💾 Archived View for tilde.team › ~drskrzyk › bloggy › 20200702-flow.gmi captured on 2020-09-24 at 01:09:02. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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It's 4am. How I end up here? It's actually simple when I write it out
- I found something neat on the internet. It scratches at something
that has been on my grumpy-old-man radar: that internet has gotten too
commercialized, too complicated, and has gotten away from being
something that anyone with knowledge and access could easily make
something.
I am talking about gemini. I would be lying if I said it was a totally
novel concept, or that I speak to it from a place of deep
understanding at this point. Yet, I do remember when gopher was how we
got around the internet. I also remember when people flipped out that
NCSA Mosaic added support for INLINE GIFS (gasp!). I really started
living on the internet during that liminal time.
Unlike gopher (and HTML!) though, the gemini markup is pretty easy to
grasp. And there's no CSS... and JavaScript... huzza. As proof of how
workable it is, I've gathered the know how to build this site here
with a quick skim of the documention and an understanding of how markdown
works.
But while I've been making this site, I've been gleefully flying around
gemini spaces. It's fast - as it should be given that just text, and
that a page load doesn't involved a css render, plus a dozen
javascript snipets to fire off, cookies to drop, and a php to return a
value from who knows where.
In a way it reminds me of another one of my current obsessions -
traditional/folk music (specifically celtic). Folk music, specifically
the stuff that lives beyond the touch of "brand", is an avenue for
people to be sincere, and to make their art with what they have. It's
not overwrought or complicated, and it usually speaks to truth.
So I'm getting a "folk technology" feeling from the thing. There are
quite a few things I've found already that blow my mind, like a shared
sci-fi writing instance (cosmic.voyage).
But I'm running out of energy and Earl Grey tea, so I'd better get
going.
More to come!