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A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… PDF. https://lab6.com/0
He makes a few very valid points that gemini suffers from as well, if you consider them bad. Otherwise they'd be features right? However the biggest complaint I have with his assessment is the things gemini struggles with, too. Discovery and searchability. At least you can link on gemini, but on a pdf a link is a potentially dead thing, more dead than on gemini or on the web. Apart from that he makes a few very good and valid points. I like it (apart from having another pdf on my phone now that I manually need to delete 🤦♀️) ~m On Mon, 19 Jul 2021, 13:08 Stephane Bortzmeyer 'stephane at sources.org', <gemproj+stephane=sources.org@suckless.anonaddy.com> wrote: > This email was sent to gemproj@suckless.anonaddy.com from > stephane@sources.org and has been forwarded by AnonAddy. > To deactivate this alias copy and paste the url below into your web > browser. > > > https://app.anonaddy.com/deactivate/84c97fb7-dd72-4688-b653-188215324c2a? signature=e4cd6fabb5144657ed72ac3c56cde019ecccfe366af0b08968536f9080c11eba > > ----- > > > A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, > well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the > conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… > PDF. > > https://lab6.com/0 > > >
PDF's are almost always inaccessible messes of words slashed together or separated. I mean what the cat is wrong with EPUB? Devin Prater r.d.t.prater@gmail.com gemini://tilde.pink/~devinprater/ On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 6:08 AM Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> wrote: > A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, > well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the > conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… > PDF. > > https://lab6.com/0 >
Stephane Bortzmeyer writes:
> But the conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he
> suggests… PDF.
I can see a lot of where he's coming from. In my opinion, if you need
embedded images, mathematics, or complex tables or layout in a document,
serving PDF/A (over Gemini) is an extremely valid and cromulent choice.
I still think there are significant problems with PDF, even if you
restrict it to PDF/A. Reflowing PDFs is *possible* now, but still kind
of works like arse – try, for example, reading the D&D5E Player's
Handbook on a 6" eInk device, or a phone.
For a similar subset of problems, ePub is a great option, and far, far
better on small screens, but since ePubs are, at base, zipped folders of
HTML files, you still have a subset of the "why not a subset of HTML"
problem. I'm not 100% sure how restrictive the ePub specification is,
though, so it might not be a real problem at all.
--
Jason McBrayer | “Strange is the night where black stars rise,
jmcbray@carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies,
| but stranger still is lost Carcosa.”
| ― Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow
I love Tex derived infrastructure. One could pass around content and allow it to be compiled at the user end rather satisfactorily. Looking forward to reading the link later => https://lab6.com/0 ==================== Jonathan McHugh indieterminacy@libre.brussels July 19, 2021 1:08 PM, "Stephane Bortzmeyer" <stephane@sources.org> wrote: > A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, > well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the > conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… > PDF. > > https://lab6.com/0
A great read, a real shot in the arm. I will have to check out this recommended pdf tool => http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ ==================== Jonathan McHugh indieterminacy@libre.brussels July 19, 2021 1:08 PM, "Stephane Bortzmeyer" <stephane@sources.org> wrote: > A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, > well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the > conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… > PDF. > > https://lab6.com/0
On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 07:53:14 -0500, Devin Prater wrote: > PDF's are almost always inaccessible messes of words slashed together or > separated. > > On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 6:08 AM Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: > >> instead of Gemini, he suggests… >> PDF. >> >> https://lab6.com/0 >From their homepage or RSS-feed: /2 is available as gemtext and thus more accessible than pdftotext'ing the PDF/A. The resource is a bit larger than what the text would need as the gemtext is a special section within the PDF (of same content). Kudos! => gemini://lab6.com/2
I tried to open this document in a text editor and had my freedoms violated. Thank you for sharing panda-roux On July 19, 2021 4:05:48 AM PDT, Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> wrote: >A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, >well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the >conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… >PDF. > >https://lab6.com/0
I didn't go over the first tow pages... This guy really missed the point why PDF files exist and what they are for... PDF exist to print file, that's why the static layout, all the rest are additions created by non-design choices, commercial pressures etc., like the web, like everything else.
Hence why I emailed the included response address asking that question. Why not gempub as off represents too many issues not least of which being 'thisvos an extension proposal that there is no gurentee anyone would follow leading right back to the html problem.' I would ask more technically and or better worded members of this list offer their own rebuttle. Jul 19, 2021 12:19:16 PM The Gnuserland <gnuserland@mailbox.org>: > I didn't go over the first tow pages... > > This guy really missed the point why PDF files exist and what they are for... > > PDF exist to print file, that's why the static layout, all the rest are additions created by non-design choices, commercial pressures etc., like the web, like everything else. > > * PDFs are extremely corruptible, at least the ones with the printing specifications; > > * do more why should do less; > > * are extremely dependable by the reader implementations; > > * aren't responsive hence are hard to read if not paginated for your screen device (reflowing is for accessibility issues and mostly depends by the reader not by the format) (https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html) > > * malformed PDF cannot be opened or cannot be printed; > > Gempub looks a great compromise to have a portable offline format! ;) > > > TGL > > > On 7/19/21 12:32 PM, gemini-request@lists.orbitalfox.eu wrote: >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:05:48 +0200 >> From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> >> To: gemini@lists.orbitalfox.eu >> Subject: Deurbanising the Web >> Message-ID: <20210719110548.GA29039@sources.org> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 >> >> A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, >> well-written and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the >> conclusion will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests? >> PDF. >> >> https://lab6.com/0
On 2021-07-19 10:05AM, Jason McBrayer wrote:
> For a similar subset of problems, ePub is a great option, and far, far
> better on small screens, but since ePubs are, at base, zipped folders
> of HTML files, you still have a subset of the "why not a subset of
> HTML" problem. I'm not 100% sure how restrictive the ePub
> specification is, though, so it might not be a real problem at all.
I think a well-formatted EPUB is the best format for rich-text document
storage and transfer. Bad EPUBs are just as bad as bad PDFs, but good
EPUBs (I point to Standard Ebooks[1] as the best EPUBs ever produced)
are easily renderable and customizable. EPUBs have lots of semantic
markup to allow for very rich rendering (but can also be mostly ignored
for simple readers), and as long as you use strict XHTML then the
software doesn't have to have tag soup parsing or anything like that.
Plus, unlike the Web, ebooks' CSS is more of a "suggestion" that is
usually overridden by the ereader, and mostly exist as sensible defaults
when the ereader had no specific preference configured.
~nytpu
[1]: https://standardebooks.org/
And their toolchain and templates are CC0 so you can make your own
Ebooks with their quality!
--
Alex // nytpu
alex@nytpu.com
gpg --locate-external-key alex@nytpu.com
Key fingerprint: 43A5 890C EE85 EA1F 8C88 9492 ECCD C07B 337B 8F5B
https://useplaintext.email/
Also, EPUb files are almost always accessible. Of course there are comic books and such that are images, but EPUB files are great! One can even read them in Emacs with Nov.el (Nov-mode). Devin Prater r.d.t.prater@gmail.com gemini://tilde.pink/~devinprater/ On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 12:38 PM Alex // nytpu <alex@nytpu.com> wrote: > On 2021-07-19 10:05AM, Jason McBrayer wrote: > > For a similar subset of problems, ePub is a great option, and far, far > > better on small screens, but since ePubs are, at base, zipped folders > > of HTML files, you still have a subset of the "why not a subset of > > HTML" problem. I'm not 100% sure how restrictive the ePub > > specification is, though, so it might not be a real problem at all. > I think a well-formatted EPUB is the best format for rich-text document > storage and transfer. Bad EPUBs are just as bad as bad PDFs, but good > EPUBs (I point to Standard Ebooks[1] as the best EPUBs ever produced) > are easily renderable and customizable. EPUBs have lots of semantic > markup to allow for very rich rendering (but can also be mostly ignored > for simple readers), and as long as you use strict XHTML then the > software doesn't have to have tag soup parsing or anything like that. > Plus, unlike the Web, ebooks' CSS is more of a "suggestion" that is > usually overridden by the ereader, and mostly exist as sensible defaults > when the ereader had no specific preference configured. > > ~nytpu > > [1]: https://standardebooks.org/ > And their toolchain and templates are CC0 so you can make your own > Ebooks with their quality! > > -- > Alex // nytpu > alex@nytpu.com > gpg --locate-external-key alex@nytpu.com > Key fingerprint: 43A5 890C EE85 EA1F 8C88 9492 ECCD C07B 337B 8F5B > https://useplaintext.email/ >
There's also the terminal epub reader epr => https://github.com/wustho/epr On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 14:04:06 -0500, Devin Prater wrote: > Also, EPUb files are almost always accessible. Of course there are comic > books and such that are images, but EPUB files are great! One can even > read them in Emacs with Nov.el (Nov-mode).
I do think that the ability to embed pure text at the top of PDF files is very interesting, as done in the creator's Issues #1 and #2. The necessity to download the entire PDF document is a bit of a drag if one is just viewing the plaintext/gemtext version, but I appreciate their point that having one document to download and store is much better than having two or more zipped together. I'm excited to see them try to implant more and more filetypes into a "plain" PDF file. On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 12:14 PM <text@sdfeu.org> wrote: > > There's also the terminal epub reader epr > => https://github.com/wustho/epr > > On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 14:04:06 -0500, Devin Prater wrote: > > Also, EPUb files are almost always accessible. Of course there are comic > > books and such that are images, but EPUB files are great! One can even > > read them in Emacs with Nov.el (Nov-mode). >
On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 09:51:53 -0700
panda-roux <contact@panda-roux.dev> wrote:
> I tried to open this document in a text editor and had my freedoms
> violated.
I'm so sorry to here that, please show me on this ASCII art diagram
where the blob touched you.
--
_______________________________________
/ Against his wishes, a math teacher's \
| classroom was remodeled. Ever since, |
| he's been talking about the good old |
| dais. His students planted a small |
| orchard in his honor; the trees all |
\ have square roots. /
---------------------------------------
\
\
/\ /\
//\\_//\\ ____
\_ _/ / /
/ * * \ /^^^]
\_\O/_/ [ ]
/ \_ [ /
\ \_ / /
[ [ / \/ _/
_[ [ \ /_/
On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 10:05:36 -0400
Jason McBrayer <jmcbray@carcosa.net> wrote:
> For a similar subset of problems, ePub is a great option, and far, far
> better on small screens, but since ePubs are, at base, zipped folders
> of HTML files, you still have a subset of the "why not a subset of
> HTML" problem. I'm not 100% sure how restrictive the ePub
> specification is, though, so it might not be a real problem at all
epubs are zip files of XHTML, not HTML. Big difference. I actually
don't think there's much problem with XHTML1.1, and it's actually
possible to implement, as well as being validatable with generic xml
tooling so you know if something is wrong or not, there's no half way
in between state. it works or it doesn't.
--
_______________________________________
/ Against his wishes, a math teacher's \
| classroom was remodeled. Ever since, |
| he's been talking about the good old |
| dais. His students planted a small |
| orchard in his honor; the trees all |
\ have square roots. /
---------------------------------------
\
\
/\ /\
//\\_//\\ ____
\_ _/ / /
/ * * \ /^^^]
\_\O/_/ [ ]
/ \_ [ /
\ \_ / /
[ [ / \/ _/
_[ [ \ /_/
On Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:05:48 +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: > A well-deserved rant against the current state of the Web, well-written > and with many fine points we will all agree with. But the conclusion > will surprise many of you: instead of Gemini, he suggests… > PDF. > > https://lab6.com/0 Trendy Talk rambles about it in yesterday's cast: https://share.tube/videos/watch/4ee714c0-6be0-4eef-bb5a-f5472094e556 => gemini://gem.chriswere.uk/trendytalk/ RSS: https://share.tube/feeds/videos.xml?videoChannelId=656 Would love to see chapters in their recordings, cheers.
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