[tech] the duplo protocol

Duplo: We are from the planet Duplo, and we're here to destroy you. 
Emmet: Oh, man.
-- The LEGO Movie, 2014


Gemini is build around 4 major blocks: TLS, URI, MIME,  and UTF8. As 
standard as they come. The bread and butter of the modern internet.

Furthermore, the gemini protocol and the text/gemini format are meant to 
be easy to assemble -both in term of implementations, and content 
creation- given the stated familiarity of the building blocks. 

Finally, the entire construct is meant to be immutable and immovable. All 
i's are dotted and all t's are crossed. No change shall happen. Ever. This is the way.

Everything Is AWESOME!!!
-- The LEGO Movie, 2014


Turns out, each of the blocks have their own share of idiosyncrasies, 
ambiguities, and, well, complications:

TLS:  overhead, complexity, support, tofu, no tofu, how to tofu, what is 
tofu?, seitan?, noise? etc, etc, etc... 
URI: URL vs. URI vs. IRI vs. URN vs... data:... userinfo... segment... 
query... reserved characters... encoding... transliteration... dns... etc, etc, etc...
MIME: to size or not to size? extendable or not? parameters or not? Postel or not?
UTF8: Unicode! Normalization! Validation! Internationalization! 
Globalization! IRI! IDN! Emoji! Punycode! Would rather use ASCII in 
practice, considering. Be the rest of the world damned.

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice - in practice there is" 
-- Yogi Berra, allegedly


Then there is the commune. Where contrarian/questioning views are frown 
upon, borderline rude, if not outright insulting.  This is meant as a safe 
space; with trigger warning, cancel culture, and all.

The sum of all these technical realities and social dynamics make it at 
time difficult to communicate constructively about gemini's truths.

Just saying.

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