💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 8152 captured on 2024-06-16 at 12:50:40. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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I read your several posts about html and I sympathize. I am also using a chromebook, isn't it annoying in chrome, when you start typing an url, it automatically autocomplete to the most specific, convoluted, and always the least useful version of the url that you're typing? If I type foo. it completes to foo.bar.baz/res/1231654124/index.html FUCK!!! What's the point of having an autocomplete if the only thing it's good for is to either delete most of it or keep typing the whole url I actually mean to open!?

Anyway, I use the chromebook to use the shitty parts of the internet, you know, just for piracy and to sometimes to peek into Big sites, which I don't much use anymore anyway.

On my tablet I have, on purpose, removed all google stuff (of course, I know this is somewhat pointless because they can keep profiling me if they want to), and keep the factory version of chrome, which doesn't even let me open cloudflare apps or even recaptcha. I think sites that use cloudflare are just ddosing themselves lmao.

Anyway, I have been thinking of dusting off my old little lappy and just install plan9 (I've talked about this already) and write my own gemini client and web-scraping scripts to use only the sites I like, usually textboards and sites mostly without javascript. For a while I've wanted to use a mostly-plaintext version of the web, and a very plaintext approach to computing in general, the old Unix way (not that I'm a unix fanboy but I am a sort of minimalist because I can't be bothered to be installing all sorts of programs written in all sorts of languages each of which needs it's own tooling and... you get the idea.)

~bartender, is it too early to have some bourbon? I see, bring me some regular black tea, then.

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~inquiry wrote:

> I read your several posts about html and I sympathize. I
> am also using a chromebook, isn't it annoying in chrome,
> when you start typing an url, it automatically autocomplete
> to the most specific, convoluted, and always the least
> useful version of the url that you're typing? If I type
> foo. it completes to foo.bar.baz/res/1231654124/index.html
> FUCK!!! What's the point of having an autocomplete if the
> only thing it's good for is to either delete most of it
> or keep typing the whole url I actually mean to open!?

I've never liked other peoples' ideas of "help" (as in "helping" me). I mostly want others to stay out of the way when I'm trying to create something - or, at most, create things I can leverage if I consider it a magic combination of clever and useful.

But *please* don't "help" me with an enshittified auto-complete, with car doors that lock themselves, with screens that turn themselves off, etc. When I set something up a certain way, I want it to stay that way until I effing die. PERIOD. I can't stand how help is constantly causing me extra work. I can't even back out of a <deity>damned app on the "smart" TV and come pack to other apps/content being in the same places they were when I entered the app. How am I to efficiently investigate such if nothing is where it was the last time I looked? Now I have to search all over the place all over again....

Every now and then I have, um... "species paring down fantasies", and most of the time software developers eek out ahead of even politicians in the sort order.... ;-)

> Anyway, I use the chromebook to use the shitty parts of
> the internet, you know, just for piracy and to sometimes to
> peek into Big sites, which I don't much use anymore anyway.

I use Chrome on my Chromebook for email and other necessary services. But for common browsing it's almost always lynx or elinks in the terminal. I don't have time for page loads on the order of minutes due to all the modern happy horseshit.

> On my tablet I have, on purpose, removed all google stuff
> (of course, I know this is somewhat pointless because
> they can keep profiling me if they want to), and keep the
> factory version of chrome, which doesn't even let me open
> cloudflare apps or even recaptcha. I think sites that use
> cloudflare are just ddosing themselves lmao.

I'm nearer the end of life than the beginning, which means I have less reason to care about profiling and such. I just want things to run efficiently without constantly having to re-up hardware, and I want apps that can access/acquire and output information to file so I can have *my* way with it.

Is prettification *really* a gain over being able to curl, parse "withtout tears", and utilize/render as I like?

Okay. I understand. Not everyone can do such. But I'd argue their experience is lesser for not raising their game to participate in that way. In a way, they've gotten the infinite click/scroll induced mental illnesses they deserve....

> Anyway, I have been thinking of dusting off my old little
> lappy and just install plan9 (I've talked about this
> already) and write my own gemini client and web-scraping
> scripts to use only the sites I like, usually textboards
> and sites mostly without javascript. For a while I've
> wanted to use a mostly-plaintext version of the web, and a
> very plaintext approach to computing in general, the old
> Unix way (not that I'm a unix fanboy but I am a sort of
> minimalist because I can't be bothered to be installing all
> sorts of programs written in all sorts of languages each
> of which needs it's own tooling and... you get the idea.)

I do.

I feel like I've honed a reasonably satisfying environment on Chromebook given the "Terminal" app that presents whatever linux it contains. The "Chrome" browser is there in rare cases it seems a necessity, but I'm mostly enjoying terminal life - which ("terminal life") is actually a bit of a pun, I guess. :-)

That linux seems solid ground that I can refine/adorn in ways I like with Lua scripts.

I was in a blogging mood a few days ago, hence this thread. I started going down a mostly text path due to the Gemini post I think I cited, then thought I should give html another try. There was a bit of "FOMO" to that, as though I'd perhaps not given it a serious enough try in the past to have benefited from whatever it is that keep people hacking away at/with it.

What I mostly learned is I've no longer the patience for the combination of its churn, its seeming "bandaid-land" evolution due to now newer devices find ways to break it, and finally how it creates temptation to put more time/effort into form than substance. It's no lie to say I start out feeling incrementally awakened by inspiring thoughts I wish to share, but end up a steaming pile of frustration for agonizing more over appearance than message, especially knowing in advance how few people are going to read it anyway due to my not participating in the whore-ish environments one must to get noticed online.

Oh well.... :-)

Yes, Gemini facilitates more focus on content. But I found the newness of the protocol has created a space that seemed "smol" to the point of clique-y. (Or maybe the reality is it attracts people less inclined to interact, which can come off as clique-y?)

It hit me that there's nothing wrong with the far more ubiquitous http[s], that I could maybe benefit from its wider audience (read: have a greater chance of encountering people more notionally compatible with me) without having to endure its most painful aspect for me: literally becoming hyper about text. :-)