馃懡 lykso

I enjoyed this post titled "Gemini and Desire:"

gemini://alex.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-10-31-gemini-desire.gmi

My thoughts regarding Gemini and sustainable/old tech are similar, though I have not fully formulated/verbalized them yet. Learning to control one's desires, realizing that much of them are illusory and bound to be more a source of harm than help, seems like an important skill to develop.

3 years ago 路 馃憤 mntn, skyjake, benrob0329, negepezzannyitfiam

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6 Replies

馃懡 lykso

vast distances. Maybe this was unique to me, I don't know. The spirit of minimalism animating this thin stack of standards we're calling "Gemini" is indeed quite different from the techno-maximalist spirit that animates the Web. Whether that's comfortable or not depends, I suppose, on what one fundamentally desires. 馃樅

But yeah... there's always something a bit melancholy about losing that youthful exuberance. Happens even to non-biological systems, it seems. Time hurries on. 2/2 路 3 years ago

馃懡 lykso

@negepezzannyitfiam I think it's possible to reclaim both the simplicity and the spirit of experimentation. It takes very few bits to create a vast expanse of possible configurations. Gemini does have plenty of unexplored potential even in its present form. I mean, the things you're saying about the web, people said about BBSes and Gopher as well. Maybe the real problem is that it gets harder and harder to summon the necessary dopamine to feel excited about anything at all as we get older. 馃槀

As a kid on the web in the 90's, it wasn't the specific form the web took that was exciting to me. It was what it represented. A chance to express myself directly across 1/ 路 3 years ago

馃懡 negepezzannyitfiam

@skyjake I agree but I can't help but feel deep sadness when I think about what the web was in the 90's. It was in a state of insane youthful creative chaos. There was something better, newer and more exciting every week: <blink>, <marquee>, <font>, animated gifs, under construction banners, CSS. This was half of its magic, forever lost. In order to reclaim the other half, the quirky, weird and wonderful content, we need to exercise restraint with the technology to an almost ascetic degree. No wonder the word choice in this blog post and many others in geminispace borders on religious. 路 3 years ago

馃懡 skyjake

I think this post was spot on.

Gemini is all about accepting that less can be more, and the same applies to many things in life. It's difficult to be happy about anything if the focus is on wanting something better, newer, and more exciting. 路 3 years ago

馃懡 lykso

E.g., busted flatscreen TVs and monitors can make great light panels. Treadmills likewise tend to contain a lot of integrated circuits, LEDs, discrete components and (most importantly) at least one high torque DC motor that can be used to build a drill press, lathe, (incredibly overpowered) pottery wheel, etc. 路 3 years ago

馃懡 lykso

I also find this page aesthetically pleasing:

gemini://alex.flounder.online/things.gmi

Looking at this inventory of free things Alex has obtained creates a sense of abundance for me, as I've also come to find that a lot of good and useful stuff gets discarded (*especially* electronics with valuable, salvageable components), while also giving me the sense of looking through a character's backpack at "randomly found" items in some RPG. 路 3 years ago

gemini://alex.flounder.online/things.gmi