Live data from Hacker News

gemini:// space

spwhitton.name

11–20 of 177 posts

Re: gemini:// space

#11

Gemini is a cool piece of simple tech. I had a genuine pleasure reading the spec: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/specification.html I've entertained an idea to build a set of tools for contemporary development (version control, code review, CI, etc) which would only speak Gemini. That would be both the UI and the API. Blockers came fast: * no way to upload anything that exceeds 1024 bytes, * escaping is subtly…

From https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html : > Of course, it is possible to serve Markdown over Gemini. The inclusion of a text/markdown Media type in the response header will allow more advanced clients to support it. So not as the default markup language, but available.

What I meant is having markdown pieces within code regions in a text/gemini doc.

Imagine a code review tool that tries to show a diff as text/gemini.

Re: gemini:// space

#12
I really like the idea of having a more bare-bones text-only web, but I can't get onboard with Gemini until it offers the same support for screenreaders as HTML. (For example, an equivalent of span lang=XX tags is missing, so if you quote a foreign-language word(s) in your text, you can't let screenreaders know what language to read it in). The visually impaired should not be second-class citizens in any new internet community.

Re: gemini:// space

#13

I really like the idea of having a more bare-bones text-only web, but I can't get onboard with Gemini until it offers the same support for screenreaders as HTML. (For example, an equivalent of span lang=XX tags is missing, so if you quote a foreign-language word(s) in your text, you can't let screenreaders know what language to read it in). The visually impaired should not be second-class citizens in any new internet…

I would argue that that complexity should be handled by the screenreader through heuristics rather than the .gemini format itself, based on the desire to keep basic clients very simple (~100 loc). But that’s a really good point!

Re: gemini:// space

#14
post #13

I really like the idea of having a more bare-bones text-only web, but I can't get onboard with Gemini until it offers the same support for screenreaders as HTML. (For example, an equivalent of span lang=XX tags is missing, so if you quote a foreign-language word(s) in your text, you can't let screenreaders know what language to read it in). The visually impaired should not be second-class citizens in any new internet…

I would argue that that complexity should be handled by the screenreader through heuristics rather than the .gemini format itself, based on the desire to keep basic clients very simple (~100 loc). But that’s a really good point!

Heuristics might work for longer text where the sample is large enough to uniquely identify the language, but for single words there is not enough information. If I write "coin" in my text, for example, am I using an English word, French word, or Irish word? The pronunciation varies drastically, and screenreaders have to know what to say.

Re: gemini:// space

#15
Just a meta-comment, but is this blog meant to be stream-of-consciousness? I found the prose very hard to read, and the phrasing to be quite jarring. Possibly too many commas or separate phrases?

Re: gemini:// space

#16

Just a meta-comment, but is this blog meant to be stream-of-consciousness? I found the prose very hard to read, and the phrasing to be quite jarring. Possibly too many commas or separate phrases?

> I now have a games console at home for the first time in some years, which I bought in response to the ongoing pandemic, and one thing that I have noticed is that using it feels like being offline in a way that playing games on a regular computer never would.

I agree with you. The structure of his thoughts could use some improvement.

Re: gemini:// space

#17
Really nice project, seems like some keys to open up the internet again would be:

- Decoupling of data (articles, videos, ...) from platforms.

- Decoupling authorship claims from platforms

- Decoupling online identities from platforms.

- Decoupling of user networks from platforms.

- Distributed archiving, some years ago if you had an article/manifesto or whatever on Napster or any other P2P system it was trivial to find it again anytime you wanted, now dead blogs, videos disappearing from Youtube, or broken links to Twitter are the norm. You have to archive stuff yourself or hope somebody did it.

- Related to decoupling user networks from platforms, it would be nice to decouple comment sections from platforms and from the articles themselves too. People could comment the same article in different curated comment sections with different moderation policies using their own decoupled online identity.

- Create decentralized networked chains of trust (could help revitalize some scientific communities too).

Seems like very interesting things going on with projects like gemini, Urbit, IPFS, still on the early stages and only usable by power-users, but hopefully they will keep growing.

Re: gemini:// space

#18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that that complexity should be handled by the screenreader through heuristics rather than the .gemini format itself, based on the desire to keep basic clients very simple (~100 loc). But that’s a really good point!

Heuristics might work for longer text where the sample is large enough to uniquely identify the language, but for single words there is not enough information. If I write "coin" in my text, for example, am I using an English word, French word, or Irish word? The pronunciation varies drastically, and screenreaders have to know what to say.

Humans need to know what to read, though, too, right?

Obviously humans are a bit better at contextual clues, but.. the information has to be there for a human user to make the distinction.

Re: gemini:// space

#19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heuristics might work for longer text where the sample is large enough to uniquely identify the language, but for single words there is not enough information. If I write "coin" in my text, for example, am I using an English word, French word, or Irish word? The pronunciation varies drastically, and screenreaders have to know what to say.

Humans need to know what to read, though, too, right? Obviously humans are a bit better at contextual clues, but.. the information has to be there for a human user to make the distinction.

Sure. A quoted foreign word might (but not always) appear in some context where any reader will know how to read it. However, for the time being, computers won't, and a screenreader won't manage without adequate semantic tagging.

Re: gemini:// space

#20

Just a meta-comment, but is this blog meant to be stream-of-consciousness? I found the prose very hard to read, and the phrasing to be quite jarring. Possibly too many commas or separate phrases?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN