young because I had never seen something like it before. For me is like previous version of Usenet, and it could be something like it from the BBS era. I had never connected to BBS. 

So inside `bboard` I entered `HELP` command, to check what is going on there. Because I'm looking for Gopher protocol information I have chosen `GOTO GOPHER` command, which was listed in output of previous one. After that, there wasn't so obvious. To display post, which is called there as "bulletin", we must use `TYPE` command with post's ID number. The last one was a piece of cake - `POST` command to post a new post.

After that I successfully posted there. I will wait for the responses.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 23 Jan 2022 07:33:44 PM CET

tags: #pubnix, #sdf, #bboard
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-23-BBOARD-Version-23.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Nerds Love Text-Based Interfaces</title>
<updated>2022-01-17T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-01-17:/gemlog/2022-01-17-Re-nerds-Love-text-based-interfaces.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Nerds Love Text-Based Interfaces

In response to [Nerds Love Text-Based Interfaces Partially Because of Cognitive Dissonance, Which Also Explains Why People Like Shakespeare And Genital Mutilation].

I've read article which suggest that our beloved text-based interfaces are only a nerd fantasy. We are talking about them so much, that we can't admit that we were wrong from the beginning. Oh, come on! It can't be true. So why text-interface is better than graphical one? Many of us begun in the time when there are no other interface than that text-based. So maybe we are sentimental?

I remember the time of more and more fancy graphical interfaces. The most weird ones were that from music players. So we started from colorful WinAmp skins, and we moved to (software) mp3 players which had non-rectangle shape system windows. Less rectangle window, more strange buttons, mean more modern interface in 90's was. Such evolving of text-based interfaces were pointing to nowhere. But it isn't any answer. 

I like to use film cameras. Because for not so much money I can use photo equipment for professionals. These cameras were made with care of any detail. There were no space for compromises in area of ergonomic. My hand is ready for any action, and behind any of my fingers waiting button or lever for doing something. Film camera doesn't have today's fancy LCD, which seems to show us everything - but we know everything. Doesn't have complex menu with advanced actions - but we can do them, in the most cases quicker than by graphical menu. That is in some point an analogy to the text-base interface. 

There aren't any progress in movement from text-based to graphical interface even though many say so. More real could be that text-based interfaces, which are older, could be more studied and polished. More familiar and more natural for people. And what is more, text-based interfaces are more likely projected to be driven by keyboard. Mots of the graphical interfaces are operated mainly by mouse or fingers, not keyboard. 

In this point I can go back to the thought about film camera. That analog buttons and levers, and the same computer keyboard, must be more efficient. So for me, not text-based interface, nor graphical interface are better. Better is base concept behind a way interface is operated. Sometime mouse or finger are indispensable, but in other cases the strength of power-user is keyboard. 

And maybe, as written in [Nerds Love Text-Based Interfaces...], we need much time to be used to text-based interfaces. But it isn't wasted time, it's professionalization of our interactions with computer. 


=> gemini://text.adventuregameclub.com/offline/why-nerds-love-text.gmi [Nerds Love Text-Based Interfaces Partially Because of Cognitive Dissonance, Which Also Explains Why People Like Shakespeare And Genital Mutilation]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Tue 18 Jan 2022 07:20:28 PM CET

tags: #people, #cli
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-17-Re-nerds-Love-text-based-interfaces.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Pseudonymous</title>
<updated>2022-01-16T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-01-16:/gemlog/2022-01-16-Re-pseudonymous.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Pseudonymous

In response to [Pseudonymous]. 

Marginalia has written post about using nickname rather than real name. His (of course we can't know, if it should be "his" or "her" - and it's ok for me) point of view is some sort of explanation why he is using it. I feel it a bit like a feeling guilty of using nickname. 

For me it's normal and obvious. I started to use the Internet with nickname, and I didn't know anybody then, who was using a real name. In the same time, what could be shocking, I had knew the most of people behind the nicknames. It was caused by then shape of the net, which was for me more connected with local social-groups. So when we started to connect for example to IRC, I didn't know who is who. But after a while there, I could recognize the real people, for example from my neighbourhood or school. And sometimes, I could talk with somebody on IRC, and didn't talk in so called real-life. But that was 90's, and the net was different then. 

Decades later, the net is different. We were bombarded by era of professionals, who introduced whole official accounts, and name and surname domains. In the most cases professionals mean that there aren't place for non-commercial net. People became live visit cards, for their businesses. They create commercial content, and try to sell it. It caused that they want to be seen as serious Mr. John Smith, nor by nickname. Maybe it is caused by the changing point of view of net coverage, and withdraw from that local social-groups net. 

But it is not an obligation to create a professional real name domain, or to put there all net activity. I think that that time has gone. That obligation was also some premature step in net's growth. 
 
Today's net consists of so many activities, that nicknames are helping to organise them. I would call them avatars. It's handy to create one avatar for hobbies, which won't impact on the other ones. It isn't obligatory that everyone must be able to query everything what we put into the net by one phrase. Let's not get crazy that we need a bank-like net "credit history", as proof that we are real.

The second thing is something that we are learned about our private data, that they are value of today's world. So it's wise to don't put them to public, if it isn't necessary. It isn't the same as hiding or misleading people for purpose. It's some convention that other people will use our avatar, and they won't feel cheated. They also don't need nothing more than our avatar in the most cases.

The third thing is connected especially with small-net. I think that being there is coming back to the 90's sense of the net, and that local social-groups. So maybe it would be like on my first IRC channel, that we will be knowing each other behind nicknames.

=> gemini://marginalia.nu/log/43-pseodonymous.gmi [Pseudonymous]


-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 16 Jan 2022 11:17:31 AM CET

tags: #people, #question
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-16-Re-pseudonymous.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Setting a Gopher hole</title>
<updated>2022-01-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-01-15:/gemlog/2022-01-15-Setting-a-gopher-hole.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Setting a Gopher hole 

As the beginning of the 2021 came through as setting a Gemini capsule, the beginning of the 2022 is coming through as setting a Gopher hole. I've decided to sign up for sdf.org account, because there is a big gopher community and I didn't want to stuck in as some pioneer somewhere else. So it should be easy thing to set up Gopher hole there. No it wasn't so obvious. 

## My "setting" recipe 

The whole process of setting up a Gopher hole is easy, of course for everyone who had set up earlier one. There aren't any special and complicated software, there are only text files and Unix-like system. 

As a model user I started from manual. I visited [SDF Gopher FAQ] which can't be described as a very detailed source of knowledge. There is reference for `mkgopher` internal command, which is helper for doing so. So... I tried it. It confused me more, than it helped me. After a while, I knew that I must make everything from command line on my own. I noticed on [SDF Gopher Tutorial] two more helpers. There is 'mkgopherentry' script and `phlog` command. First one also confused me in creation of gophermap file (script's output is a bit oddy). The second one was a bit mysterious, but finally I got its purpose (it's only a trigger for linking on [Gopher Club Phlogs]). 

So as I had written before, it's better to set your Gopher hole on your own. But there are hidden traps, which aren't described in clear way in FAQ or tutorial. 

* You need a symlink from your home directory: `gopher -> /ftp/pub/users/szczezuja`, which I made by 'mkgopher' command and by calling "SETPU" inside it;
* You need some content, for example textfile, which you want to publish on Gopher;
* You need to create a gophermap text file, which is pointing for that content;
* You need to set up proper file permission in your home directory - as described on [Slugmax SDF Gopher Tutorial]: `chmod o+r files` and `chmod o+rx directories`;

As [Ruarí @ 2022-01-11 23:41] told me, the last point is specific for sdf.org, and it's caused by default permissions on this server. But it's good to know about it, because it is showing a simplicity of Gopher servers. There are no a special layer of permissions, if you are set "read for everyone" your files are public. In modern web-servers era, we sometimes believe in some kind of magic which would protect us. In the era of Gopher things were simpler. 

## Further thoughts 

It took me a while to settled gophermap topic in my mind. The whole idea is also simple, but I was spoiled by `mkgopherentry` example output. In the most cases we need only a little of the full gophermap. And as I understand, part of the rest isn't a official standard (so sometimes could be served in a different way in different servers and clients). So as it's described in [Slugmax SDF Gopher Tutorial]:

> XSome text here<TAB>/path/to/content<TAB>example.org<TAB>N 

Where X in most cases is 0 - for text files, and 1 - for directories. And that's enough for gophermap, you don't need any scripts for it. 

For me the whole idea of content and gophermap is a bit fragile. One mistaken character or permission, during the first or next uploads could broke our Gopher hole. It could be hard to test all links. I understand why many things in Gophersphere are broken. 

But the most difficult part of Gopher protocol for today's user could be lack of UTF-8. I don't think about emojis or other special things. Rather about letters of non English alphabet (like "Z with overdot" in "Szczeżuja") or (which was also found in my articles) characters like double typographic quotes. 

## Finally

So I safely landed in Gophersphere. You can read my content at [Szczeżuja's Gopher hole]. I plan to publish there subset of articles from Geminispace (via [Formatting Gemtext for Gopher] script) about Gopher. It's aim to be closer to Gophersphere user, which could be not interested in Gemini.

It wasn't so easy, but it's easy. For me easier was to set up Gemini capsule. 


=> https://sdf.org/?faq?GOPHER [SDF Gopher FAQ]
=> http://sdf.org/?tutorials/gopher [SDF Gopher Tutorial]
=> gopher://gopher.club:70/1/phlogs/ [Gopher Club Phlogs]
=> gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/slugmax/docs/gopher/sdf_gopher_tutorial.txt [Slugmax SDF Gopher Tutorial]
=> gemini://ruario.flounder.online/journal.gmi [Ruarí]
=> gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/slugmax/docs/README.Gophermap [Sample gophermap for Gophernicus]
=> gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/szczezuja/ [Szczeżuja's Gopher hole]
=> gemini://ruario.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-04_Formatting_Gemtext_for_Gopher.gmi [Formatting Gemtext for Gopher]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
Sat 15 Jan 2022 04:16:04 PM CET

tags: #gopher, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-15-Setting-a-gopher-hole.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Happy New Year for small-net community!</title>
<updated>2022-01-02T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2022-01-02:/gemlog/2022-01-02-happy-new-year.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Happy New Year for small-net community!

It's almost year of my existence in Geminispace, and interest of small-net. I wish a Happy New Year for whole small-net community, what is an essential thing for Geminispace, Gophersphere and every idea connected with being "small".

Passing year was a great journey for me. I figured out many aspects of it hidden world. I learn how to use new tools and protocols for regular basis. So maybe theoretically I knew many of that before, but practically everyday use of them improved my proficiency in that area. 

I wish also small-net community to be still so inspiring. There are many people on Geminispace, Gophersphere and Fediverse who are always worth to read. I wish to read their all phlogs, gemlogs, tinylogs, finger statuses and so on. 

One of the key ideas of small-net is to learn. To learn how the big-net is polluted and full of distractions. To learn how to avoid it by using, sometimes so basic, computer skills which seem to be outdated. Awareness of pointless bloat of big-net, that endless layers of abstractions and dependence on everything except yourself.

I wish small-net ideas will expand in a New Year, and cover more and more aspects. I wish it involve more and more people. Knowledge would empower real people, and serve our real needs. That should avoid us from news like that [BlackBerry OS Devices Will Stop Working On January 4, 2022] - that business decisions control a way that people act and think. 
 

=> https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/21/12/29/229259/blackberry-os-devices-will-stop-working-on-january-4-2022 [BlackBerry OS Devices Will Stop Working On January 4, 2022]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 02 Jan 2022 02:38:34 PM CET

tags: #gemlog, #software, #life
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2022-01-02-happy-new-year.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Cont. how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?</title>
<updated>2021-12-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-12-11:/gemlog/2021-12-11-Cont-how-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Cont. how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?

I got several replies to my question about the beginnings of cyber-life [1]. I've read all histories. Some points were similar to my experiences, some in natural way different (caused by different age, or geopolitical situation - Internet in Poland, where I live, was introduced with decades delay). But one thing was especially surprising - Gopher. 

There are no much Gopher in Gopher's golden era 1991-1995. Alex has only some suspicions that he could used it. Gustaf has had knowedgle about Gopher, but was more interested in WWW. Kelson was closest to Gopher, but it "was still around but fading fast" and probably he was using only lynx (web browser with Gopher client) only. Beto has used Gopher to obtain "results from the entrance examination" - it's only real life usage of Gopher in the answers so far. 

Answers in alphabetical order as below: 

=> gemini://alexschroeder.ch/page/2021-11-14%20The%20early%20years%20on%20the%20net
=> gemini://gerikson.com/gemlog/srs-bzns/My-early-years-online.gmi
=> gemini://hyperborea.org/log/2021-12-07-internet-1990s.gmi
=> https://idiomdrottning.org/objects/2d59d065-ff5a-4c2e-8f14-08803df768f0
=> gemini://taoetc.org/re_how_you_were_using_the_internet_in_the_1991-1995_and_1995-2005/index.gmi
=> gemini://unixcat.coffee/gemlog/2021-11-14-re1-how-you-were-using-the-internet.gmi

Thanks a lot for every answer. It would be great if someone else would also respond for my question. 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-11-13-How-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi [1]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 11 Dec 2021 08:26:05 PM CET

tags: #people, #question, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-12-11-Cont-how-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Do you write about non-technical stuff on your gemlog?</title>
<updated>2021-11-22T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-11-22:/gemlog/2021-11-22-Re-do-you-write-about-non-technical-stuff-on-your-gemlog.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Do you write about non-technical stuff on your gemlog?

In response for [Question #319] of mystery Transjovian's oracle. 

In my memories the most positive thoughts of blogging are connected with one of the Polish platform Jogger.pl. It was about five years, starting about 2004. It was platform build around XMPP (then, Jabber) protocol. There were many technical people, who were engaged into software projects around that protocol, their friends (also non-IT people). The main page of that service were presenting last blogs entries, which were in majority technical flavoured, but there were also popular (and actively commented) ordinary blogs about family and life. That were fertile place for interesting discussions and ideas. And such places were rare around 2004, the most of blogging platforms were dominated by pink teen-blogs etc. 

I have been always curious why that platform were so successful. Or, if it was real successful, or that is only some projection of my mind because that were my first years of blogging. 

It's funny but after years I came here, I found Geminispace and the atmosphere here is very similar to Jogger.pl. It's mainly technical soup, with many interesting non-IT findings. It seems to be inspiring for many people. It's gathering many people who were scattered around "big net". 

Returning to the main point, and the question. It's nice to write, and to read non-technical stuff here (the most commented were my post about Dwarf Fortress computer game), but it could be that we should care also about that technical atmosphere, which could be easily omitted. There will be some changes in the future, they will be many new comers. But with thinning out technical atmosphere we could lost the main driving force of Geminispace. 

=> gemini://transjovian.org/oracle/question/319 [Question #319]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 22 Nov 2021 10:21:50 PM CET

tags: #people, #question
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-11-22-Re-do-you-write-about-non-technical-stuff-on-your-gemlog.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>How you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?</title>
<updated>2021-11-13T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-11-13:/gemlog/2021-11-13-How-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># How you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?

We are using the Internet more than several decades. We have seen many things, which are forgotten now, and many which are changed a lot. The most of them were so obvious then, that we aren’t sure how they were looked like. Very often our imagination of that things are distorted with today’s visions, things which are the same only with its name. 

## 1995-2005

I start to think about my first hours (literally, with dial-up modem via home telephone line), when I was connected to the Internet, and I realized that I don’t remember too much. It was middle of ninety’s which is not so long ago. 

So I was using internet search engines like Altavista, which had some algorithm improvement in comparison to ordinary webpages indexes. But the most of interesting addresses I had been finding in paper (sic!) computers magazines, what sounds crazy today. 

I was browsing web pages of my choice, but without any supporting technologies like web feeds. I don’t remember how I didn’t get lost. I don’t remember much of that web pages. 

It was also before time when blogs were popular and before, so called Web 2.0. The most of the Internet content were static, and there weren’t popular thing to write comments or give „likes” by readers. The most popular active part of webpages were „visit counter” and guestbooks. 

First internet shopping, Facebook and other social-media came more than ten years after my first Internet connection. During this period of time the Internet became mainly the commercial platform, for buying things. Is hard to find things which aren’t aiming in selling some product today (in direct or indirect way eg. influencers in blogosphere, which started from totally amateur point).

## 1991-1995

I was thinking about years 1995-2005 as I have written above from my point of view, but the real reason of that questions there were my explorations of Gophersphere. 

I started my journey through the Internet in the point when Gopher decline. I have never used Gopher in 90’s. As I’ve read in [author’s of Gopher protocol article] I had some common point with Gopher. More than licensing matters, which are commonly thought as cause of Gopher’s problem, there were „fast” 28.8kbps modems. They were so „fast” that optimized for slow connections, text protocol were defeated by graphical presentation of information. 

The golden era of text information lasted until 1995. Gopher were introduced in 1991. So we have about four years, which is hard to recreate how it was used then. We can read many sources which are describing the whole idea of Gophersphere (for example ["Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference" Keith Johnson, Philip Baczewski, Melody Childs] book), but almost all content disappeared (there are only [Gophersphere archive from 2007]) and I can’t find any real evidence of people who were active then. 

## Let’s write about yourself!

So it was the first question - how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995? Then i asked myself - how I was using Internet in the 1995-2005? I am curious if anybody could write some memories about that times, or know any existing sources which could give some point of view, especially for the first period. 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-09-12-Gopher-novice-part-vii.gmi [author’s of Gopher protocol article]
=> https://archive.org/details/usinggopher0000john/page/n1/mode/2up ["Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference" Keith Johnson, Philip Baczewski, Melody Childs]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/wayback [Gophersphere archive from 2007] 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 13 Nov 2021 03:39:18 PM CET

tags: #question, #people, #archive, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-11-13-How-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Expectancy of frequent content producing</title>
<updated>2021-10-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-10-30:/gemlog/2021-10-30-Expectancy-of-frequent-content-producing.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Expectancy of frequent content producing

I haven't had too much free time in past weeks. I have been trying to check new content on Geminispace and Gophersphere, but very often there were too much them for me. The worse situation were only on Fediverse, but it's usual thing, that is too much content from followed people there (I try to omit everything except #gopher and #gemini tag). 

I'm thinking about some better way of reading new content. It's very common thing that I'd like to read some subset of articles form some site. But I subscribed to the whole feed, and I'm overwhelmed by the rest of content. Sometimes I'm forgetting why I subscribed to some feed before I had time to read things I subscribed for. 

I'm looking at popular way of organising content on Gophersphere, where many phlogs have numbered list (001-title, 002-title, 003-title... ) for entries, rather than popular on Geminispace chronological list (yyyy-mm-dd-title ...). The second way of organising content could make some impact on author, to write more often. For example to fill some chronological gap, at least one post in one month etc. 

It is some common way of readers that inactive blog is some unhealthy situation and that older entries aren't worth of reading, because they are outdated. So writers often produce some content only for producing one. 

So maybe mentioned idea of numbered list of entries is better. It's hiding chronology, which seem to be not important at all. Maybe it's natural way to slow down with producing new content.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
Sat 30 Oct 2021 03:21:32 PM CEST

tags: #people
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-10-30-Expectancy-of-frequent-content-producing.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Don't be like a developer</title>
<updated>2021-10-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-10-10:/gemlog/2021-10-10-dont-be-like-a-developer.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Don't be like a developer

The common thing in small-net is to talk about slow content consumption. So we are against fast and shallow social-media trend, like-system, and instant commenting. Instead of this we want to read longer written forms, take time to think and write thoughtful answer. This is the user side of how the Internet is working today. Users can choose what is better for them. Sometimes is hard to change own habits, because social-media implements some mechanism which are using knowledge of how our mind is working (dopamine's reward system). But at the end is our decision. 

The many of forward-thinking person here are developers who are creating apps like social-media ones mentioned above. And the most of such apps are totally not thought out. So developers could do some a revolution in the way of thinking about them, because many of them are thinking in different way. 

Some time ago I joined My Heritage site. They provide service for the construction of a family tree, and matching our relatives with other families trees. This site could be called professional because they invest into digitalizing some historical records etc. to help their users find ancient ancestors. I've choose it because it's theme is in a natural way connected with being slow. Building a family tree is occupation for decades. 

But the whole technical side of this service is crafted in the traditional way. So our e-mail box (it could be also our phone by SMS!) is spammed by every update occurred there. Reminders about anniversaries, hundreds of updates about matching the same person in hundreds of other family trees. The main duty of their user is to clean up their mailboxes. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but updates are to often, as for the genealogy service in my opinion. If we are creating our family tree during years, we don't need updates with one second precision. 

Of course the same mechanism is implemented in many services. So we are getting immediate e-mails about every action on our Git repositories and the like, "necessary" things. Such mail updates system seems to be inseparable thing of every "modern" service.

Because I like to have "Inbox Zero" situation in my e-mail box so every day I must swipe several times to mark that mails as done. It isn't spam, because I'm scanning them very fast. But they can by grouped. 

The main cause of that situation is because developers programmed that treated people like database trigger or table row. Nobody would complain because nothing will be lost, every bit would be provided to user with no delay. And of course we don't have to read that e-mails. So for what they are? They should help user to be informed, not flooded.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 10 Oct 2021 09:54:15 AM CEST

tags: #software, #people
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-10-10-dont-be-like-a-developer.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Re: Why use Gemini?</title>
<updated>2021-09-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-09-15:/gemlog/2021-09-15-Re-Re-Why-use-Gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Re: Why use Gemini?

It's some kind response to myself and my post [Re: Why use Gemini?], but I had read an article [On leaving Gemini: a friendly farewell] and start to think about this topic again. Why use Gemini?

Those things I described in original response seem to be still correct. But maybe it's really just a computer freak fad? All that people who are writings engines for migration from one technology to another, and then back again? Not really. 

I discovered on myself, that the idea of text-only web is tempting. Browsing through text-mode browser, or graphical one, through the essence of core-information soup is inspiring. In the most cases we don't need whole decoration which is a common thing today. Maybe we were knowing that in early 90's, when everybody were laughing at pink-background pages with marquee tag. But we can't easily notice this today. The hype for black mode interfaces is insane. We could do this once, if we'd have Gemini separation of information from presentation. Instead this, we re-coloring pages, and we are thinking that one color is more cool than other. 

As described, in known sentence on [Project Gemini] site, Gemini protocol:

> Is heavier than gopher / Is lighter than the web / Will not replace either

but it could be long awaited idea for restoring discussion about Gopher heritage. Because it could be inevitable, that then graphical representation of information won. But it could be the correct time to think about it again. Now we are able to do thing in every direction, there are no limitations which had bring Gopher to life, and now is the time, when everyone could knowingly rethink the strengths of WWW, which made Gopher to die. It couldn't be done with going back to smelling of antiquities Gopher again. So we have brand new protocol to start from the beginning. 

To support my thesis that sometimes we don't need all WWW's achievements is that many of people has always been putting the simples CSS for their websites. It's so popular that they are whole bunch of minimalistic themes. I have minimalistic theme for my blog since beginning of 2000's. So people are going about abandoning responsibility for appearance for long time. But they have to do it anyway. They are creating special themes, lite version of sites, try to parse pages and generate their text representation etc. 

There is also a political movement of tidying a WWW mess with The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or e-services, which provide public data with no limitations and with possibility for reusing them. They are talking about the natural thing in Gemini, so maybe that paths would intersect in the future.

So it could be next argument for not leaving Gemini. Popularising its base point of view could be worth it. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-04-26-Re-Why-use-Gemini.gmi [Re: Why use Gemini?]
=> https://cadadr.dreamwidth.org/4123.html [On leaving Gemini: a friendly farewell] 
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/ [Project Gemini]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 15 Sep 2021 08:33:39 PM CEST

tags: #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-09-15-Re-Re-Why-use-Gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part VII.</title>
<updated>2021-09-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-09-12:/gemlog/2021-09-12-Gopher-novice-part-vii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part VII.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part VI]

I missed on [Bob Alberti's Gopher Directory] (co-author of Internet Gopher) information about his article from 2011, titled [Internet Gopher: The Bridge to the Web]. Today is time for reading it. 

## What was the Internet like?

> The Internet had by 1991 [...] The quarter million hosts with domain names ending in “.edu” (indicating colleges, universities, and other educational institutions) still outnumbered all others including commercial hosts ending in “.com.”

> [...] we put the source code up on the FTP server on boombox.micro.umn.edu (Boombox) and informed colleagues at other institutions about its availability. Remember in those days the only way to retrieve something from the Internet was to know its address in advance, so the only way for information about the availability of Gopher’s source code to spread via Usenet conferencing (Anklesaria F. , 2011), e-mail discussion lists or verbally.

> [...] While the Gopher Team wrote all our own code, we received bug reports from the community, discussed feature ideas and worked to integrate with standards and much more. Communication was over e-mail and Usenet first in the alt.gopher newsgroup and later on comp.infosystems.gopher.

> [...] Nowadays client-server architecture is ubiquitous, but in 1991 the growth of the Internet (e.g. servers) and the increase in power of the personal computer (clients) had developed to the point where client-server architecture was increasingly feasible.

> [...] In order to understand Gopher’s significance and its impact on contemporary computing in 1991, it is important to understand the environment from which it emerged. In 1991, computers were the realm of academics and hobbyists, and the landscape of services and connections was much more fractured and difficult to navigate than it is today. Connectivity was primarily provided by modems with speeds ranging from 300 to 2400 baud (Daxial Communications, 2003). E-mail was granular within institutions to the level of individual departmental mail server – you couldn’t write to “name@institution.edu,” and there were no on-line directories. Most interpersonal contact was by reading Usenet, which was an increasingly unwieldy1 database of interest-based forums distributed via NNTP protocol (Kantor & Lapsley, 1986) to a growing number of servers around the Internet.

> [...] The primary means of moving files was over File Transfer Protocol (FTP) (Postel, 1980). FTP’s stateful architecture and unusual two-port communications protocol is an artifact of its antiquity. FTP was developed back when there were no personal computers, only mainframe computers and dumb terminals, or maxi-Hosts and TIPs respectively in the original ARPANET design (Edmondson- Yurkanan, 2002). [...] Modern FTP software has addressed these challenges by writing smarter, more powerful client software that would have been impossible back when we were developing Gopher.

So we can saw the picture of the educational institutions which are using the Internet in the old-school way. There are no imagination of pleasures, but hard work with every aspect of communication. Slow connection, limited hardware resources, primary tools and protocols. The Internet where you must know what to do. It could be surprising that the most advanced form of communication provide Usenet. I understand it as self organising people in their spare time, and beyond a dominant influence of serious institutions. The worth saying is also some ban for commercial use of the Internet's public infrastructure. 

## How the Internet was organised?

> [...] Additionally, FTP had no means to refer users to other FTP locations, and this was a critical difference between Gopher and FTP

> [...] The overall impact of the Gopher architecture cannot be overstated – abstracted data access and fast performance made Gopher significantly more user-friendly than anything that had yet been seen. And its deliberately lean client-server design allowed for an acceptable user experience even on computers employing connections as slow as 300 baud.

Beyond Usenet, the Internet of 90's was hidden behind of some curtain and tools made it difficult to take advantage of "net". It's good point, I didn't think before, that FTP can't link other FTP. Information can't flow in natural way. 

## Gopher escape 

> [...] Gopher dropped like a seed crystal into the supersaturated information solution of the Internet, and over the next two years gained broad and enthusiastic acceptance, particularly among computer experts as well as information scientists (colloquially, “librarians”) who sought to ensure that Gopher facilitated formal information sciences methods and notations (Dalton, 1991). By 1993 Internet Gopher escaped the communities of computer mavens and librarians and emerged into popular culture

> [...] Gopher broke through to the popular consciousness following a write-up in the London Guardian in August of 1993 (Flowers, 1993). A LexisNexis search for “Internet Gopher” turns up over a dozen articles in 1993 and 1994 published in such diverse periodicals as the Washington Post (Williams, 1995), The Age (Melbourne) (Watson & Barry, 1995), the Business Times of Singapore (Leong, 1994), and Newsweek (Watson & Barry, 1995).

I'm noting that for further reading. It could be interesting to read articles from 1993-1995. It's the most interesting thing to me to find a way how the average usage of the Internet was in time when Gopher "escaped" from that serious world of educational institutions. 

## Gopher decline

> [...] However, I disagree with the conventional wisdom that the licensing issue was the cause, or even a major cause, of Gopher’s demise. While I agree with Cal Lee that Gopher lost critical “mindshare” over the licensing issue (Lee, 1999), I don’t believe that the licensing controversy was the major factor in Gopher’s demise.

> [...] Finally, and most important in my estimation as to why the popularity of Internet Gopher declined, was the introduction in late 1994 of the V.34 28.8K baud modem (Figure 16). This was double the speed of V.33 14.4K baud introduced in 1991 (International Telecommunications Union, 2009). And as the V.34 modems were bundled with booming PC sales, their adoption was rapid. [...] By contrast, Gopher had been written to be extremely speedy: its text-only displays required only a fraction of the bandwidth that a Web page required. 

One of the most popular argument against Gopher success is licensing issue. But above explanation appeals to me more. So users can use their powerful home computers, and their speedy modems to do more than everyone could imagine a year before, leaving behind the academic community. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-30-Gopher-novice-part-vi.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part VI]
=> gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/alberti [Bob Alberti's Gopher Directory]
=> https://ia802801.us.archive.org/9/items/internet_gopher_bridge_to_the_web/Internet-Gopher-Alberti.pdf [Internet Gopher: The Bridge to the Web]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 12 Sep 2021 08:56:23 PM CEST

tags: #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-09-12-Gopher-novice-part-vii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Structured Geminispace</title>
<updated>2021-09-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-09-11:/gemlog/2021-09-11-Structured-geminispace.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Structured Geminispace

## Its started from blogroll 

The idea behind this post was built in my head for several months. I started my presence in Geminispace from blogroll file, it was simple list of interesting capsules, which I try to read. 

After a while, I found that Amfora (text gemini browser) has ability to aggregate feeds. So I moved my blogroll into Amfora. 

Then I found Comitium (gemini aggregator) and I moved my blogroll again into its format. 

Finally, I found Lagrange (graphical gemini browser) and I moved my blogroll again into its format. Because I am using now several devices with Lagrange, I have a bit different subset of my blogroll on every device. 

So now I'm a bit bored of my frequent movings and I'm afraid that it could be not the last time when I must to move with my blogroll. 

I realised also, that Comitium generated feeds page isn't perfect for blogroll. Because its of course help to track capsules, which I am tracking, but without any my personal information. So it's not a real blogroll, it's a regular capsules list. 

## Bookmarks 

Some time ago I respond about [Planned undiscoverability of small sites], where I was considering if we should try to focus on great popularity. But I agree that we should have some standardised way for exchange information of our blogrolls (or regular bookmarks). 

## Structured file

Maybe above questions: - How to avoid blogroll movvings? - How to publish bookmarks? - lead to the same answer. Geminispace need a structured data format for blogrolls and bookmarks. Only one open question remains - if it should be used locally, or globally. But that answer isn't crucial. 

If we would have such format, we could:

* record our links, feeds etc. 
* generate static sites like blogrolls, bookmarks etc. 
* read, write and transfer that files inside many apps, sites etc. 

For example I could publish my blogroll, which could be import into Amfora, Comitium and Lagrange. And it could be used for everyone else. 

## Structured Geminispace

I mentioned in my last post about city district map. I was thinking about this theoretical map. I don't know how to draw it. I'd like to put on it the most important points in Geminispace for me. 

Of course such idea must be discovered earlier. Wikipedia mentions [Giant Global Graph] which is more wide idea of that map. So I could use some FOAF like format to describe my surroundings. And I could pick some more FOAF's from my blogroll (if everybody would use such format like FOAF) to create my city district map. My part of Geminispace. 

## Existing formats

Of course, again - there are many formats like that. The most of them were abandoned in the further years of Web 2.0 era. 

### Designed for WWW/HTML

We shouldn't spend time on inventing the new format but we could use some exist specification. I thought I saw somewhere on Geminispace short post about microformats. 

* [FOAF]
* [h-card] and [XFN]
* [OPML]

### Designed for structuring text files 

But we should transform its representation into structured plain text files. Maybe it would be sufficient to copy some standard one by one into text file? 

* [TOML]
* [YAML]

## Hypothetical format adoption

It could be hard work to introduce such new format. I can observe progress on [RFC: TinyLogs format]. What is also interesting, I didn't read any Gemini or Gopher article about problem described similar like in [Giant Global Graph]. There are more about bloated data representation of WWW, but mainly about graphic, Java-Script, adverts. Not about unstructured data, and will structurization of it.

But in my opinion abandonment of formats designed for WWW/HTML is result of the direction of how the whole WWW is going to. Because the small-net direction (Gophersphere, Geminispace) would be a different one, there could be possibility for such change. 

Last but not least it would be easier for developers to have such format for data migration. Now every app has its own data format, and migration of data require manual data extraction. 
 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-09-08-Planned-undiscoverability-of-small-sites.gmi [Planned undiscoverability of small sites]
=> https://web.archive.org/web/20160713021037/http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/215 [Giant Global Graph]
=> http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/ [FOAF]
=> http://microformats.org/wiki/h-card [h-card]
=> http://microformats.org/wiki/xfn [XFN]
=> http://opml.org/spec2.opml [OPML]
=> https://toml.io/en/ [TOML]
=> https://yaml.org/spec/1.2/ [YAML]
=> https://codeberg.org/bacardi55/gemini-tinylog-rfc [RFC: TinyLogs format]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 11 Sep 2021 04:58:45 PM CEST

tags: #smallnet, #map, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-09-11-Structured-geminispace.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Planned undiscoverability of small sites</title>
<updated>2021-09-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-09-08:/gemlog/2021-09-08-Planned-undiscoverability-of-small-sites.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Planned undiscoverability of small sites

In response to [The Small Website Discoverability Crisis].

I try to make title of this post as opposite state for the /marginalia.nu/ one. I understand the context and the original idea. I am observing a degradation of blogosphere. And I'm also trying to write, as I say, old-school blog since 2004. This is blogging which is described as "discouraging to put work into a website and get next to no traffic beyond the usual bots". But, which I always treated as writing for my own.

I was thinking in the same way, that for the most of people is discouraging to be small, and that is the main problem. Because the most people, which try to be big, also start to be boring. For example is joyful and inspiring to others to write, and to read, several posts in one month. But it's hard to do the same with some imposed, for example, one post per day limit. But without everyday activity our site would be low-ranked. And things seem to be unsolvable. 

The new point of view came here, in Geminispace and Gophersphere. As I've written [Infiniteness obscuring the field of vision]. It isn't true that we should be able to read all the net, and know all the most interesting sites. It's new cyber manner, that we should do so, because computers are able to do that. So we are looking always the best thing, the cheapest shop, the most active news site, the most followed social-media publisher. Of course this is some illusion, and of course there can't be such things. 

More beneficial in the long term will be building stronger, but not so wide interactions. So it could be some planned idea to be undiscoverable. To be visible only in narrow area of the net. What could help us be more natural, and to do things mainly for our and others joy. 

I was thinking of something similar to city district map. When people are aware of whole city closeness, the context of the rest of the world, but they mark the most important local points on the map. The local bakery, grocery and so on. With that pointlessness of making it more global - for example it's without sense to make the best bakeries in the whole city, because the most natural way is to choose the closest good one. 

So the whole idea of map of the closest net should be different from aggregator like /del.icio.us/ and without aspirations of being big. 

I like idea "Simple federated bookmarking" mentioned by /marginalia.nu/. Maybe it's the different name for old-schools blogrolls? I also like the idea of [Antenna] but I don't know how it will look like with increasing popularity. 


=> gemini://marginalia.nu/log/19-website-discoverability-crisis.gmi [The Small Website Discoverability Crisis]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-22-Idea-of-limited-resource-software.gmi [Infiniteness obscuring the field of vision] 
=> gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/index.gmi [Antenna]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 08 Sep 2021 09:12:28 PM CEST

tags: #map, #smallnet, #antenna
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-09-08-Planned-undiscoverability-of-small-sites.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part VI.</title>
<updated>2021-08-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-30:/gemlog/2021-08-30-Gopher-novice-part-vi.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part VI.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part V]

Finally I got some articles about how to use Gophersphere. I've read [Diving into the Internet from 1994] and concerns of worse net from that times: 

> Unfortunately, that's what Gopherspace is today. Anybody can install and advertise a Gopher.

Then [Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet from 1994]:

> 8.8. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
> As the Internet grows ever more popular, its resources come under more of a strain. If you try to use gopher in the middle of the day, at least on the East Coast of the U.S., you'll sometimes notice that it takes a very long time for particular menus or database searches to come up. 

And

> 8.9 FYI
> David Riggins maintains a list of gophers by type and category. You can find the most recent one at the ftp site ftp.einet.net, in the pub directory. Look for a file with a name like "gopher-jewels.txt." Alternately, you can get on a mailing list to get the latest version sent

I started connecting information from many places. I've spotted an archive of many articles about Gophersphere. There are informations from every point of Gopher history - [Vogue Growth Era, Mass Defection Era and Stagnancy Era].

When I've been reading about [The WELL Gopher] I can easily navigate to [The WELL's GopherSpace] at Gopher Wayback Machine. 

Next I've read about [Gopher Jewels], which I've seen at second guide, and, despite there are no information at Gopher Wayback Machine, I can obtain its WWW's version at [Gopher Jewels at Web Archive]. 

I've found also, missed earlier, [Funny Bone 1997-2001] zine. 

Step by step I try to imagine what was the Gophersphere like. Just take a look at Gopher Jewels and a wealth of structured data. It seems that it was easier to get the scientific information than today. Look at the [The WELL - Bruce Sterling] with many content of Shismatrix author. There are also many transcripts and so on. Interesting one is ["Free as Air, Free As Water, Free As Knowledge"].

I look at it as some forgotten, for two decades, wisdom. We can read [Diving into the Internet from 1994]:

> 8. When you take information from the Internet, remember that you owe a debt to those who made it available. Repay your debt by making your own contribution. Ask your local Gopher master; he or she will probably be happy to accept a donation of time to help organize, update, index, and improve the system. 

What is interesting, and maybe a bit funny, that more content I'm consuming in Gopher-style, the more I like it. It's true that content provided in one way is easier to process. Content is on the first place, not a fancy project of modern websites which are only content providers. I realised that I look to much at the appearance of the webpages. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-26-Gopher-novice-part-v.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part V]
=> gopher://cyber.dabamos.de:70/1/gopher [Vogue Growth Era, Mass Defection Era and Stagnancy Era]
=> gopher://cyber.dabamos.de:70/0/gopher/articles/The_WELL_Gopher.txt [The WELL Gopher]
=> gopher://cyber.dabamos.de:70/0/gopher/articles/Gopher_Jewels_Tour.txt [Gopher Jewels]
=> https://web.archive.org/web/19980212210352/http:/galaxy.einet.net/GJ/index.html [Gopher Jewels at Web Archive]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/wayback/2007/gopher.well.com/70 [The WELL's GopherSpace]
=> gopher://cyber.dabamos.de:70/0/gopher/articles/Internet_Diving.txt [Diving into the Internet from 1994]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/0/wayback/2007/net1.hkbu.edu.hk/70/0/deptmenu/geogdept/document/bigdummy/ch08.txt [Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet from 1994]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/funnybone [Funny Bone 1997-2001]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/wayback/2007/gopher.well.com/70/1/Publications/authors/Sterling [The WELL - Bruce Sterling]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/0/wayback/2007/gopher.well.sf.ca.us/70/0/Publications/authors/Sterling/freeknow.up ["Free as Air, Free As Water, Free As Knowledge"]
=> gopher://cyber.dabamos.de:70/0/gopher/articles/Internet_Diving.txt [Diving into the Internet from 1994]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 30 Aug 2021 10:22:37 PM CEST

tags: #gopher, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-30-Gopher-novice-part-vi.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part V.</title>
<updated>2021-08-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-26:/gemlog/2021-08-26-Gopher-novice-part-v.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part V.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part IV].

## The oldest content of the Gophersphere 

Several days ago I've got the idea to search [Veronica] for some dates. I've chosen 1999 and the first result looked for a good luck. I thought then that it must be part of the oldest content of the Gophersphere. I've started to read that archives but there hadn't been written about Gopher at all. It was strange for me. After a while I've read author's about section, and there he had written:

> I recall when both the web and gopher started, but never did get around to running a gopher site until a few years ago 

The real first post on the Gophersphere was [2018/01/09]. Everything is clear now. There are many Phlogs which are re-published on Gophersphere. Other searches in Veronica hasn't been so successful. But I'm repeating them and try search the real oldest content of Gophersphere again. 

## Gophersphere Wayback Machine

My probing inside Veronica results has gave other interesting result. I've found [Snapshot of the gopherverse from 2007. Inspired by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.]. As I've written before, I try to download Gopher archive via BitTorrent. The things are going slow. And here suddenly the mentioned discovery. Without need to download archive to my hard-disk I can browse it. Splendid. 

I haven't done any interesting finds yet. 

## Creators of the Gophersphere

There aren't many people who are gather unique content in Gophersphere. One of such place is [Mateusz' gopher lair] where are much to explore. For example old adverts eg. [Who's keeping up with Commodore Advert]. We all want to relax with near to portable hardware like this! ;-)

## Gopherchan

I've found also [Gopherchan]. There are no similar project in Geminispace yet. 

## The way of Gophersphere was used

I try to browse Wayback, articles like [Gopher FAQ] to figure out the way of Gophersphere was used in 90's. It's hard to say something about it. My posts on Mastodon with questions about this topic, are in most cases without any answers. It could be natural, because people who were using Gopher then probably don't use Mastodon now. I ran into "new" [Bob Alberti's Gopher Directory] described as "co-authors of Internet Gopher", with only one greeting entry. It's hard to track down people who are on Gopher since 90's (even on and off). 

I start thinking about WWW. The situation is the same. There aren't many places which could tell the new comers how WWW were used in 90's, 2000's or 2010's. I don't remember what exactly I was doing before so called Web 2.0 period (with mostly read-only WWW). I don't remember my first e-commerce experience, and how it was working before e-commerce had became popular. WWW is changing so quickly, that we are loosing memories about it. The same thing happened to Gophersphere. 

My imagination about 90's in Gophersphere is that it was mainly read only catalogue of some digitized archives, provided by big institutions without need of printing them. The most of users interactions could be done by mailing lists or USENET. I don't know if the idea of Phlog were known - because WWW's Blogs were popular in the second half of 90's. So what was the ordinary day of Gopher user? What sites were popular? 

Probably after the big institutions were switching off their catalogs, or moving them into WWW, there weren't anything left in Gophersphere. 
 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-08-14-Gopher-novice-part-iv.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part IV]
=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/7/v2/vs/?1999 [Veronica]
=> gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2018/01/09.1 [2018/01/09]
=> gopher://mozz.us:70/1/wayback [Snapshot of the gopherverse from 2007. Inspired by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.]
=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr:70/1/ [Mateusz' gopher lair]
=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr:70/I/attic/old%20technology%20ads/5008f0c613259509a756b8588b245430.jpg [Who's keeping up with Commodore Advert]
=> gopher://port70.net:70/1chan [Gopherchan]
=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr:70/1/gopher-faq/ [Gopher FAQ]
=> gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/alberti [Bob Alberti's Gopher Directory]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
V1.0 @ Thu 26 Aug 2021 11:03:11 PM CEST
V1.1 @ Mon 30 Aug 2021 06:09:18 PM CEST

tags: #gopher, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-26-Gopher-novice-part-v.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Idea of limited resource software</title>
<updated>2021-08-22T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-22:/gemlog/2021-08-22-Idea-of-limited-resource-software.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Idea of limited resource software 

## Big-net

There are two opposite ideas. One which is treated as obvious that today's hardware is so powerful, in comparison to computers several decades ago, and software seems to be infinite. Infinite in meaning of service size, number of users, data etc. Infinite in meaning of functionality - be like Facebook which try to build everything inside its world. Infinite in meaning of design - build with most complex backbone engines, for example first choice databases like PostgreSQL (because they are free) which are using in success in big commercial projects, or many layer of virtualisation in shape of big GAFA services with possibilities of scaling for million users. Having million user base seems to be the main object of most projects, as the initial assumption. This mean that the most of small projects are just oversized. 

## Small-net

The second one is about limiting resources. The most obvious direction is connected with popular Raspberry Pi or retro hardware movement. But it isn't the thing I'd like to write now. 

As I've written [The Small-net is finite]. I've spotted the more and more projects which had set some limitations. There have some initial assumptions of the maximum shape of the project. 

* For the first time about this I've read in [Official Circumlunar Space FAQ]. It's so natural for picked cosmic theme to organise their Pubnix into limited group of people. It's so unheard of services that are closing registering new users. 

* Some time ago during my browsing for Gopher origins I've spotted some aggregators, which showing nothing now. There are no new items to aggregate. But the most uncommon thing is that aggregator doesn't provide historical content. In the Internet the most popular thing now is to gather all data, for some indefinite future reasons. I figured out later that Gemini Reddit-like [Geddit] has the same limitation. 

* The most weird for the today user thing, I spotted yesterday, is [Sector Disk]. Social-media for 2880 users, which could request 512 bytes for their data. The essence of Small-net!

## Infiniteness obscuring the field of vision 

I hadn't understood the idea of Local Timeline in Mastodon. I understood this some time ago when I've discovered Pubnixes idea, which I mentioned above. It's showing that my habit of infinite services made me don't understand that idea before. I had been thinking that every instance of Mastodon want to have as many users as possible. So the Local Timeline in the long time period will be the same as Federated Timeline. 

But as we can see above the main idea could be different. There could be some instance which is organised around some idea, and for which the Local Timeline is crucial. Instance which don't want to be separated, but don't use Federated Timeline as source of interactions. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-03-Small-net.gmi [The Small-net is finite]
=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/universe/faq.txt [Official Circumlunar Space FAQ]
=> gemini://geddit.glv.one/ [Geddit]
=> gopher://sectordisk.pw:70/0/about [Sector Disk]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 22 Aug 2021 10:38:49 AM CEST

tags: #smallnet, #software, #pubnix, #sectorDisk
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-22-Idea-of-limited-resource-software.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference</title>
<updated>2021-08-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-15:/gemlog/2021-08-15-using-gopher-the-user-friendly-reference.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference

Some quotes from the book ["Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference" Keith Johnson, Philip Baczewski, Melody Childs] from 1995. Titles of paragraphs as in the book. I highlighted text by underscore character _. 

This book isn't any advanced title nor include deep analyse of Gophersphere. I mention it because it was written in 1995, the year which is described in ["Where Have all the Gophers Gone?" by Christopher (Cal) Lee] as time when WWW overtook Gopher and FTP protocols. On the blurb we can see interesting opinion which was supposed to encourage us to read book about Gopher. 

> /Using Gopher/ helps users master the essential basics of Gopher. Before the world _went World Wide Web crazy_, Gopher was being used by thousands of sites to efficiently deliver valuable information resources to their users. This book covers Gopher's operational background, basics and beyond"
> D. Alan Cunningham
> Principal Engineer
> NASA Spacelink Project

So we must resist WWW craziness. 

After this introduction I noted some final paragraphs of the book. Paragraphs 1st - 3rd are about operational side of Gopher on example client called WSGopher. Book has many illustration which are showing every dialog of WSGopher and, what is more interesting, content of Gophersphere inside WSGopher. 

## "Part VI Gopher and Beyond"

> Is Gopher becoming extinct? Is it destined to go the way of the dinosaurs, fading in the wake of Mosaic's meteoric popularity? It's hard to believe that in 1990 there was no such thing as Gopher. Soon after its development in 1991, Gopher enjoyed an exponential growth in popularity and it had only one major competitor.
>
> Gopher's competition only had a _real advantage on expensive graphical computer systems_ where you could display pictures and text together on one screen. That competitor was the World Wide Web; and a program called Mosaic has recently altered the landscape considerably. Now, thanks to inexpensive and powerful computer hardware, everybody can use a graphical environment, such as Windows, Mac OS, and OS/2. The Web has gained new stature within the online world. What's the future of Gopher in this new landscape? 

In 90's everyone wanted to have more powerful computer. Not as today, when is popular to operating with some own-given hardware limitations. So we are back to the same argumentations from a bit other side. 

### "Gopher's place on the Internet landscape"

> The complete extinction of Gopher _is not likely_, because Gopher servers' ability to organize information and manage data make them an attractive target even for these new Web browsers. But Gopher clients seem to be in jeopardy. The ease with which newer programs such as Mosaic and Netscape can access Gopher servers might check the growth of Gopher as an Internet service with its own identity.
>
> Some new ideas in using Gopher might be the key to keeping the Gopher service viable. There are a couple of interesting prospects, and in this chapter we'll see how they bring some fresh concepts to the use of an Internet resource that, by now, we've not only gotten quite used to but grown quite fond of as well.

### "Some new ideas on the horizon"

> Several new Gopher clients and interfaces have appeared recently that may change the thinking about how we use Gopher. Some innovative concepts have been applied to using a very traditional kind of Gopher service.
> 
> "Gophermoo: Gopher in virtual reality"
> 
> Gophermoo is based on a game technology that's been around the Internet for a number of years. You may have heard of the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons, in which players control the actions of a character in a made-up world. The online version of this concept is called a MUD, for Multi-User Dungeon. A MUD allows multiple people to participate in an online game usually done over the Internet.
> 
> Gophermoo is a new kind of server that creates a text-based virtual reality and allows you to use items in Gopherspace as if you were in real space. The "moo" in Gophermoo stands for Mud Object Oriented. Gophermoo creates a space in which Gopher items exist as objects within a room. You can visit that room, collect objects (Gopher menus you've visited), leave the room, and come back to it in the same state that you left it. Because Gophermoo is a multi-user server, someone else might be in the room with you and you can collaborate on some Internet exploration.

It's worth to say that Geminispace has similar active project [Ijiraq].

> "TurboGopher VR"
> 
> GopherVR takes the concept of virtual reality one step further by using _three dimensional graphic images_ to create a small landscape that can be navigated by literally moving in one direction or another. Currently there are two versions available for only two kinds of computer systems (UNIX and Macintosh) and the software is experimental.
> (...) the initial screen that you see when you run TurboGopherVR, the Macintosh version of GopherVR. You can move to the right around this circle by pressing the mouse button and moving the mouse to the right. You want to move left? Press the mouse button and move your mouse to the left. Moving the mouse up moves you forward and close to one of the monoliths. Moving the mouse down moves you backward.
> When you click on one of the menu items you will be taken to the new menu. (You will actually start from an aerial view and fly down to a new set of monoliths.) Currently, the same scene is used for all menus, but the developers of GopherVR have imagined a version for which Gopher system managers could create their own three-dimensional scenes and allow people to navigate among various items.

It's funny that from the 1990's we are trying to put everything into virtual reality. Until now, it seems that this idea has not been sold with too much success.

## "A final word"

> A Gopher server remains an easy way to organize and present information on the Internet. It sometimes _may not be as elegant_ as the World Wide Web; however, its utility as a flexible workhorse of an Internet server is unmatched. The primary weaknesses of Gopher as a service are the overburdened Veronica and Archie servers. This is only a weakness because of these servers' popularity. With the expansion of the Internet, perhaps more of those servers can be provided as a public service by some of the corporate Internet users or provided by commercial Internet companies for their subscribers. Either way would relieve some of the traffic from the university and network organization sites that currently provide these search servers.
> Gopher as an access method does have some limitations in its current form. As we have seen, however, those limitations can be overcome. The application of new ideas to this older Internet technology has resulted in some creative approaches to displaying Gopher resources. It may be that the _future of Gopher will only be limited by the imagination of a new generation of programmers_.

So as it was written. In the times of WWW craziness there were awareness of Gopher limitations but someone want to publish a new book about Gopher for newbies. We should check how many copies were sold, what could show us the real state of Gopher interest of people. Author thought that only Gopher browsers are in danger, because WWW browsers include ability of Gopher browsing. And had put Gophersphere into the hands of "new generation of programmers". Nice. 

## "Find Mother Gopher by her address"

> To get to the Mother Gopher without pointing and clicking all over the place, enter its address (...) name, University of Minnesota, and address, gopher.micro.umn.edu

Book is containing index of interesting addresses, I tried to browse them. I've started from Mother Gopher, and tried also some next addresses from the list. Not even one of them worked. 


=> https://archive.org/details/usinggopher0000john/page/n1/mode/2up ["Using Gopher The User-Friendly Reference" Keith Johnson, Philip Baczewski, Melody Childs]
=> https://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm ["Where Have all the Gophers Gone?" by Christopher (Cal) Lee]
=> gemini://transjovian.org/ijiraq [Ijiraq]

-- 
szczzuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 15 Aug 2021 12:55:19 PM CEST

tags: #gopher, #book
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-15-using-gopher-the-user-friendly-reference.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Dwarf Fortress</title>
<updated>2021-08-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-15:/gemlog/2021-08-15-dwarf-fortress.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Dwarf Fortress

I started several days ago. I checked [Veronica search for: dwarf fortress] and [Geminispace.info search for: dwarf fortress]. One point for Geminispace in the number of Dwarf Fortress players. One point for Gophersphere for [Dwarf Fortress at Gopherpedia], a Wikipedia mirror. So it's a draw. 

Several years ago I was playing Dwarf Fortress very often. Encouraged by above results I downloaded and played it today. I'd like to recall that great immersion. It was long time, but after first second of play it was obvious that playing Dwarf Fortress is the same as riding on the bicycle. Who learns once, does not forget.

## My standard opening for the game 

1. Generating a new world with short history (it's better for your computer), and frequent mineral occurrences.

2. Choosing a place for embark with:

* no aquifer

* not too hot, nor too cold

* trees, and metals (not one metal) 

* I prefer river biomes 

3. In the first seconds after game started:

* set two dwarfs for masons and miners, without hauling 

* set another two dwarfs for all: fishing, after a while I'm adding hunting 

* set another two dwarfs for all: wood working 

* set one dwarf for: farming, crafting, after a while I'm adding jewelry 
 
4. Miners must dig first rooms underground, I prefer schema like below:

``` River on the left, nine rooms with stair case in the center room and every room connected to rooms next to it, with place for future doors.
~~~
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ .................
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ . . .
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ ..... .XXX. .....
~~~ .......XXX.......
~~~ ..... .XXX. .....
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ . . .
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ .................
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~ ..... ..... .....
~~~
```

5. Finished digging for 5-10 levels would provide much resources and information what metals are near us.

6. Fishers are next to the river - so they can provide enough food. 

7. On the ground, directly above 1st level of nine rooms wood workers clear all trees. 

9. Farmer planting four fields of plump helmets - one field for one season. I won't fertilize them. 

10. I organising first workshops: 

* carpenter - barrels, bins, after a while 10 beds

* boyer - 10 bows

* craftsman - wooden bolts for hunters

* mason - 1 throne, 2 doors for organising manager's room

11. Setting a manager's room and assigning a manager role is crucial. 

12. With manager I'm setting automatic orders:

* Do wooden bolts for hunters - only when quantity of bolts under 100

* Do meals and drinks - ...

* Do bins and barrels - ...

* Do some crafts - it could be bone/shell crafts, or rock crafts if there are bone/shell shortage. We should be prepared for trading and we should build Trade Depot. 

13. We shouldn't use wood too much because after a while we would have wood shortage. Try to use alternate materials. 

14. We should looking for coal or lignite. Without own metalsmith's forge it would be hard in the later game. 

15. In the moderate temperature regions we should dig a well. River would freeze in the winter, and our dwarfs die without wine/beer and freezed water.

In that point our fort will automatically organise and:

* don't die from starvation 

* don't die from dehydration 

* would be able to trade 

* would be able to defend (every hunter will be adequate archer - it's enough to build some walls around "nine rooms" area, dig some moat and install one bascule bridge - archers should defeat first attackers from behind the wall; we shouldn't put water into the moat in colder biomes because attackers would went on ice; attackers can swim and climb so moat should be deep, and walls should be high; moat is the cheapest and quickest way to defend;)

16. The next step is to improve trading - by for example run jewelry workshop and cut gems, and encrust crafted goods. 

17. The next step is also improve our military power, we need metal armors and metal weapons. We could buy them, or forge. 

18. To forge them we need coal or lignite. Charcoal furnace wouldn't last for long. If there aren't coal or lignite it's possible to look for magma but it's not novice level choice in my opinion. 

19. Digging deep would lead to found of underground caves. Without 2 squads (include one archers) it's safer to wall up the entry to the cave in case of accidental discovery. 

20. At the beginning we shouldn't be too quick, because with several dwarfs and many orders everything would last ages. We shouldn't for example put all citizens to military squads because we would run out of food and drinks. We should plan sustainable development. 

In first games I tried to build separated rooms for dwarfs but it's very time consuming - after a while our fort would have 100-200 citizens/rooms. It's better to build special rooms for notable dwarfs. 

Regular dwarfs could sleep in dormitory, and eat in 10-20 tables meeting hall. 

The more important than building fancy rooms is to organise piles. We should organise place for storage:

* wood, near wood workshops

* metal ores, metal bars near metal workshops 

* rough gems, and separated cut gems for trading 

* cooked food, and prepared drinks - we should be able to look at the level of food supplies 

* unprepared food - separated

* crafts for trading (after a while we could organise them by overall quality for better trading - with poor trader other traders would pay us to less)

* refuses - bones, skulls and shells for crafting; separated from the rest 

It's good idea to assign a role of bookkeeper, but we should have skilled dwarf for it. Manager will train itself in the most cases, but bookkeeper won't. 

## Later in the game

* Above steps will take a time but only after that beginning time the game would start for real. Sieges with several squads of attackers (sometimes 20-40 enemies or more) will fight with fully equipped 2-4 squads of dwarfs. 

* Dodging forgotten beast which we can't slay... but after a while accidentally caged in the trap and butchered for sausages. 

* The end is always the same, our small mistake will end as some catastrophe. We would start the next embark, and after a while the survivors will came into our new place. Wounded or with traumatic memories. 

* This game is complex generator of real life histories. It's nice to look at the ASCII interface, and read life histories of individual dwarfs. It's good idea to rename dwarfs and places. We will easier spot them later. 


=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/7/v2/vs/?dwarf%20fortress [Veronica search for: dwarf fortress]
=> gemini://geminispace.info/search?dwarf%20fortress [Geminispace.info search for: dwarf fortress]
=> gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Dwarf%20Fortress [Dwarf Fortress at Gopherpedia] 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 16 Aug 2021 12:01:09 AM CEST

tags: #dwarfFortress, #game, #howto
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-15-dwarf-fortress.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Small-net - Part II.</title>
<updated>2021-08-14T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-14:/gemlog/2021-08-14-Small-net-ii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Small-net - Part II.

Cont. [Small-net - Part I]. 

Quoting introduction from [Project Gemini].

> Gemini is a new internet protocol which:
> - Is heavier than gopher
> - Is lighter than the web
> - Will not replace either
> - Strives for maximum power to weight ratio
> - Takes user privacy very seriously

I've started thinking about Geminispace as a part of Small-net and have a better sense of above sentence. Gemini aim isn't to replace of Gopher protocol. It is a popularisation of Small-net idea. Gophersphere was populated by people who taking over the relay of the echos of last decades. I think that they also aware that Gopher isn't shine as earlier and this technology would be hard to popularize. It's full of technological debts. It would need cleaning up all servers, clients, specifications like Gopher+. It's easier to start from the new point. 

It's worked. There are many servers, many clients, and many other projects connected with Gemini. Hashtag [#Gemini] is active on Mastodon, and other Big-net places. It would bring more newcomers.

People who are already on Gophersphere would probably stay here. They have own habits, workflow, favourite software. They don't need Gemini. They can use Small-net as they did for all time before Gemini born. 

But for newcomers (also like I) it's easier to host own capsule and to write on Geminispace. I don't have to understand what is difference between Gopher and Gopher+. And don't have to understand all history of clients and servers. And don't understand gophermap. I can just write content in gemtex. 

But the most active projects of the Small-net technologies are start to merge all protocols. [Lagrange] is supporting Gemini and Gopher. [Castor] is supporting the same, and additional Finger protocol. 

The interesting thing is that Small-net in some technological areas isn't far away from Big-net. It could be visionary that Gemini puts on TLS. Big-net with the hands of GAFA try to introduce password-less reality, which is standard thing in Gemini. It seems that Small-net is well prepared for growth. 

The major achievement of Small-net is also mentioned earlier Lagrange browser, which fulfills the below assumption mentioned in [Project Gemini FAQ].

> 2.11 Why doesn't text/gemini have support for styling?
> Some people have expressed a desire for something similar to CSS in Gemini. While it's true that something much simpler and lighter than CSS could easily be designed, Gemini instead takes the position that visual styling of Gemini content should be under the sole and direct control of the reader, not the writer. Not everybody has the same taste in colours and fonts, and no single way of styling a page will be optimal for all readers, all devices and all lighting conditions. 

This is well done implementation of Gemini idea. Skyjake who is author of Lagrange is UX/UI professional, and besides his description on Mastodon account it's visible in his project. It's unique thing which maybe never came for Gophersphere. Gemini has professional looking, first class browser. It's beyond all text browsers (which aren't less important), and hobby's projects (which are also important, and are true fuel of Small-net idea).

The next good thing for Small-net is that it is accessible via mobiles, as Lagrange (and many others like [Elaho]) has mobile version. It's true that the heart of Small-net is located outside Google/Apple ecosystem, but it's convenient that it isn't hidden for them.


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-03-Small-net.gmi [Small-net - Part I]
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/ [Project Gemini]
=> https://mastodon.online/web/timelines/tag/gemini [#Gemini]
=> gemini://skyjake.fi/lagrange/index.gmi [Lagrange]
=> https://sr.ht/~julienxx/Castor/ [Castor]
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi [Project Gemini FAQ]
=> https://github.com/pitr/gemini-ios [Elaho] 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 14 Aug 2021 01:28:36 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #smallnet, #software
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-14-Small-net-ii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part IV.</title>
<updated>2021-08-14T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-14:/gemlog/2021-08-14-Gopher-novice-part-iv.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part IV.

Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part III]. 

## Two months 

It's about two months of Gophersphere browsing. I've realised that first occasional experiments became small habit. I like to look at [Bongusta] aggregator. I was using the most obvious gopher browser - lynx. 

## Lagrange beautifulness

But lats week I figured out that [Lagrange] is supporting Gemini and Gopher protocol. The bigger and nicer surprise is that also Lagrange for mobiles support Gopher protocol. This discovery moved whole Gophersphere a bit closer because it's easier to look at it on mobile, instead of mindlessly staring at social-media in every time when I waiting for e.g. bus etc. 

Lagrange is know for its beautiful UI, and beautifulness is the same for both of protocols displayed on mobile screen. This new form of presentation for Gopher content makes it's more modern. I've started to look at it more often. 

## Gopher (21st century) state is stable 

One of the Gopher pros is that (now) its state is "stable". There are only that people who want to be here, everything else were lost years ago. There are no many experimental pages nor phlogs. So when we are reading something there, for sure there almost endless archive next to it. Geminispace is something opposite to it, there are much more content, but it's like living inside some simulated annealing algorithm. So there are many capsules, gemlogs, sometimes with only a few posts. It's seems that Geminispace is changing all the time. Geinispace is still creating its foundations. Many people are joining, and many of them are abandoning, or putting to sleep, their projects. 

## Gopher was volatile even in 2003 

In the same time Gopher is volatile. I've written it before but referencing present time. But its volatilization seems to have long history. I spotted [Gopher Manifesto 2000-2002] and most of its linked content has gone. I must look at available (literally, eg. [2007 Gopherspace Mirror]) archives of Gopher. Easier is looking at archives of WWW. One of the WWW links noted in manifesto was [Surfing... Gopherspace by Bob Brand 2003] where we can see:

> (...) Gopherspace and Veronica are on the critical list. When you read this, they may already be dead. Many links have been broken. This piece of the Internet quickly slips into c-history. Lost but not forgotten by the old timers. (...)

So in 2003 "the Old Timers" of Gophersphere were aware that most of content has gone. Articles like manifesto, which describe its state and life inside it, are rare, and time travelers, as I, can't easily see that state of Gophersphere. I don't know what is the oldest Gophersphere mirror. In [2006 QUUX Gopher Mirror] I see in description some 2002 dates, so it's at least before creation time of cited sentence. It's probably don't enough. 

It would be great to organise some Gopher archive like Archive.org do it for webpages. Not inside archive file, but available from small-net. With some kind of fancy timeline. 

## Gopher, Gemini, and the rise of the small Internet

Also last week, I spotted also on Mastodon article [Gopher, Gemini, and the rise of the small Internet]. I've read it and start thinking about my being a newbie in Gophersphere. I started to thinking that maybe I know a bit more than today's novice. I was here and there. I have my point of view on it. I have some habit. So I am promoted to the next level. 


=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-06-30-Gopher-novice-part-iii.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part III]
=> gopher://i-logout.cz/1/bongusta [Bongusta]
=> gemini://skyjake.fi/lagrange/index.gmi [Lagrange]
=> https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2021/245/The-Rise-of-the-Small-Internet [Gopher, Gemini, and the rise of the small Internet]
=> gopher://gopher.su:70/0/gopher-manifesto [Gopher Manifesto 2000-2002]
=> https://web.archive.org/web/20030814011718/http://www.thebee.com:80/bweb/iinfo15.htm [Surfing... Gopherspace by Bob Brand 2003]
=> https://archive.org/details/2007-gopher-mirror [2007 Gopherspace Mirror]
=> https://archive.org/details/quux-gopher-mirror [2006 QUUX Gopher Mirror]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 14 Aug 2021 10:58:10 AM CEST

tags: #gopher, #bogusta, #archive
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-14-Gopher-novice-part-iv.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part III)</title>
<updated>2021-08-09T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-08-09:/gemlog/2021-08-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-iii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part III)

Cont.
* [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part II)]
* [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part I)]

In previous posts I mentioned that today's apps are in many cases less complicated than old school apps from pre-mobile era. I analysing two clues. First that people are less educated, so apps must be adjusted to their level of computer knowledge. Second that mobile and web apps technology brought some technical limitations, which have been set as standard in today's apps. 

In last days there are lot discussion about that [Apple Confirms It Will Begin Scanning iCloud Photos for Child Abuse Images]. People as usual start to write some open letters, signing them, and of course encouraged to stop buying Apple devices. For me, although the overall concerns are right, that activities are wasting time. Talking that people should stop buying Apple devices is childish. 

Of course it's true that some people could use F-Droid phones and apps. But for the most of people it isn't too easy and require accepting many limitations. Apple is making good devices, which are 50% of sales worldwide. It isn't any magic, they do good hardware and they support software for many years. People want to pay for that. 

Returning the main topic of today's shape of apps I was thinking that instead that: open letters, signing and talking about unreal, we should set some discussion what is the real needs for mobile users. Today's needs are created by GAFA companies, and people are like laboratory mice in maze. 

For example Google launched Google Reader (a RSS aggregator) in 2005, and retired it in 2013, and it is interested in RSS again in 2021. Article from 2013 are saying that retire was caused by declining number of users. As I remember 2013 I had been said that it's hard to monetize RSS workflow. Business decisions which have impact on everyone (many pages withdrew RSS feeds, and many new users don't know what RSS feed is).

The same thing with Apple and Google ideas of machine image processing. Maybe it's interesting idea for developers but if is it real people need to have such functionality in their gallery app? "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" - so every functionality has cost impact on device price. So we are paying for some developers experiments. 

And when it will come to some real needs of users (like RSS) there won't be any chance for discussion about it. The whole discussion between users and companies is like in feudal or imperial system - one direction, from companies to people. So we need good software and good devices, but we also should use it in our manner. Not like as someone told us to do.

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-12-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-ii.gmi [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part II)]
=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable.gmi [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part I)]
=> https://apple.slashdot.org/story/21/08/05/1910242/apple-confirms-it-will-begin-scanning-icloud-photos-for-child-abuse-images [Apple Confirms It Will Begin Scanning iCloud Photos for Child Abuse Images]
=> https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/05/19/1643256/google-rekindles-interest-in-rss [Google Rekindles Interest in RSS]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 09 Aug 2021 11:23:38 PM CEST

tags: #software
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-08-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-iii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Art</title>
<updated>2021-07-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-24:/gemlog/2021-07-24-Art.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Art

Nobody expect that on Geminispace would be asked question about art. What is an art? I am noting link to [My Little Art Manifesto] by Deerbard and some discussion about it. It's mainly about turning our interests back to art. Habits which were abandoned in the routine of life. Today I won't continue this discussion, but I will add two new thoughts. 

## Spontaneus Combustion

I'm not very frequent art galleries visitor, but I try to visit the most know places. I was several times in the biggest ones, like Louvre Museum in Paris, and other capital cities. I try to visit also galleries in Warsaw where I live. Warsaw is big enough to watch Rothko's paintings (which were popularised by Mad Men TV Series).

But the biggest impression made on me some sculpture in museum of contemporary art in Warsaw. Probably it isn't the most recognized artist, nor sculpture. I was walking through small rooms of this gallery, and I came across (literally) into it. The room was empty with white walls, and the black sculpture situated in the place which isn't visible at the first moment after entering the room. 

It was something surreal to be surprised by [Spontaneus Combustion by Olaf Brzeski]. The first feeing was that room is empty. The second that there were some malfunction or accident. Why they hadn't clean that? After a few seconds I was knowing that it's some artistic vision. But that few first seconds were interesting. I think that it moved me in some new way. 

## IT

There are many IT people here. Some time ago I've read some article about designers of computer systems that it could be also qualified as art. Every designer would do it in different way. So beside raw materials like line of texts in some computer language, some data structures, some organisation of components there is also a way of express our self. We have computer games considered as art - [Dwarf Fortress at The Museum of Modern Art in New York]. Maybe in future there will be there some computer program. 


=> gemini://rawtext.club/~deerbard/art/2021-07-22-PL-ENG-Art-manifesto.gmi [My Little Art Manifesto]
=> gemini://rawtext.club/~deerbard/relog/2021-07-24-re-szczezujas-tinylog-thu-22-jul-2021.gmi [Re: Szczezuja's tinylog Thu 22 Jul 2021]
=> https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Olaf_Brzeski_Dream_–_Spontaneus_Combustion_2008.jpg [Spontaneus Combustion by Olaf Brzeski]
=> https://www.moma.org/collection/works/164920 [Dwarf Fortress at The Museum of Modern Art in New York]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 25 Jul 2021 12:29:21 AM CEST

tags: #people, #art
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-24-Art.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Recent thoughts about small-net and simple life</title>
<updated>2021-07-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-18:/gemlog/2021-07-18-Recent-thoughts-about-small-net-and-simple-life.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Recent thoughts about small-net and simple life

I haven't written anything in past few days, but I have some thoughts which should be written. 

## Solène

One of the most productive author in small-net is Solène. She is writing almost everyday on many topics, and she has many interesting findings. She is active in Geminispace, and also in Gophersphere. Last days she has been describing, day after day, of [The Old Computer Challenge: day 7]. 

* First thing is that this is that magic of small-net, that people are able to organise and communicate around interesting topics like "The Old Computer Challenge". In traditional net, it could take ages to organise such thing. 
* Second thing, not counting that Solène's posts are worth reading (and she isn't the only person who described her challenge), is that whole idea of this challenge is so close to small-net base ideas. We don't need the most powerful computers to do the most useful, and self-developing things. 

## Antenna 

There are many content aggregators in Geminispace (CAPCOM, Geedit, Sloum's Spacewalk, Midnight Pub, self-curated Comitium instances etc.). But there are only one content aggregators which is self maintained like [Antenna]. You will see new content from authors who want to do so. There won't be any inactive sites, content which isn't approved by authors. Only content which is manually submitted by the author will be listed on that aggregator's page. 

## Christina

The next interesting author in small-net is [Christina's capsule]. She is also active on Geminispace and Gophersphere. Maybe the idea of asking questions, which is similar to chain letters, don't look very revealing. But her capsule by for that questions gather responses from many active, and productive small-net authors.

## Tinylogs

Third new place, which aggregate content form various author, is [Tinylog timeline generated by gtl] hosted by Bacardi55. This page is a good start point to go into Tinylogs. This topic is, in last days, a bit less popular, but there are some number of active Tinylogs and now it's easy way of looking at it. 

## toot tui

I've started reading Gemini hashtag on "toot tui" command. It's convenient with "g" + "public hashtag timeline". TUI version of [toot - Mastodon CLI client] has some interesting features, and for me it's above average of CLI tools. As I have written, I had problem with following of Gemini's content on Mastodon. This way fit into my workflow. 

## mcabber

I've migrated back to mcabber, from Profanity IM. 

## emacs

I started to learn emacs. I am planning to write something about it. It's not my first attempt to do so. For now there aren't too much to write about. 

But while I was looking for some good entry tutorial (not impersonal shortcuts list) for emacs, I thought that maybe I will summary my vim adventures. 


=> gemini://perso.pw/blog/articles/old-computer-challenge-day7.gmi [The Old Computer Challenge: day 7]
=> gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/index.gmi [Antenna]
=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~christina/ [Christina's capsule]
=> https://toot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ [toot - Mastodon CLI client]
=> gemini://tinylogs.gmi.bacardi55.io/index.gmi [Tinylog timeline generated by gtl] 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 18 Jul 2021 09:18:41 PM CEST

tags: #people, #gemini, #toot, #emacs, #cli, #mcabber, #tinylog, #antenna, #smallnet
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-18-Recent-thoughts-about-small-net-and-simple-life.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part II)</title>
<updated>2021-07-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-12:/gemlog/2021-07-12-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-ii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Is today's shape of apps was inevitable? (Part II)

Cont. [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable?].

Today I was thinking again about today's apps, and I noticed that maybe it isn't that uneducated people want apps to be simple, and that they are forgot all advanced possibilities. But simplicity came from the technological side of apps. 

Traditional apps could be complex because most of the pre-web interfaces were allowing for it. They could be also navigated by full set of keys or by advanced mouse strokes and they are designed for packing many informations on the screen. 

Web apps are working inside web browsers, what implicate limitation of keys set (for example without some special keys combination) and mouse strokes (for example combined with keyboard). Because web apps must work in every OS interface they are also generalized to some common subset of interface element, and ride off some specializations (for example screen "hot corners", multi-window). The most common, today's UX conclusion is simplification of application interface - less elements and less information. During migration of application interface, from desktop to web application, it's hard to set the same level of information on the same window - the most common problem is that they are don't fit web app screen, and must have bigger margins, paddings and font size to look "modern". Design is in natural way simplicated. 

But that isn't all. Because the more popular, mobile apps are far more simplicated than web apps. So key set are again limited almost only for inputing text, mouse strokes are converted into touch (so less accurate) gestures. 

So there are no way to implement the most of ordinary apps as web or mobile apps. Because it isn't possible, as a result we are equipped with the most complex web and mobile apps, what only they can be. 

It's the same as Virtual Reality games - it's big marketing effort for selling that idea, but there are still no good games in the most of game categories (except for simulations such as one-seat driver simulation). The most of successful game designs, aren't possible to realize in VR world, and in the most cases are causing headache and nausea.

Maybe if web and mobile apps limitations would cause unpleasant effects we would be still in era of traditional apps. ;-) 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-07-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable.gmi [Is today's shape of apps was inevitable?]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 12 Jul 2021 09:45:38 PM CEST

tags: #software
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-12-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable-ii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Bash script for updating gtl</title>
<updated>2021-07-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-11:/gemlog/2021-07-11-Bash-script-for-updating-gtl.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Bash script for updating gtl

If somebody want to save time, you write a automating script in Bash. You shouldn't wonder if writing scripts is more time consuming, because it's Sunday afternoon. So I have written bash script for updating [GTL: Gemini Tiny Logs]. 

What this script is doing?

* Check the last version of gtl on GitHub
* Check the last version of gtl installed in current directory 
* Download a new version from GitHub to current directory
* Do chmode +x for a new version file
* Do ln ~/.local/bin/gtl for a new version file

## update.gtl.sh

2021-07-25 Update - Source code moved to [repository]. 

```
#!/bin/bash

last_available=$(curl -s https://github.com/bacardi55/gtl/releases | grep "<a href=\"/bacardi55/gtl/releases/download/" | grep "amd64" | sort -ir | head -n 1 | egrep -o '"[^ ]+"' | head -n 1 | sed 's/"//g')
echo "Last available = ${last_available}"

if [ -z "$last_available" ]
then
 echo "Empty response form GitHub!"
 exit
fi

last_installed=$(ls | egrep "(gtl).*(amd64)" | sort -ir | head -n 1 | sed 's/amd64//g' | sed 's/[a-z_]*//g')
echo "Last installed = ${last_installed}"

if [ -z "$last_installed" ]
then
 echo "No version installed."
 exit
fi

if [[ "$last_available" == *"$last_installed"* ]]; then
 echo "No new version available."
 exit
fi

url="https://github.com/${last_available}"
filename=$(basename $url)
echo "Installing a new version from $url"

wget "$url" && chmod +x "$filename"

rm ~/.local/bin/gtl 

ln -s "$PWD"/"$filename" ~/.local/bin/gtl
```

=> https://github.com/bacardi55/gtl [GTL: Gemini Tiny Logs]
=> https://github.com/szczja/scripts/blob/main/update_gtl.sh [repository]
-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 11 Jul 2021 04:59:25 PM CEST

tags: #bash, #tinylog, #gtl, #script
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-11-Bash-script-for-updating-gtl.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Is today's shape of apps was inevitable?</title>
<updated>2021-07-09T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-09:/gemlog/2021-07-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Is today's shape of apps was inevitable?

We abandoned some model of working with computers. Most of people moved from computers to mobiles. Most of the time they are using some standard types of apps:

* simplified messaging,
* media consuming (video, music - VOD with simple players and images - mainly social media),
* so called social media (likes, and simplified comments).

Most of the utilities and programs were moved into web or mobile apps. Most of users don't use any advanced utilities. I think that people stop needing even a office suit for personal use. Marginalization of apps is visible at top charts (paid and free) of mobile stores. There are no notable titles there. Most of the charts are dominated by games, and social media and shopping apps.

But some decades ago we had a different model of working with computers. The utilities and programs were essentials of computers. We had:

* advanced messaging (e-mail, Usenet etc. with many and long text forms, even for internet forums),
* cataloging software (media, books etc. collections, real persons addresses and contacts),
* networking software (FTP, P2P etc.),
* advanced players (all kind of media), 
* office suite or graphical editors, which was connected with printing on own printer,
* computer used for calculations (spreadsheets or high-level computer languages like BASIC).

There were also games (it's interesting that there were less than 5000 games for Commodore 64, and now it's more than 50000 games for recent gaming platforms) but there was some balance between entertainment and personal use of computers. 

Today simplifying of apps is connected also with simplifying of the average usage of OS. I wonder if there is still need, for example, of having some compressing software (ZIP and so on). I think that average person has lower number of files and data on computers (excluding videos and images). Most of the sharing services working as sharing of links for remote content. OS could be limited to showing apps shortcuts, and simplified list of files. Be like Chrome OS.

It's interesting if today's model of working with computers is caused by some natural evolution? Maybe all early users became professionals, and still are using that advanced apps for work or specialistic hobby. And the rest of people don't need such solutions. Or it's some kind neglect and ignorance, maybe lack of proper education?

BTW Good point in discussion about education on [Why I'm starting to prefer console programs]. 

> As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm spending a lot of time on the small internet: especially pubnixes like rawtext.club. This means I've been having to do a lot of things _only_ through the command line, even things that I hadn't thought of before like reading e-books, chatting, or maintaining & browsing collections of links. 
> This, combined with the fact that I want to stop handing kids locked down chromebooks as devices, has gotten me thinking a lot about the nature of most commandline tools as smaller, simpler, and more efficient & whether that can buy us something about giving kids the ability to work on lower-power but affordable computers _that still let them control the machines_.

Maybe the next generation of users will change their habits backward to the advanced utilities in the same, self-driven way.
 

=> gemini://inconsistentuniverse.space/essays/console.gmi [Why I'm starting to prefer console programs]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri 09 Jul 2021 10:59:18 PM CEST

tags: #cli, #software
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-09-Is-todays-shape-of-apps-was-inevitable.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Who was the most famous person you shook hands with?</title>
<updated>2021-07-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-03:/gemlog/2021-07-03-Who-was-the-most-famous-person-you-shook-hands-with.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Who was the most famous person you shook hands with?

I am not a big fan of chain letters. It could be the first chain letter which I will respond in my life. But one of the questions of it intrigued me. 

=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~christina/ "Five Questions" from July 2021 Gemini, question 5th - "Who was the most famous person you shook hands with?"

I had saw some answers on Gemini for that questions before I found Christina's capsule. One of the answers mentioned for example Queen Elizabeth II. I am not a kind of person who will look for opportunity of meeting famous persons. Even if I would met such person I probably don't wait in line for photo and handshaking. 

But as I said, this question intrigued me. Who is the most famous person I met. 

I realised that it was Richard Stallman. I went to some meeting where he was giving a speech about ten years ago, when he was visiting Poland. It was small group of people, but the meeting was open for everybody. After his speech I asked him for autograph on Free as in Freedom book. I felt that he was surprised about it, and not so very willing to do so. But he gave an autograph, and it could be that we shook hand. But I don't remember this.

Every other handshakes in my memory (real, or that in half imaginary as above) are ordinary people's handshakes. ;-)

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
Thu 08 Jul 2021 11:39:32 PM CEST

tags: #people
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-03-Who-was-the-most-famous-person-you-shook-hands-with.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Small-net</title>
<updated>2021-07-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-07-03:/gemlog/2021-07-03-Small-net.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Small-net

## Introduction

There are many terms, and definitions on the Wikipedia. But there are no definition for Small-net. This is my attempt to write it, and start point of discussion how to describe it. 

## My point of view 

We are using the [Internet], network of network. One of the most popular part of it is [World Wide Web], which is estimated that only 10% of content is visible in search engines as [Surface web]. The rest is called [Deep web] and is hidden inside [Web apps] or behind paywall. There is also a part called [Dark web], which is accessible only from the [Darknet] side.

But there are also other parts of the [Internet]. There are protocols like [Gopher], [Gemini] or [Finger], which are giving access to Gophersphere or Geminispace. Gophersphere and Geminispace are collections of documents, like [World Wide Web]. Part of them is also accessible only from [Darknet] side, but most of them can be reached from the [Internet] by proper client software. 

The main difference between [World Wide Web] and the Gophersphere and Geminispace is the content structure of each. If they would be put on the complexity axis, starting from the most complex on the left side and ending to the less complex on the right side, [World Wide Web] would be the first, [Finger] would be the last, and the [Gopher] and [Gemini] would be in the end part of it. 

This axis could be called a road direction to Small-net (aka. smolnet). The network of minimalistic sites (for example Gopherholes or Gemini capsules) with main aim to inform people. Small-net is also a kind of life philosophy, which gather people escaping from [World Wide Web] overabundance of information and incentives. 

## The Small-net diagram

```Small-net diagram - WWW, Gopher, Gemini, Finger on the axis of complexity, with surface and deep web, and darknet covers WWW and Gopher/Gemini 
 [Small-net] 
 -------------------------X---------------------------------------X------------------X------> 
 complex simple 
 
 +----------------------------------------[Internet]------------------------------------------+
 | |
 | +----------------[World-Wide-Web]-----------------+ +-[Gopher]-+ +-[Gemini]-+ +-[Finger]-+ |
 | | | | | | | | | |
 | | +---------------[Surface-web]-----------------+ | | | | | | | |
 | | | | | | | | | | | |
 | | | 10% | | | | | | | | |
 | | | | | | | | | | | |
 | | +---------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | |
 | | | | | | | | | |
 | | +----------------[Deep-web]-------------------+ | | | | | | | |
 | | | *******[Darknet]*******| | | | | |
 | | | 90% *******........| | |..........******* | | | |
 | | | ****...............| | |..........| |....**** | | | |
 | | | +----[Web-apps]----+ **....+--[Dark-web]----+-------------+----+....**| | | |
 | | | | | *.....| | | |.....*| | | |
 | | | | | **....+----------------+-------------+----+....**| | | |
 | | | | | ****...............| | |..........| |....**** | | | |
 | | | +------------------+ *******........| | |..........******* | | | |
 | | | ***********************| | | | | |
 | | +---------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | |
 | | | | | | | | | |
 | +-------------------------------------------------+ +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ |
 +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
```

## The Small-net is finite!

One of the key aspect of the Small-net is a resource limitation. It could be real limitation, or only limitation agreed by users. One of the good example of this is quote from [Official Circumlunar Space FAQ] which explain servers user base limitation, what isn't a result of hardware limitation only. 

> Q10. Will there be a limit to how many colonies are created?
> 
> The current plan is to limit the total number of sundogs to around
> 150 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number), which probably
> means three or four colonies in total, depending on how many users
> individual admins decide to accept. Certainly no more than five.


=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet [Internet]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web [World Wide Web]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_web [Surface web] 
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web [Deep web]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet [Darknet] 
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web [Dark web]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) [Gopher]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol) [Gemini] 
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application [Web app]
=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/universe/faq.txt [Official Circumlunar Space FAQ]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 03 Jul 2021 10:16:30 PM CEST V1.0
@ Sun 04 Jul 2021 10:48:04 AM CEST V1.1

tags: #smallnet, #map
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-07-03-Small-net.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part III.</title>
<updated>2021-06-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-30:/gemlog/2021-06-30-Gopher-novice-part-iii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part III.

Cont. of [Gopher Novice - Part II]. 

Last days I try to do some freestyle Gophersphere browsing. I went back to some Gopher holes, which I had add to my favourites in Lynx. I was searching Veronica. I was trying to have time for reading. 

I figured out that on Veronica were many articles which match "why gopher" term. So many people before me was thinking about it, but there are no many longer analysis of that topic. The main answer for that question - [Web, Gopher still remains relevant. -- Cameron Kaiser] - is part of Floodgap FAQ section.

The most interesting and clear is [2021-03-19 A salty post about Gemini]. Despite answering the question, about "what wrong is about Gemini", for me is also talking about "the heart of Gopher life". Gopher for me is like Teotihuacán. It had been built about 90's and abandoned. Current Gopher users are like Aztecs, who came and settled Gophersphere probably in 2000s. And after two decades, there was some hype for Gophersphere. Number of Gopher holes were doubled. New people came, to check what the Gopher is.

The same as Gemini users are, like me, a newcomers for small-net. So in Gophersphere there are a few older users, who are organized in small groups of friends. And a some group of new individuals, which are in the most cases only small-net's noise. There are like Baub Baby had written:

> In that same vein, so frequently these fair weather visitors
> bring nothing to Gopher for Gopher, often patting themselves on
> the back for mirroring their web presence or similar. 

But there are also some new communities and [Gopher space is growing]. Some new individuals, are so inspiring that they are creating some new and strong ideas. It's very pleasant to read every content on confederated [Mare Tranquillitatis People's Circumlunar Zaibatsu], [Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic] and [Mare Crisium Soviet Socialist Regency]. They way of thinking about small-net is inspiring. They came and set together many ideas like finite resources of their servers, setting limit of users in according to [Dunbar's number]. Sending small groups of people to "colonies" for making some projects, which will be improving Gophersphere. It's something like bottom-up learning. Some opposition for anti-social social media. 

I think that it migration wave is something new, and it's connected with some new trend for simply life and minimalism. So we are like neo-Gopherspace, the third generation who try to populate this empty land. In the name of small-net, nor Gophersphere or Geminispace. 

So, I still don't know what is the essence of 90s and 2000s Gophersphere, I try to continue my analyse of that. 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-06-27-Gopher-novice-part-ii.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part II]
=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/gopher/relevance.txt [Web, Gopher still remains relevant. -- Cameron Kaiser]
=> gopher://baud.baby/0/phlog/fs20210319.txt [2021-03-19 A salty post about Gemini]
=> gopher://alexschroeder.ch/02018-12-01_Gopher_space_is_growing [Gopher space is growing]
=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space [Mare Tranquillitatis People's Circumlunar Zaibatsu]
=> gopher://republic.circumlunar.space [Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic]
=> gopher://consensus.circumlunar.space [Mare Crisium Soviet Socialist Regency]
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number [Dunbar's number]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 30 Jun 2021 11:09:15 PM CEST

tags: #pubnix, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-30-Gopher-novice-part-iii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The way of Geminispace consumption</title>
<updated>2021-06-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-27:/gemlog/2021-06-27-The-way-of-geminispace-consumption.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The way of Geminispace consumption

I read [Free as in Freedom] many years ago, when I started to interesting about GNU and Richard Stallman. There are many information, but one thing was stuck in my head, and it must be still relevant because it's included in [How I do my computing] on RMS's personal site. He is browsing WWW by downloading web pages through e-mail. 

It have been strange to me. I understand a described purpose of acting that way, but it seems so uncomfortable.

> I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. 

It's about security and avoid of tracking content, which is connected with the way of life choose by RMS. It's obvious. But after my several months browsing into Geminispace (and Gophersphere) I realised that it's something more about it. The way of content consumption, which could be different in WWW than in Geminispace or Gophersphere.

Complex structure of information in average webpage made us working in different way. We are looking for information, sometimes in semi-automatic way (for example RSS/Atom), but in the most cases in manual way. Our daily basis is to check some list of webpages (some news portal, some weather podcast, some social-media service etc.). We'd like to automatize this. But it could be done only in the WWW with uncomplicated information structure, and when publishers don't want us to make us to visit them. 

But the Geminispace is a different. We have simple information structure, and the most of users are familiar with other style of working. There are no need to give away all applications to the remote servers, and there is no problem to synchronise work through all devices (for example by SSH). Our server could be a center point of the pages we want to follow. 

Obvious thing is to save time by:

* Automatic browse and gather content in one place, rather that manual browsing 
* Automatic check for a new content 
* Highlight changes in a new content 
* Provide a new content in preferred way 

I've made [Gemini diff script - gmidiff.sh] for my own purposes. And after a while I realised that it fulfill above requirements. Firstly I think only about tracing changes for [backlinks]. After a while, I figured out that it's convenient way of tracking changes in capsules without Atom feeds. For some pages it's better than [Comitium], because I can see (my script is analysing only headings and links, no text of paragraph) what is the point of new content. And if it seems to be interesting I can read the rest of content (in actual version of my script it is necessary to manually get the rest of content). 

This is leads us to the beginning point [How I do my computing]. [Gemini diff script - gmidiff.sh] provide automatic browse and sending highlighted changes to my local mailbox. So I'm browsing Gemini capsules by downloading them through e-mail. I was surprised that I came to this point. 

=> https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html [How I do my computing]
=> https://www.fsf.org/faif [Free as in Freedom]
=> https://github.com/szczja/gmidiff [Gemini diff script - gmidiff.sh]
=> gemini://geminispace.info/backlinks?szczezuja.space [backlinks] 
=> https://git.nytpu.com/comitium/about/ [Comitium]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 27 Jun 2021 09:11:14 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #people, #bash, #script
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-27-The-way-of-geminispace-consumption.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part II.</title>
<updated>2021-06-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-27:/gemlog/2021-06-27-Gopher-novice-part-ii.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part II.

## State of my knowledge 

Cont. of [Gopher Novice - Part I].

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-06-15-Gopher-novice-part-i.gmi [Gopher Novice - Part I]

After two weeks of studying Gophersphere I stuck in the same point. I don't have many new information but I'll write the main hypothesis and notes as below: 

### The source of the Gemini protocol

It is said that Gemini protocol has its source in Gophersphere. Or that Gemini protocol is some how "next Gopher". I've read Solderpunk phlog, and it's less than I had imagined. There are no many other traces of Gemini in Gophersphere. 

=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/1/%7esolderpunk/ Solderspunk's realm

### Gophersphere is volatile 

... but, Gophersphere is volatile. Some articles from phlogs from no more than five years ago are inaccessible now. It's hard to get a copy, like Internet Archive Project for HTTP. 

### Gopher and TLS

Surprisingly, there are much more discussion about TLS in Gopher protocol. There are many unofficial protocol extensions and so on. This topic need more exploration. 

### Interesting gopher holes

I was asking about interesting gopher holes, and in response I got some main links as below. Notable is that some small communities (SDF, Zaibatsu, Tilde.team etc.) has some impact on Gemini (nytpu@tilde.team, solderpunk@zaibatsu etc.). 

=> gopher://bitreich.org/1/lawn The Gopher Lawn - Categorize the interesting part of the gopherspace.
=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/ Floodgap Systems'
=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/new Floodgap Systems' - Gopher server installed after 1999
=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr/1/ogup/list The Observable Gopherspace Universe Project
=> gopher://sdf.org/1 SDF
=> gopher://tilde.team/1/ Tilde.team pubnix
=> gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/ Flagship Circumlunar Colony Est. 2018

### Gopher zines

I was asking about some zines in Gophersphere. But there are no response. I was thinking that this would be indicator of active part of Gophersphere, and its fresh topic or main active people. This topic need more exploration. 

### Conferences

... but, I spotted a conference which has place in Gophersphere in 2021. 

=> gopher://bitreich.org/1/con/2021 Bitreichcon 2021

### Gopher apps

I was asking about some apps in Gophersphere. But I didn't get notable examples in response. I notices some direction, which could be explored:

* Gopher interface for Git
* Gopher file system

=> gopher://git.codemadness.org/1/git/stagit-gopher/log.gph Stagit-gopher
=> gopher://gopher.r-36.net/1/scm/gopherfs gopherfs

### Gopher and Tor

... but, there is much Tor in Gophersphere. I didn't explore nothing which is behind Tor. I got one response on Fediverse that usage of Tor in Gophersphere is for encryption (TLS isn't a standard part of protocol), or for hosting service without public domain. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 27 Jun 2021 10:49:01 PM CEST

tags: #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-27-Gopher-novice-part-ii.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: The Smartphone Camera</title>
<updated>2021-06-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-18:/gemlog/2021-06-18-Re-smartphone-camera.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: The Smartphone Camera

In response to:
=> gemini://nytpu.com/gemlog/2021-06-17.gmi
=> gemini://alexschroeder.ch/page/2021-06-17_The_Smartphone_Camera

## My fifteen years with camera 

I bought my first camera in 2006. It was some Sony’s advanced compact camera. In 2007 I bought my first DSLR (Nikon D80, which I am using till today). In 2011 I bought my first SLR (Nikon FE2). In 2012 I bought my first medium format camera (Pentacon Six). About 2013 I started to take photos by mobile phones. In 2017 for my holidays I take only a mobile phone for taking photos. As can be seen above I came full path, sometimes in surprising order. 

I’m still taking photos mainly by mobile phone (iPhone) because:
* I can’t take my big camera with me
* it’s quicker and easier to take photos 
* mobile phone isn’t a compromise in sense of quality of photo anymore 
* there are additional functionalities like geotagging, backup to cloud, easy photo sharing etc. 

But I am aware of superiority of real cameras in comparison to mobile phones. 
* every advanced camera (professional series) provides ergonomics which can’t be done in mobile phone. Digital pro-cameras are very expensive, but film pro-cameras are cheaper, and can show that huge difference
* every professional lenses will be better than mobile phone lenses
* medium format cameras and its deep of field will be always better for portraits, and won’t be reproduced by mobile phone software processing 

If it would be possible I will be taking photos by some professional camera. So maybe the camera industry “is done” (as Alex cited) in sense of consumer market (in this year, last Nikon’s Japan’s factory was moved to Asia). But not for artistic use of cameras. Consumers have chosen integration of camera and phone for easiness and price. It’s obvious. 

And should be noticed that most of products for consumer market are… electronic garbage. In comparison to quality construction from past decades. They are built in aim of cutting costs and for marketing demand, not for quality, ergonomic etc. 

What is more rather than special photo equipment people need some theoretical background for taking photos:
* people can’t do a proper framing 
* nor aren’t aware of simplest rules (light and time, DOF etc.)
* nor aren’t aware of focal lengths theory (why portraits by wide lenses could be strange) 
* etc.
So there is a standard problem that nobody wants to learn for a while, but everyone are tempted by marketing and advertisements “that something magical do a good photo for you”. 

For some optimistic ending I must say that some of that technological progress is also a step into good direction. For example every street photographer were dreaming for such compact camera like mobile phone, which is so covered and hidden from others eyes, and have such great capabilities. They are using often automatic modes, so the mobile phones are new, and perfect solution for them. 

And of course you can do a photo by “empty soup jar”. If photo is good, nobody will ask by what was made. 

## My ideal camera set 

I like doing photos of city landscapes. I try to learn street photography, but I always was too shy to take photos from close distance of people. I have also some occasional photo-adventures like: two times in role of wedding photographer (family or friends only), some wild animals and safari photos. Now I’m trying to do many family portraits and as documentation of my child’s growing up (by mobile phone as I wrote above). 

For my main semi-artistic purpose of city landscaping I will recommend equivalent of [Nikon FM2 Tropical Edition]. Of course It would be nice to have such set, but I think about equivalent of lenses focal lengths: 105mm, 55mm and 28mm. 

I have that focal lengths for so called “full frame” film SLR, and “cropped” DSLR. What is fun that every person shooting mobile phone camera also has about 28mm focal length. So everybody has good start point for their “tropical set”. 

P.S. Of course I was using also trendy zooms (like Nikkor 18-200mm and so on) but for me after a while, and with experience gained, that lenses are worse than we fought. Not good at 28mm, not good at 105mm, not perfect in the middle. And often useless at the both ends (this 200mm would working only in sunny days). 

=> https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonfmseries/Variants/index1.htm [Nikon FM2 Tropical Edition]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri 18 Jun 2021 04:03:50 PM CEST

tags: #camera, #photography
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-18-Re-smartphone-camera.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gopher Novice - Part I.</title>
<updated>2021-06-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-15:/gemlog/2021-06-15-Gopher-novice-part-i.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gopher Novice - Part I. 

## Stranger in a Strange Land

I am using Gemini protocol from February. I have spotted it on Mastodon. I had thought firstly that it is only interesting thing to look at. Then I decided to write some content. I don’t really know why idea of Gemini is so interesting for me. I was engaged by other inspiring people, who had been lost in “big” Internet and now, can be found around Geminisphere. 

Because Gopher is Gemini place of birth, and my adventure with Gemini was so successful (and I had never been using Gopher before), I try to understand it now. I thought that it could be a way for better understanding my phenomenon. Why we start to explore so called small web (like Gemini, or as I understand, like Gopher have been before “big” web, and still is). 

Gopher in common understanding is very similar to Gemini:
* its output is text only 
* it’s changing whole experience of “web browsing”
* it’s gathering specific group of content producers (inspiring individuals rather than business and commercial).
* even a naming system is similar (“phlog” as Gopher log, and “gemlog” as Gemini log, Gopherspace and Geminispace etc.), I can smell there also that cosmic theme which made “capsule” term in Gemini for “site”. 

But after a while in Gophersphere I feel that for me is totally different from Geminisphere. 

I have searched [Veronica] (a "Google" of Gophersphere) for "Gemini" and I haven’t found any evidence of Gemini birth place. Only some official content which is available on every protocol. 

I asked about it on Mastodon, and responses was as below: 

* Nytpu@tilde.zone hinted about [Bongusta] and [Gopher Black’s] catalogs. I try to explore, from there, some phlogs, but without any success. 
* Tomasino@tilde.zone added that is good way to get known to Gopher is analyzing [list of active Gopher sites]. Where everyone can find interesting content and organized small communities. I must explore this trail, but it could be time consuming. 

I was thinking that responses would be more. But maybe Gopher users don’t like Mastodon, or they can’t see my post. 

So for now I still know nothing about Gopher. I installed a proper client and haven’t found any recent nor useful information. Many people are using Gopher so it must be something in it. 

But despite this cognitive failure I observed some things which are distinctive for Gopher, and which are improved in Gemini:
* in first time fixed character length of text line is something new and nice, as everything retro-style - but it isn’t nice after a while 
* Gopher philosophy of content organization is strange for me and I can’t anything what could be useful now 
* two above is some UX nightmare, which is solved in Gemini
* I haven’t spotted any tweaks which could be understated as tweaks in modern time (for example all what is connected with TLS in Gemini and is main idea for many Gemini apps)

Some articles mentioned that in last years Gopher start to be trendy again, and the total number of its sites has upward trend. I will try to examine this, but for now I think that Gemini has much higher potential of growth and I can’t say nothing about Gopher. 
 
=> gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/7/v2/vs/ [Veronica]
=> gopher://i-logout.cz:70/1/bongusta/ [Bongusta]
=> gopher://gopher.black/1/ [Gopher Black's]
=> gopher://gopher.viste.fr/1/ogup/list/ [list of active Gopher sites]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Tue 15 Jun 2021 10:46:39 PM CEST

tags: #rss, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-15-Gopher-novice-part-i.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The way of social feeds consumption</title>
<updated>2021-06-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-12:/gemlog/2021-06-12-The-way-of-social-feeds-consumption.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The way of social feeds consumption

It's interesting that when I think about social feeds consumption, the final thought is always landing at the way how to e-mail clients are working. 

I'm upset with information mess in my Mastodon clients. More feeds I am subscribing, more posts are lost. It's impossible to handle hundred of followed accounts in one timeline. When one is publishing one post per month, and second is publishing many posts in one hour. I'd like to see rarely writers, and the most important for me part of frequent writers. When I try to look at my timeline more carefully I must read some posts again and again. When I try to browse hashtags I read posts of new accounts. 

Now, I try to look at above problems:

1. Subscriptions should be organized in different groups. As we organise mail in folders (Mastodon supposedly has groups, but I can't use them in such advanced way - for example I should manually organise that groups but the UX/UI of clients isn't prepared for that).

2. We could have rarely writers put into separated groups and got that content displayed in the first order. For now, rarely writers often lost in flood of other posts. 

3. We should have indication of read posts. As we have it in mail folders. 

4. When we would have some dynamic folders, for example some hashtag search, with above we wouldn't read the same post many times. And I won't see any new accounts. 

I don't know, if I am old school computer user, and I can't think beyond 90's. Or that e-mail's way is so good, that we shouldn't thinking about new implementations. For example, in my opinion, the best RSS readers are working like e-mail clients (Google Reader, and now Tiny Tiny RSS). 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 12 Jun 2021 05:22:08 PM CEST (version v1.1, some paragraphs were extended)

tags: #mastodon, #rss, #software
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-12-The-way-of-social-feeds-consumption.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gmidiff v1.0.beta.2</title>
<updated>2021-06-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-10:/gemlog/2021-06-10-Gmidiff-v1_0_beta_2.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gmidiff v1.0.beta.2

Today my [Gmidiff] script detected first backlink proving that it's working correctly. Message was prepared as below, fourth backlink had been introduced on [geminispace.info/backlinks]. Because script was running for several days without errors I released today version v1.0.beta.2. 

> 6c6
> < ### 3 cross-capsule backlinks
> ---
> > ### 4 cross-capsule backlinks
> 8a9
> > => gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2021/06/tinylog-rfc.gmi gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2021/06/tinylog-rfc.gmi

If someone is interested in running my script please read README file or ask question via issues on Github, or via e-mail which is published on main page of my capsule. 

=> https://github.com/szczja/gmidiff/releases/tag/v1.0-beta.2 [Gmidiff]
=> geminispace.info/backlinks?szczezuja.space [geminispace.info/backlinks]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu 10 Jun 2021 10:41:39 PM CEST

tags: #bash, #backlink
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-10-Gmidiff-v1_0_beta_2.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Vim cont.</title>
<updated>2021-06-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-08:/gemlog/2021-06-08-Cont-vim.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Vim cont. 

I've added a vim-easytags plugin to vim. It's not so hard with vim-plug (A minimalist Vim plugin manager). After this my 159 sloc is easy to navigate. Pressing C-] for going into and C-t for going back. Sound natural, when you are working with vim for about 7 days. 

I've learned everything what I had forgot. During writing that 159 sloc everything came in natural way. You are thinking that something will improve your work, and vim has an answer, for sure. 

Because today is vim plugin day for me, I installed also tagbar.

> I wanna take you to a tag bar ;-)

The music in my head stood out.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
Tue 08 Jun 2021 11:02:23 PM CEST

tags: #vim
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-08-Cont-vim.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Vim cont.</title>
<updated>2021-06-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-03:/gemlog/2021-06-03-Cont-vim.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Vim cont.

I'm still working on [my script]. It is fourth day in a row. I refreshed my Bash scripting skill and enhanced vim commands. So despite some lines of code, which starts to work, it is very inspiring for me. 

Today vim's topic is folding.

> set foldmethod=indent " For Bash syntax method doesn't work for me.
> set foldnestmax=10
> set nofoldenable
> set foldlevel=2

After above setting in .vimrc command z+a starts to work in Bash script. Folding, and unfolding during vimming is now like breathing. 

The second thing is [Bash debugging]. I doubted, but I had run it, and found a lost "exit" command which was source of my issue. I'm impressed how lucky I am today. ;-)

=> https://github.com/szczja/gmidiff/blob/main/gmidiff.sh [my script]
=> https://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_02_03.html [Bash debugging]

tags: #vim, #bash
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-03-Cont-vim.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Vim and C-n</title>
<updated>2021-06-02T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-06-02:/gemlog/2021-06-02-Vim-and-c-n.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Vim and C-n

It's funny, but today is first day when I started using a C-n command in vim. ;-) Of course I knew it, maybe I occasionally used it. But after several months of working in text mode, and using vim, I have grown up, and C-n came to me. It's obvious that vim has autocompletion. It's obvious that is easier to autocomplete rather than write it on my own. I know too now.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 02 Jun 2021 11:30:30 PM CEST

tags: #vim
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-06-02-Vim-and-c-n.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>A closer look at geminispace.info backlinks</title>
<updated>2021-05-31T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-31:/gemlog/2021-05-31-A-closer-look-at-geminispace-info-backlinks.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># A closer look at geminispace.info backlinks

Continuation of testing why comitium feed agregator have failed to handle geminispace.info backlinks (as I mentioned in [previous post at Sat 29 May 2021 08:36:05 PM CEST]).

The first part of answer is obvious because geminispace.info backlink page template consists in [root/serve/templates/fragments/footer.gmi] two variables. One of it is printed, and it is changing every time geminispace.info index is updated. 

The second part of answer is still unclear for me. Because I have added two backlinks pages to my comitium installation. The first for szczezuja.flounder.online domain, and the second for szczezuja.space domain. And there must be some difference because, beside index update date, the pages are in different "days" on comitium feeds page. 

I was thinking that dynamic created page on geminispace.info could be processed in different way, despite the same content. But after I have been looking into the source code there are no evidence that there is a place for such difference. Comitium is computing a hash for whole response from gemini client library. Everything seems to be ok. 

The main conclusions are:

* It will be easy to build some Bash script in the same manner as Lace.sh to get content of geminispace.info/backlink page;
* It won't be necessary to use of gp-gemini library - easier is to use openssl system command; 
* It will be easy to parse and remove tricky sections of content;
* It will be easy to make diff, and compute hash for changes tracking;

## GUS 

### [root/serve/views.py]

> @app.route("/backlinks")
> def backlinks(request):
> if request.query:
> url = unquote(request.query)
> internal_backlinks, external_backlinks = gus.get_backlinks(url)
> body = render_template(
> "backlinks.gmi",
> url=url,
> internal_backlinks=internal_backlinks,
> external_backlinks=external_backlinks,
> index_modification_time=gus.statistics["index_modification_time"],
> quote=random.choice(constants.QUOTE_BANK),
> )
> return Response(Status.SUCCESS, "text/gemini", body)
> else:
> return Response(Status.INPUT, "Gemini URL")

### [root/serve/templates/fragments/footer.gmi]

> > "{{ quote["quote"] }}" --- {{ quote["author"] }}
> => /add-seed See any missing results? Let GUS know your Gemini URL exists.
> Index updated on: {{ index_modification_time|datetimeformat }}

The footer fragment, which is included in every page is a bit problematic. It has some fortune message code (which is not activated on geminispace.info) and indext modification time. 

### [root/serve/templates/backlinks.gmi]

The backlinks page template looks ok. There are no changing parts, only core information and a duck ASCII-art. 

## Comitium

### [root/fetch/gemini.go]

> func geminiPage(data *core.FullData, remote string, title string) error {
> resp, err := fetchGemini(remote)
> if err != nil {
> return err
> }
> defer resp.Body.Close()
> 
> reader := io.LimitReader(resp.Body, 1073741824) // 1 GiB
> 
> var page core.Page
> page.Title = title
> page.Link = remote
> h := sha256.New()
> if _, err := io.Copy(h, reader); err != nil {
> return err
> }
> newHash := fmt.Sprintf("%x", h.Sum(nil))
> page.Hash = newHash
> page.Updated = time.Now()
> 
> data.InsertPage(&page, remote)
> return nil
> }

Comitium looks also ok, it is computing SHA256 for fetched response. 

## go-gemini

### [go-gemini/client.go]

Looks that go-gemini library is passing original content readed from network address. 

=> gemini://szczezuja.space/tinylog.gmi [previous post at Sat 29 May 2021 08:36:05 PM CEST]
=> https://natpen.net/code/gus/tree/serve/views.py [root/serve/views.py]
=> https://natpen.net/code/gus/tree/serve/templates/backlinks.gmi [root/serve/templates/backlinks.gmi]
=> https://natpen.net/code/gus/tree/serve/templates/fragments/footer.gmi [root/serve/templates/fragments/footer.gmi]
=> https://git.nytpu.com/comitium/tree/fetch/gemini.go [root/fetch/gemini.go]
=> https://git.sr.ht/~adnano/go-gemini/tree/master/item/client.go [go-gemini/client.go]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 31 May 2021 08:10:16 PM CEST

tags: #backlink, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-31-A-closer-look-at-geminispace-info-backlinks.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Tinylogs</title>
<updated>2021-05-29T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-29:/gemlog/2021-05-29-Tinylogs.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Tinylogs

I'm thinking about tinylogs. I have added structured information in my tinylog header in the Adele's way. In the first moment, I was thinking that it's only some additional information. But after a while, I realised that it's important part of future tinylogging. If we want to build something more than small close friends tinylog-ring, there must be a way to discover new tinylogs. And what is more important, to discover to who other people are responding. 

In one of Adele's entries there is mention of "@frrobert @robert @bob". Who are they? What are the addresses of their tinylogs? 

I have in my tinylog header, from the starting day, information about "@szczezuja" and [searching for @szczezuja] could give a information about my nickname mentions. 

Lucky, the [@frrobert] nickname is unique and searchable, so I get address of source entries. The second, and third nickname is too common for searching. Maybe they should provide more unique nicknames, or adding nickname's header with @ sign will be easier for searching.

=> gemini://frrobert.net/microblog.gmi [@frrobert] 
=> gemini://geminispace.info/search?@szczezuja [searching for @szczezuja]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 29 May 2021 08:12:29 PM CEST

tags: #tinylog, #lace
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-29-Tinylogs.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Progenitor of the Lace</title>
<updated>2021-05-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-26:/gemlog/2021-05-26-Progenitor-of-the-Lace.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Progenitor of the Lace

Accidental discussion about [Lace] on Mastodon have lead to new informations. Lace is the first tinylog aggregator in Geminispace, but there are several progenitors of such way of life. There were life before our Gemini tinylogs. And there were tools for raw text tinylogging. 

* Command line tool called [twtxt] requirement specification is described by: "echo -e "`date +%FT%T%:z`\tHello world!" >> twtxt.txt". ;-) What is the most interesting for Geminispace enthusiasts that there are about 55 users in [curated list of active twtxt users]. I think that we need similar solution for Geminispace. [My announcement] on Mastodon don't have any answers. 
* Second [Thimbl] framework is build of: API (finger and ssh thimbl protocol), UI (JavaScript), (finally) CLI tool. The most interesting part for me is finger protocol and CLI client. But for Geminispace even so small thing like finger protocol is too much. Project seems to be outdated, and some links aren't working. So I can't look and understand everything. 

Least but not last I'm still impressed by Lace. I'm understand that is only execution of some standard Unix command line tools (sed, grep, cat, less, openssl, curls) but it's so clever and so much doing script. And it's only [about 150 lines of code]. So in understanding of Geminispace way the Lace is the most advanced tinylog tool. 

I'm thinking also of proper way of translation its name to Polish. I don't feel the original idea. Is it "to lace" like "to lace a shoe"? So our Tinylogs are like Geminispace eyelets? Seems to be the first utility in Geminispace, which name isn't connected to NASA, rocket or space. The second meaning of "lace" is "a fine open fabric of cotton or silk, made by looping, twisting, or knitting thread in patterns". Maybe author is fan of fancy garment trimming. ;-)

=> gemini://friendo.monster/log/lace.gmi [Lace]
=> https://github.com/thimbl/Thimbl-CLI [Thimbl]
=> https://github.com/buckket/twtxt [twtxt]
=> https://github.com/jointwt/we-are-twtxt [curated list of active twtxt users]
=> https://mastodon.online/@szczezuja/106295101749706103 [My announcement]
=> https://gitlab.com/uoou/dotfiles/-/blob/master/stow/bin/home/drew/.local/bin/lace [about 150 lines of code]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 26 May 2021 05:42:09 PM CEST

tags: #lace, #twtxt, #cli, #bash
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-26-Progenitor-of-the-Lace.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Preventing the Collapse of Civilization</title>
<updated>2021-05-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-25:/gemlog/2021-05-25-Re-preventing-the-collapse-of-civilization.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Preventing the Collapse of Civilization

Continuing on [Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization"] by Alex.

I've watched [YouTube talk by Jonathan Blow] on interesting title about collapsing civilization. Alex's description is very short, so I haven't knew what to expect. I thought that it's some TEDx talk, but at the end I realized that is some game developer's conference. And Jonathan Blow is also game developer, who is responsible for Braid. What is funny I bought Braid some time ago. It was included in one of first Humble Bundle game pack. I was buying them, because it was one of the first Linux's games pack. So I played Braid, and I didn't recognized Jonathan Blow.

The next interesting thing is that proper way, which prevent us from collapsing of civilization is Geminispace. I should guess that Alex will note links about Geminispace. So, why Geminispace? Because it's simple. 

Simple things are robust and prevent from every cataclysm. Complicated things are faulty, and they will be forget. Every software today is too complicated, and is operating on high level of abstraction. Most of abstraction levels are black box mechanisms. We don't have any idea how today's operating systems, frameworks are working. 

Geminispace is so raw protocol, that there are no much space for complication. As I wrote on Mastodon there are many Geminispace utilities which are build in about 100-200 lines of code. The amount of information which sometimes is put into some pom.xml (file responsible for software project configuration) without any line of real coding. 

It's true that today's programmers are slaves of too complicated tools and programming languages, which do the magic. 

As I have written in my Polish blog during last years there are no much new things, which we are doing with computers. 

* Using text editors
* Operating on file system
* Using databases 
* Work with graphics, sounds etc. 

So what today's software do better in above categories. In the most cases today's data is more detailed but it isn't any increase in usability. Jonathan Blow counting one day software bugs, which he spotted. Software on computer, on light switcher etc. are faulty. 

Jonathan Blow asked why developers use frameworks like Unity to write pixels on a screen? Why developers accepting their position of operating last level of abstraction, without knowledge of real programming and operating of the hardware. But the talk is of course not only about game developers. Every reader of this post on Geminispace do that step. Start to learn of how to use computers on lower levels of abstraction. It will bring only a good things. 

=> gemini://alex.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-23.gmi [Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization"]
=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk [YouTube talk by Jonathan Blow]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Tue 25 May 2021 08:29:49 PM CEST

tags: #people
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-25-Re-preventing-the-collapse-of-civilization.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Heaven of tmux!</title>
<updated>2021-05-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-24:/gemlog/2021-05-24-heaven-of-tmux.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Heaven of tmux!

I was aware of screen and it was obvious for what it is used. When I started to write my Gemlog I set up a Linux environment. My life behind remote SSH session had been frequent but short and single purpose. After I started writing It changed. There are need to use more and more utilities, and there are need to open many windows. I went back to (as I thought) a modern approach of screen called [Byobu]. After a while I realised that it's only proxy for screen and tmux. And it was accident that I choosed tmux.

At first I was trying to remember Byobu shortcuts and it was pain. My laptop keyboard has function keys merged with multimedia keys, so I must use Fn key for using them. And it wasn't natural to remember that for example F8 is renaming - why F8?

But there are Byobu alternatives for function keys - I had read. It's interesting and more natural. First of all was C-a c for creating a new window. It's clear, that c stands for creating. 

After a while, I realized that it's tmux keys shortcuts. And in some way is so natural for using them. 

* C-a % and C-a | for window splitting in vertical or horizontal panes. 
* C-a and number for choosing a window and C-a and arrow key for choosing pane. 
* If something is complicated I typing a command by C-a and, for example, ":resize-pane -L 20" (with history completion) for resizing pane to left for 20 columns. 

Step after step I got into the world of tmux. Work in SSH environment with many windows is seamless like in graphical windows managers. The last lacking concept was copy&paste. I was doing this by host OS clipboard, but it's wrong way. Of course tmux has C-a [ for copying, and C-a ] for pasting. What is more, with marking text for copying selector (starting by spacebar and ending by enter key) which respecting multipane windows borders. 

I step into a [tmux heaven]!

The only thing I'm still looking for is good text cheat sheet. I found only some [graphical cheat sheet]. 

=> https://www.byobu.org [Byobu];
=> https://linuxacademy.com/site-content/uploads/2019/11/tmux-printer.png [graphical cheat sheet];
=> https://mastodon.online/@szczezuja/106284013462121731 [tmux heaven] as screenshot for people liking to watch;

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 24 May 2021 09:57:47 PM CEST

tags: #cli, #tmux, #cheatsheet
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-24-heaven-of-tmux.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>New domain name</title>
<updated>2021-05-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-23:/gemlog/2021-05-23-new-domain-name.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># New domain name

I set up new domain name for my Capsule. Please update your feed aggregators.

## Lace

> $ lace subs
> szczezuja (gemini://szczezuja.flounder.online/tinylog.gmi)
> $ lace unsub szczezuja
> removed subscription to szczezuja
> $ lace sub szczezuja gemini://szczezuja.space/tinylog.gmi
> added szczezuja to subscriptions

## Comitium

> $ comitium remove gemini://szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/atom.xml
> $ comitium add gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/atom.xml

--
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 23 May 2021 09:26:44 PM CEST

tags: #lace, #comitium, #gemlog, #tinylog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-23-new-domain-name.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Power of Tinylogs</title>
<updated>2021-05-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-10:/gemlog/2021-05-10-power-of-tinylogs.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Power of Tinylogs

When we are writing Tinylog, and we are reading Tinylogs in Lace utility [1], we have approached a easy way of microblogging without a special platform for it. 

It’s easy to write a new status. It’s convenient to read last statuses of other people. Lace would read any number of feeds and presents them in simple and ascetic way. Lace script is a bit slow because it must read all feeds every time to organize them…

But in slow Internet when we want to do everything in proper time is advantage, not a defect. We want to omit push notifications and obligatory checking for a new statuses every second. 

What is more there are no need to build any special infrastructure for it. There are no web apps, nor servers, databases. 

In comparison to my Tinylog, yesterday my favorite Mastodon client (Metatext) stopped working on fresh upgraded mastodon.online instance with some “can’t read data - syntax error”. Client bug was connected with last upgrade of instance and it’s shiny new RC version of server. Really, it’s so complicated? 

My Tinylog has almost half core functionality without server, and space for such bugs. 

=> gemini://friendo.monster/log/lace.gmi [1] friendo.monster/log/lace.gmi

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 10 May 2021 07:45:57 AM CEST

tags: #lace, #tinylog, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-10-power-of-tinylogs.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Don't undervalue yourself</title>
<updated>2021-05-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-10:/gemlog/2021-05-10-Re-dont-undervalue-yourself.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Don't undervalue yourself

Response to Bacardi55 response [1] and article from smolZINE [2]. 

## Introduction

I think that such article published in Geminispace has one more interesting side. Even if you are thinking that you have lack of some skills, for sure you are one of few enthusiasts who are using Geminispace. As I wrote in some earlier posts for me the most important part of Geminispace are interesting people. 

Using Geminispace means that people are behind standard point of computer user. Maybe they are some professional from IT in their spare time, maybe they are some IT hobbyists, maybe they are students. Every mentioned group has in common that they want to try something new, so they are open minded. The most of them want to share their experience. What is the most important most of them have some own long-backed ideas which they are publishing here. 

For me there are no more places like Geminispace where is so easy to find such people in big groups, literally everywhere. 

## Main thought

According to the main thought which is aimed to people entering in this place with the smallest experience, potentially students. If you are here, you are extraordinary -- as I wrote above. 

It's true as mentioned in smolZINE that every work should be properly priced. And of course, what wasn't mentioned is hard to do. Because people without experience don't know how to properly price their job. It's something about Bacardi55 was partially written. The second part of Bacardi55 thought, is also true, that people like to think that some things are obvious for everybody. In most cases it isn't true. Specially in IT, people who have years of experience, have also their point of view (also from years ago), and they are interested in new ideas which, for example, are common knowledge during studying. 

But for me, the most important thing is to ask and to talk. Even if you aren't expert in some area, but you want to, for example, work in such one, ask and talk about it. In response you could get some career path, or hints what to do to be in place where you want to be. Without communication skills it could be hard work to do so. 

=> gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io/gemlog/2021/05/re-dont-undervalue-yourself.gmi [1] Bacardi55
=> gemini://gemini.cyberbot.space/smolzine/smolzine-issue-1.gmi [2] smolZINE

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA 
@ Mon 10 May 2021 10:16:09 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #people, #it, #smollZINE
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-10-Re-dont-undervalue-yourself.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Cognitive shock</title>
<updated>2021-05-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-05-03:/gemlog/2021-05-03-cognitive-shock.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Cognitive shock

Today I've spotted new social gemapp where I've created an account [1]. There are many new ideas in Gemini space and everyone could make impact on it. You could put something in your domain on port 1965, and suddenly, after a while it could become one of common recognized part of Gemini space. Some ideas are weird, some good, and a few are better. Everybody are looking for the best way of evolution of today's Gemini space point.

The original idea of Gemini space is extending in every direction like a space, which theme stands for the protocol name. Some of ideas could be like a poker cards check for protocol limitations. Because somebody wants to have small internet, in a smaller version than other or bigger version of that, and so on. 

I also have settled in Gemini space, and I also have own vision of what is the best direction for me. 

## To write (on my capsule)

It's convenient to put a content in Gemtext. There are no need to think about CSS, graphical form of it. Preparing special infrastructure. Strengthening and securing it. The only thing I'm waiting for it is a Debian package of server in official repository, which indicate that one of servers is mature enough for everyday using. 

I'm thinking also of some HTTP proxy for my Capsule. It seems to be also widely developed part of today's Gemini software. 

## To write (on my gemlog)

I'm planing to migrate my primary Wordpress blog to Gemtext. It could be a matter of time, when Wordpress.com end it's free subscriptions. And I won't need to maintain security of Wordpress engine on my own. What is more important I don't use any advanced functionality of that engine, so it's over sized for me. 

Gemtext it's also easier way to blog than Jekyll or Hugo. I don't need to migrate from one complicated engine to another. 

## To read (other capsules, gemlogs, tinylogs, comments)

This is a biggest problem for today because there are no set any common way for handling a feedback. But in my imaginations it would be great if:

* I could use software like Lace for tinylogs. So I could read short ideas of other people. Rather than spending time for unorganized style of ActivityPub, which it has target on instants response and push notifications using manner. ActivityPub is too much consuming, without a special way for free time reading (ActivityPub clients aren't implemented in such way).
* Responses would be some chain of Gemini space pages. There are some examples [2] of mechanisms for knowing each other that there are some backlink, and prefixes of gemlog posts titles with "Re" as response. Maybe it is good idea to miss some of the responses, and read that ones only from people who we follow. In opposite to today's situation that every comment (also spam) is showed to us. 

## Other way of communication

With above way of life maybe we would return to some other way of communication. We wouldn't put it all into big, and small, webpages (or webapps - like Facebook which ate every Internet activity). There would be some e-mail communication, or it would popularize some instant messaging standard like XMPP/Jabber. 

## Final thoughts

So maybe I really don't need any social app and comments under gemlog posts? I'm thinking about it for a long time. Maybe is some sort of cognitive shock?

=> gemini://station.martinrue.com/szczezuja [1] station.martinrue.com
=> gemini://geminispace.info/backlinks?szczezuja.flounder.online [2] geminispace.info/backlinks

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 02 May 2021 11:17:41 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #station, #backlink
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-05-03-cognitive-shock.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Why use Gemini?</title>
<updated>2021-04-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-26:/gemlog/2021-04-26-Re-Why-use-Gemini.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Why use Gemini?

## Short answer

In response to discussion about essence of being in Gemini space [1].

I had responded to simple question "Why to use Gemini" on Fediverse with very short answer. 

> I have started to blog years ago on platform built with XMPP/Jabber
> support. Now I’m writing on my #Gemini capsule. Then, and today the
> reason is the same. It’s interesting idea which involving interesting 
> peoples. You don't have to search for them, just select a random #Gemlog.

And this answer could be too hermetic. I try to improve it for wider context.

## Back to year 2004

I started blogging about 2004 on Polish XMPP/Jabber blogging platform. I had been sceptic for blogging, what for me had been connected with not so serious teenagers diaries. But about 2000 I started looking for IM alternatives, what lead me to Jabber. Blogging through Jabber was planned to be checking only and temporary activity. 

But... I'm blogging to this day. Blogging platform build on XMPP/Jabber turned out to be a special place. There were only a hundreds of bloggers, but the most of people were involved of new idea of XMPP/Jabber. There were programmers of Jabber servers, clients, tools, admins, open minded, enthusiasts and evangelists etc. It was one place, where that people came together. It was impossible to find a second blogging platform like this at this time. 

Time was passing through and of course that platform collapsed. Many people abandoned their blogging habbits, some people migrated to other platforms. It was end of special time for me. 

## 2021

I think that there could had been some other places similar to my platform, and maybe others have also such golden ark. In the Internet is hard to find today similar places and communities. Today's Internet is working in a different way.

Many of us could thinking in a similar way, were bored today's state of matters. But what to do with it? The most often activity is to thinking of the past, and writing blog posts about "how good was years ago". 

And surprisingly I saw #Geminispace tag on the Fediverse. It's such simple thing to going back to my 2004. I started to read toots and profiles connected with this tag. Next I started to read Gemini capsules and Gemlogs. Next I started to write own Gemlog. 

It's enjoying and inspiriting to be again with avan-garde of (small) Internet. It's allow to improve yourself and help create new idea of Gemini space. Maybe the Gemini space never will be a first choice of browsing and surfing, but only thinking of it (as we are doing) should improve a bit of the Internet chaos (social media, click baits, ads, fakenews and so on... source of the technical baroque, things, which should be simple). 

=> gemini://nytpu.com/why-gemini.gmi [1] gemini://nytpu.com/why-gemini.gmi

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Mon 26 Apr 2021 11:49:51 PM CEST

tags: #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-26-Re-Why-use-Gemini.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Dreams about graphical windows managers</title>
<updated>2021-04-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-24:/gemlog/2021-04-24-Dreams-about-graphical-windows-managers.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Dreams about graphical windows managers

I'm a novice in the world which I'm thinking to know very well. It's of course - very obvious. When we are using CLI tools like Toot (Mastodon CLI client), and when we are activating a HTTP hyperlink in such tool, a proper configured system should open... a new window of system web browser. Applause! 

After I installed Lynx (terminal web browser) everything start working out of the box. I realized this, after I had seen system message:

> update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/lynx to provide /usr/bin/www-browser

Using GUI applications puts our mind to sleep, with dreams about graphical windows managers. We must awake, in real CLI world! ;-)

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat 24 Apr 2021 04:05:49 PM CEST

tags: #cli, #lynx, #toot, #mastodon
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-24-Dreams-about-graphical-windows-managers.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Re: Apple</title>
<updated>2021-04-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-21:/gemlog/2021-04-21-Re-Apple.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Re: Apple

In response to Przemek’s gemlog [1]. 

I had been using traditional cellular phone for years. After it I was using Android phones with promise to not spend more than 300 USD (it wasn’t problem of money, it was philosophy of life). I was laughing at Apple fanboys. 

After some time I realized that it could be something in Apple devices. I changed cheap Samsung phone to cheap iPhone 5C. It wasn’t my phone, but it was in my family. After a while I was sure that it was worth every money which was spent on it. My 300 USD budget was exceeded, and wasn’t exceeded at the same time. I am looked at this in another way, because after next years iPhone 5C did all things, as it had been doing them at the first day after purchase. It was fast, it was up to date. 

Next device which I bought was MacBook Air. It was also the cheapest MacBook in the store. There wasn’t any surprises, and the story was repeating. What is more I can look at seamless integration of iPhone and MacBook. Some features like AirDrop is introducing in current version of Android (it took years for base integration functionality). 

I’m IT guy and there isn’t problem for me to set up Linux distributions. I was using Linux distribution at the same time. I was aware of every limitation of Apple’s ecosystem, but everything above it was easy and nice. Without any effort. Up to date. Less time consuming. And what is the most important that every time it was some premium product feeling (despite that I was buying the cheapest models). 

I have now two iPhones, iPad, MacBook Air. They aren’t newest models, nor most expensive ones. But they’re working for many years. Costs of purchasing are amortized and I understood that real amount, nominally more than 300 USD, is in long time lower. 

I’m Linux user so my workflow must changed. It could be problem with some professional use, but not in everyday home user workflow. Some webpages, some photos, occasionally connecting to SSH (MacOS is a bit “Linux distribution”). It’s enough. 
If there is any reason for buying “professional” apps it wouldn’t be a financial problem. I have bought for example brilliant SSH terminal called Blink, and it’s great for touch screens. I am feeling that such application is worth that money and it’s better than every free alternatives on Google Play. 

After years of using Apple’s devices I’m content. I’m paying a bit more for some luxury of not thinking about which model of Android phone could be good at this time for me (because every year other manufacturer is preferred by power users). I’m not thinking about features and configuration capabilities which are not necessary. Every is simple and well done. If something is missing in Apple for sure is not ready for consumers, it’s only a possibility or use case for minority of them. 

Is like AirPods and Bluetooth. Every technical user was saying that Bluetooth is great. But after Apple made AirPods Bluetooth standard was improved for better Bluetooth audio. And now every user (Apple and Google phones) get the real wireless headphones, because every earlier versions of standard had some flaws. 

So I try not to be Apple fanboy. I try not to talk too much about it. But for me it’s obvious choice. 

Of course they are doing some tricks to put users in their bubbles and I think that you could change OneDrive for iCloud in some time. I’m aware of this, and every company would do the same. 

I’d like to believe that they won’t be too greedy and there will be place for such lazy users as I. I can afford to pay for it at the current price level. 

=> gemini://przemek.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-19.gmi [1]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 21 Apr 2021 08:43:12 PM CEST

tags: #apple
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-21-Re-Apple.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Geminispace is awesome</title>
<updated>2021-04-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-18:/gemlog/2021-04-18.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Geminispace is awesome 

Last days I hadn't much time for Geminispace. I was looking around, mainly on my Mastodon account. Many of my subscriptions, are connected with Gemini. 

Today, as always before going bed, I checked my Gemini feeds aggregator and look a bit into the Midnight Pub [1]. 

At the Pub I heard that there is a discovery page [2], and there I noticed Gemini Dig clone [3].

After a while I thought that Geminispace is awesome. There are many hidden treasures like for example Gemini proxy for Reddit [4]. So much, and only this. There are so many creative people on Gemini. 

=> gemini://midnight.pub/ [1]
=> gemini://discovery.geminiprotocol.com/ [2]
=> gemini://geddit.glv.one/ [3] 
=> gemini://gemini.bunburya.eu/remini.gmi [4]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun 18 Apr 2021 11:29:11 PM CEST

tags: #gemini, #midnightPub, #reddit, #geddit, #proxy
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-18.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Comitium</title>
<updated>2021-04-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-07:/gemlog/2021-04-07.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Comitium

During last weekend I had managed to do dist-upgrade, and after it configured Comitium [1]. Comitium is feed aggregator for Gemini space feeds (Atom/XML) and capsules. It's producing static page, which could be published. My feeds page is published on this capsule. [2] It's interesting because every reader could check what I'm reading at the moment, and for me because I have all articles prepared in one place. It's like a newspaper. 

The only thing which I must improve is automation. Because uploading feed page for Flounder gemlogs require a text password. Without key login I can't put proper script in Crontab to do so. There are some work around, but it's a bit complicated. Maybe Alex will find time for develop a new feature for Flounder. Or I will be so impatient that I will explore what is the problem with my workaround. 

=> https://git.nytpu.com/comitium/about/ [1] git.nytpu.com/comitium
=> gemini://szczezuja.flounder.online/blogroll.gmi [2]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed 07 Apr 2021 09:56:04 PM CEST

tags: #comitium, #rss, #gemlog, #flounder
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-07.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>C-a 2 vim C-w C-w, :e 2021-04-04.gmi</title>
<updated>2021-04-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-04:/gemlog/2021-04-04.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># C-a 2 vim C-w C-w, :e 2021-04-04.gmi

It's so obvious but I'm still enjoying my back to raw text typing. 

* C-a 2 stands for changing byobu for second window. 
* vim for vim
* C-w and C-w for chaning internal window to file tree, where I choose proper filepath
* :e for vim new file, for this Gemlog entry...

Today I have read two interesting essays about raw text life -- I noted their addresses on my Tinylog. Two main conclusions are:

* Social media are too focussed on ad-hoc replies and emotions. This is opposite to looking for organised response and thoughts.
* It's important to learn how to use computers, not how to use Internet in the today way. It could be vital to know how to organise own way of life without commercial software and services. This lead to initiatives like rawtext.club (and other tilda like communities) where everybody can learn how to use ssh, plaintext protocols and how to create own way of using them. Do a new simple tools with other simple tools. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun Apr 4 19:22:39 CEST 2021

tags: #cli, #tmux, #pubnix
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-04.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Cosmic Voyage</title>
<updated>2021-04-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-04-03:/gemlog/2021-04-03.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Cosmic Voyage

There are no new achievement in Gemini space. The only thing is that I started a Cosmic Voyage [1], [2]. Story is in Polish laguage, because my English is not on the proper level for such stories. 

The more I explore Gemini space, the more text entertainments I am finding. It is mix of Gemini and Gopher world, which is like The ancient Atlantis - under the water level of WWW. There are no any need to write Cosmic Voyage in the way Cosmic Voyage is written. But it's all for fun. There is a special ssh account, and system commands for it. Everyone could write it on their own, but more than 500 stories were written in such strange manner. 

At the end is worth writing that because Cosmic Voyage has Gopher ancestry, on natural way, it has Gemini space proxy.

=> gemini://cosmic.voyage/ships/Polonia/ [1]
=> gemini://cosmic.voyage/ships/Polonia-II/ [2]

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat Apr 3 21:00:51 CEST 2021

tags: #gemini, #cosmicVoyage, #gemini, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-04-03.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Change to daylight saving time</title>
<updated>2021-03-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-28:/gemlog/2021-03-28.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Change to daylight saving time

Today is a day of daylight saving time change. Despite I woke up earlier I didn't go to bed and I pretend that is some extra time for do some tidying up of my Gemini capsule. It will hurt tomorrow in the morning. 

I didn't configure any feed reader even though I have been trying to do so for about week. But I have prepared my blogroll page for inclusion of automatically generated page, when I at last will choose some proper solution. 

I set up XMPP/Jabber account: szja at jabber.today. I was using XMPP/Jabber for many years, but now my roster is empty. Today I created: echo-szja-capsule@muc.jabber.today as a place for any feedback from this capsule. I thought that it must be a disobliging channel for feedback, and I don't want to post every Gemini post to Mastodon for comments. I want to set up whole environment on a server side so I installed mcabber command line XMPP/Jabber client. 

I was trying also command line Mastodon client - toot tui. 

I also improved further my vi configuration and workflow. I am starting to feel that it's comfortable tool.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun Mar 28 23:48:46 CEST 2021

tags: #gemlog, #rss, #xmpp, #jabber, #cli, #toot, #mastodon, #vim
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-28.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Summary of passing week</title>
<updated>2021-03-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-27:/gemlog/2021-03-27.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain">## Summary of passing week

I didn't write anything through passing week but I was working around my Gemini capsule. 

I tried to do do-release-upgrade on my VPS and after it I spotted some problems so I restored snapshot from before I started. Two hours of one afternoon were thrown away. 

I was thinking also about pros and cons of having own Gemini server instead of Flounder.online. Idea of having everything on my own is as always nice, but then I realised that I don't know which Gemini server is secure and reliable. Gemini protocol is so fresh idea that I should be prepared for maintaining it more frequent than I have time for it. I gave up, and support Alex (Flounder's administrator for his work). 

I set up some configuration tweaks for my Vim. I installed plugin manager, I add NERDTree plugin, and refresh some Vim shortcuts for managing windows and so on. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat Mar 27 21:05:23 CET 2021

tags: #gemlog #vim, #flounder
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-27.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Buy a coffee!</title>
<updated>2021-03-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-21:/gemlog/2021-03-21.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Buy a coffee!

I've noticed that it's possible to support Flounder administrator [1]. I was trying to do so today, but I noticed some problem with buymecoffee.com. I sent question to their support e-mail. I will continue as I get some answer. We should support Alex for him work.
 
=> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alexwennerberg [1] https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alexwennerberg

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sun Mar 21 20:13:34 CET 2021

tags: #flounder, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-21.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>A bit less productive time</title>
<updated>2021-03-18T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-18:/gemlog/2021-03-18.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># A bit less productive time 

I haven't posted anything for a couple days. It seems to be less activity on Gemini space, which is followed by me. The same on #Gemini hashtag on Mastodon. I have done some housekeeping on my VPS and start thinking of putting there my Gemini capsule. There are some things left, so it takes time. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA 
@ Thu Mar 18 22:51:01 CET 2021

tags: #gemini, #mastodon, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-18.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gemini feeds reader</title>
<updated>2021-03-13T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-13:/gemlog/2021-03-13.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gemini feeds reader

Gemini protocol has many ideas which could implement client software, which is aware of information updates. Some capsules has of course an Atom feed. But there is also native page structure [1], which could be equivalent to Atom feed, without publishing one. 

So there are no need to subscribe directly to feed, when every page could have structure. I was surprised when Amfora allowed me to do Ctrl + X (to subscribe) page without feed. But it's possible and correct. And now my subscription page become more important than bookmark page, and contains all bookmarks. The last thing is to save subscription page to disk, what is not possible in Amfora for now. I request new features on GitHub [2] and it was approved to development. 

When it will be implemented, It could be possible to set Amfora in Crontab, and automatically generate and upload to capsule some sort of public feeds page (like CAPCOM or Moku Pona). 

=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/companion/subscription.gmi [1] Subscribing to Gemini pages
=> https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/issues/210 [2] Amfora's GitHub

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Sat Mar 13 20:55:04 CET 2021

tags: #gemini, #rss, #amfora
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-13.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Tinylog</title>
<updated>2021-03-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-12:/gemlog/2021-03-12.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Tinylog 

Yesterday I have launched Tinylog [1]. I realized that I need a place to note some links from Gemini space. I don't want to put them on Mastodon because it's too specialized for all of my followers. So I put them on Tinylog. 

Idea came from post about Lace. Aggregator for Tinylogs [2], which I plan to realize in some time. 

=> gemini://szczezuja.flounder.online/tinylog.gmi [1] Tinylog
=> gemini://friendo.monster/log/lace.gmi [2] Lace 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Fri Mar 12 18:33:51 CET 2021

tags: #gemlog, #tinylog, #mastodon, #lace, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-12.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Two weeks in the Gemini space</title>
<updated>2021-03-11T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-11:/gemlog/2021-03-11.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Two weeks in the Gemini space

Today is the fourteenth day of my voyage in the Gemini space. 

* I haven't given up with my Gemlog! 
* I improved my rusty English (a bit). 
* I've set up proper SSH connection from my iPad.
* I've set up vim environment and using it for Gemlog. It's need improvements and my knowledge of this editor should be refreshed.
* I'm reading more and more in Gemini space. In the same time I am start to used to Gemini space and set up some own paths. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Thu Mar 11 20:59:08 CET 2021

tags: #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-11.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Exploring Gemini space cont.</title>
<updated>2021-03-10T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-10:/gemlog/2021-03-10.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Exploring Gemini space cont.

I'm exploring Gemini space. I add some obvious feeds for Amfora's author, Solderpunk, and Lagrange's author bookmark (because there are no feed). I have read some posts. 

As I wrote on my regular blog exploring new Gemini capsules is like be some adventurer. It's different feeling from normal web because Google put all of us on some sort of rails. Everybody get the same, and visit top links of every Google search. It's because we used to that this top links, are the best. We are in some set of schemas for obtaining information. Without that schemas we are feeling some sort of anxiety, and we must learn how to look for information again. In Gemini space we are like in 90'sand pre Google era. There are no schemas and we evaluate all content of our own. 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA
@ Wed Mar 10 23:37:46 CET 2021

tags: #gemini, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-10.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Today's progress on Gemini feeds reader</title>
<updated>2021-03-09T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-09:/gemlog/2021-03-09.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Today's progress on Gemini feeds reader 

Today I've configured Amfora [1]. It has included subscriptions page, which is similar to previous feed readers I had tried. I've set color schema for white background. After this I was ready to start reading my bookmarked pages. It's funny because I am reading Gemini content in SSH session, in Amfora browser via iPad. But for this is more convenient than Elaho, and I use Elaho only for some quick ad hoc reading.

=> https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora [1] Amfora

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #ios, #blinkShell, #amfora, #gemini, #elaho 
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-09.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gemini feeds reader still doesn't work</title>
<updated>2021-03-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-08:/gemlog/2021-03-08.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gemini feeds reader still doesn't work 

Yesterday I tried to install Moku Puna [1] feeds reader, and after long fight with Perl's environment which need some upgrade, and with me who need to learn basic usage of Perl, I have seen some exception while reading feeds file. 

Today I tried to install CAPCOM [2] feeds reader, and again I was fighting Pythons' environment, and again me need to learn basic usage of Python, and at the end, again I have seen some exception while reading feeds file. 

This could be more complicated than I thought. It could be easier to write some script for this on my own. 

=> https://github.com/kensanata/moku-pona [1] Moku Puna
=> https://tildegit.org/solderpunk/CAPCOM [2] CAPCOM

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #gemini, #gemlog, #rss 
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-08.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>First post via sshfs</title>
<updated>2021-03-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-07:/gemlog/2021-03-07.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># First post via sshfs

Today I set up sshfs access and I am publishing my first post written with vim. What is more I am operating from my iPad thanks to Blink Shell [1]. For a while I was looking for some ssh client for iOS, and this paid option seems to be the best and user friendly.

=> https://blink.sh/docs/basics/navigation [1] Blink Shell

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #gemlog, #sshfs, #ios, #blinkShell
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-07.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>[Today Gemini protocol post on Slashdot [1]. ...]</title>
<updated>2021-03-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-06:/gemlog/2021-03-06.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain">Today Gemini protocol post on Slashdot [1]. 

=> https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/03/06/014255/why-the-small-internet-movement-wants-to-revive-gopher [1] Why the 'Small Internet' Movement Wants to Revive Gopher

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #gemini, #slashdot, #gopher
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-06.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>The small web is beautiful</title>
<updated>2021-03-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-04:/gemlog/2021-03-04.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># The small web is beautiful

Today I’m starting with title of interesting article [1] about minimalistic point of view, also about websites. It’s necessary to talk about this, but of course not in Gemini space which is so minimalistic, that it don’t have to be more. With all that #512KbClub blogs, which also doesn’t matter here for Gemlogs. There aren’t things to clean and fix, because the only primal instincts here is to be small and simple.

So when I was thinking about RSS reader for Gemini space I didn’t imagine what I’m real looking for. Unexpectedly for some sort of complex problem there’s simple solution. There are no need for RSS reader, we can generate updated articles [2] as Gemini resource and read it in regular Gemini client. 

=> https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-small-web-is-beautiful/ [1] The small web is beautiful by Ben Hoyt
=> https://github.com/kensanata/moku-pona [2] Moku pona

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #gemini, #gemlog, #512KbClub, #rss
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-04.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Gemini podcast</title>
<updated>2021-03-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-03:/gemlog/2021-03-03.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Gemini podcast

Today I spotted on my way Gemini podcast. It’s interesting in two aspects. 

First that it’s look like Elaho browser has some bug or lack of functionality (podcast’s links are opened as text content). 

Second that I still learning how to using Gemini. I don’t know if it’s designed for podcasting (but we have at least one), binary content (specification seems to include binary response) and so on. 

=> gemini://chriswere.uk/trendytalk/ [1] Trendy Talk podcast 

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #elaho, #gemini, #podcast
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-03.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Apple ecosystem (convenient and irritating same time)</title>
<updated>2021-03-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-03-01:/gemlog/2021-03-01.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Apple ecosystem (convenient and irritating same time)

I’m using Linux on my desktop for almost twenty years and never had been thinking that I would be Apple user. Long time I had been using traditional cellular phone, with my favorite Nokia E51. And after this, when it hadn’t been any choice, I tried some Android smartphones. Never with success, always with some sort of feeling that it’s not that phone.

And after era of Android I tried iPhone. With limitations which come from Apple's way of thinking which, in normal user everyday use, are convenient and no blocking. It’s better phone for me.

But, when somebody try to step out of normal user everyday use, and he know possibilities in Linux ecosystem this convenientness is so irritating. Maybe not in way that’s is fault of Apple, but that in GNU Linux community people do such huge work that sometimes we take it for normal state of world.

So there are no SFTP support in text editors on iOS. This situation could be treated as normal, because operating system don’t support any SSH or SFTP layer, and text editors won’t include such special libraries.

SFTP support is in some “professional” editors for developers (which have more features than I need to post to Gemlog). This situation is also natural, because it's not normal user everyday use and professional tools are paid.

And again, in Linux we don’t even thinking of such thing as SFTP! Irritating.

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #linux, #ios, #sftp, #apple
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-03-01.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Keyoxide</title>
<updated>2021-02-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-02-28:/gemlog/2021-02-28.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Keyoxide

Taking advantage of the Sunday afternoon off I set up a profile on Keyoxide [1]. After that I ask myself a question how to add Gemini capsules to Keyoxide. I don’t know if it’s possible. 

=> https://keyoxide.org/3DDC8C7ABFC357A2 [1] My Keyoxide profile

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #keyoxide, #gemlog
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-02-28.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>SFTP</title>
<updated>2021-02-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-02-27:/gemlog/2021-02-27.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># SFTP

Today Alex implemented SFTP service [1] for any Flounder account. This is a good news for everyone interested in Gemini space because now it’s possible to create some more advanced Static Site Generated solutions (for example automatic pages for tags or categories aggregation, like in every old school blog). 

That good news means also that Flounder [2] is community in good health. Project is not too big, so any new feature could be added very quick, and it will be answer for real needs. 

It reminds me of the early years of the XMPP/Jabber protocol and whole ecosystem clients, tools and blogging services connected with it. 

=> gemini://admin.flounder.online/sftp.gmi [1] admin.flounder.online/sftp.gmi
=> https://github.com/alexwennerberg/flounder [2] github.com/alexwennerberg/flounder

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #sftp, #gemlog, #flounder, #gemini
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-02-27.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
<summary type="text/plain"></summary>
<title>Elaho</title>
<updated>2021-02-26T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-02-26:/gemlog/2021-02-26.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Elaho

Jumping into the time hole to the 80’s sometimes is a bit quirky. I’m using my high tech iPad with all these Retina display and Apple amazing. My iPad time portal allowing me for some convenience, and operating from bed. It’s that progress since 80’s which I wouldn’t abandon. So I need some Gemini browser for iOS. The choice fell on Elaho [1]. 

=> https://github.com/pitr/gemini-ios [1] github.com/pitr/gemini-ios

-- 
szczezuja.space CC BY-SA

tags: #gemini, #elaho, #ios
</content>
<link href="//szczezuja.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-02-26.gmi" rel="alternate"></link>
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<title>Protocols</title>
<updated>2021-02-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-02-25:/gemlog/2021-02-25-02.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain"># Protocols

Last days I discovered some new protocols. The first is of course Gemini protocol. I heard about Gopher but I never used it. The only experience in world of terminals were IRC and few sessions of MUD. But I like minimalistic side of the Internet, and looking back for the first years of my Internet life. Now I have Gemini Capsule which is like 80’s time hole. 

The second one, when I was thinking that nothing more strange could be put into my hands, is Scuttlebutt [1]. 

Some time ago I was writing on my primary blog about Donald Trump “Twitter case” and in comments section were some side discussion about social media instances. For me it’s ok when instance owner have rights to moderate users. The main problem is that there are only one Twitter instance, and people should be aware of these threat. But there was other opinion that even when, for example Mastodon, have many federated instance, owners shouldn’t have rights to moderate them. And possibility to choosing another instance by blocked user isn’t the solution for that. 

So Scuttlebutt is answer for that case. Social media protocol without any instances or servers. With peer to peer communication and immutable posts. I wasn’t aware that there is technical solutions which is production ready. 

Then I was sure that nothing more strange... Yep, there is Betty protocol [2]. Maybe it’s not social media but it allows for communication of group of people without any instances or servers, and without... Internet connection. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Arthur C. Clarke) This magic won’t work in the jungle, but it should work in big cities’ jungles where Bluetooth Low Energy infrastructure is dense. 

The last funny thing is that above protocols could be connected with Gossip protocol [3] which is also called (via Wikipedia article) as “epidemic protocol”. So this is the technology for current time. 

=> https://scuttlebutt.nz/ [1] scuttlebutt.nz
=> https://berty.tech/docs/protocol [2] berty.tech
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol [3] Gossip protocol

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tags: #gemini, #gopher, #scuttlebutt, #betty
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<title>[> „What are you doing now?” he asked. „Do yo...]</title>
<updated>2021-02-25T00:00:00Z</updated>
<id>tag:szczezuja.flounder.online,2021-02-25:/gemlog/2021-02-25-01.gmi</id>
<content type="text/plain">> „What are you doing now?” he asked. „Do you keep a journal?” So I make my first entry today. Oct. 22, 1837

=> https://www.walden.org/education/for-students/thoreaus-writing/ Journal, By Henry David Thoreau 

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tags: #gemlog
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