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gemini:// space

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Re: gemini:// space

#171

Post by betwixthewires »

EamonnMR wrote: post #126

I keep getting pulled toward the small internet by various forces, but I never seem to find the center of it, the place where the good content starts. I want to find the good phlogs and the secret message boards. I've connected to modern day BBSs and could never get used to the keyboard layout. What am I missing?

There's no center to it. Each obscure protocol or space is a separate small internet, only connected by the people that participate.

Gemini has quite a bit of good content, if you like to read without feeling the need to weigh in or interact, when the mood strikes you.

Re: gemini:// space

#172

Post by cabalamat »

danShumway wrote: post #111
cabalamat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adding accessibility features isn’t making a standard "bloated", it is simply doing the right thing. Yes, and the other million people are going to say their proposed features are "simply doing the right thing". It may be that marking up what language a short except of text is in is a good feature to have (and would be fairly easy to achieve if Gemini used the Markdown format as you could simply us a tag). A counte…

> so a text file format ought not to unless it is aiming at being something more than what text does. Gemini does aim at being more than text[0]: > The "first class" application of Gemini is human consumption of predominantly written material - to facilitate something like gopherspace, or like "reasonable webspace" (e.g. something which is comfortably usable in Lynx or Dillo). But, just like HTTP can be, and is, used…

> Lots of documents and books contain passages in other languages, it's reasonably common

Yes they do, and since Gemini allows Unicode, it can cope with this. Note that books typically don't mark what language foreign words/phrases are in.

> But Gemini, at least in theory, is designed to be parseable.

If I was designing Gemini I'd design the source format as something very like Markdown and have it compile to a format which would be a subset of HTML. This would allow constructs.

Re: gemini:// space

#173

Post by betwixthewires »

FrozenVoid wrote: post #115

Gemini appeals to the 'console-only' aesthetic, I won't bet on it replacing the everyday web, but it can be used to construct an alternative 'Internet for the terminal'-type experience: lightweight news, libraries, etc accessed from shell scripts(which is plain text vs web scripts that strip html cruft to get real content). The only thing i dislike is the poor choice of the name, which clashes with millions of sites…

It goes beyond the console asthetic, it becomes about functionality for the user. I think it could very much replace the majority of the web over time, or something like it could. I'm not just being naive about something I have a pet fascination for here either.

Imagine the internet in the year 2121. Do you really think that people looking to read an article about such and such that happened today are going to tolerate your abysmal theme design, constant requests to sign up to your newsletter interrupting their absorption of knowledge (or propaganda), nested dropdowns, account requirements, just to read your take on current events? Will the excuse "how else are we supposed to get paid" be an industry standard in 100 years, when the internet is as integral to the human experience as spoken language?

A big reason we tolerate all the cruft is because the world has just recently left the phase where the internet is just a novelty. The internet was experienced inside of 1 application, the web browser, and that is very clunky. We are already leaving that behind with people demanding a separate app for every type of interaction they have online. The day will come where, when someone just wants to read something, they'll expect just that, and there will be millions, possibly billions, of people willing to deliver that for them. If your goal is to get your message out there (or your ideas into someone else's head), you're going to face a lot of competition, and your audience might not have the time and patience to deal with any more than they asked for.

Re: gemini:// space

#174

Post by tenebrisalietum »

betwixthewires wrote: post #169
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Gemini post on HN has an inevitable post like this. Gemini developers want to keep things inside of a box that can't be bulldozed by corporate interests. I love it. I just wish Gemini browsers would optionally inline media and video links, but I'd be surprised if that doesn't happen before too long.

Please no inline links whatsoever ever in Gemini.

What I meant I guess was displaying images and video inline on a graphical browser instead of on a new page or browser instance. Looks like LaGrange already does that at least for images.

Yeah, I really like the links being on distinct lines. I don't know why, but it's refreshing. I think it also encourages a document writer to actually provide details about the link and definitely gives the user agent an opportunity to display the destination and be clear about what is happening.

Re: gemini:// space

#175

Post by Karunamon »

betwixthewires wrote: post #170
gerikson wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate not being able to integrate links in running text - it's been a feature of the web since the start, having to awkwardly add "see this link:" followed by a newline everywhere would drive me mad.

I felt that way at first, but when I started to understand the reasoning behind it (explained in the Gemini space FAQ and counties meta articles, which is a lot of Gemini documents) it makes perfect sense. When you're reading a document, it is to enjoy information. Whether that's learning, recreational reading of fiction, or whatever, a subtle part of the experience is the structure of the document. It gives you cont…

I've found that the lack of good footnote handling in Gemini is a real pain in the rear.

Consider footnotes in a book, you see the superscript 1 or the star or the cross and you know you glance towards the bottom of the page for that content, then jump back to where you were. On books, in dense text, you can put your finger on your current location, look to the bottom of the page, read that content, then pick up where you left off.

On a screen it's harder, since going to "the bottom" involves n pages of text to be scrolled by. If I hit [End], I don't know how many [Pgup] to hit to go back.

I can hit [Pgdn] a few times and count mentally (which sucks, and takes me out of the flow), but due to the way text is flowed, reversing with an equal number of [Pgup]s will usually wind up taking me somewhere above or below where I started.

This disorientation is not desirable.

Inline footnotes on most rich text sites usually have a link directly to the footnote, and then a back link which jumps to where the note was referenced. This is the best of both worlds. I'm on board with most of the Gemini limitations, but I see this being a no-brainer addition to the protocol if not a sane client.

Re: gemini:// space

#177

Post by gerikson »

Karunamon wrote: post #175
betwixthewires wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that way at first, but when I started to understand the reasoning behind it (explained in the Gemini space FAQ and counties meta articles, which is a lot of Gemini documents) it makes perfect sense. When you're reading a document, it is to enjoy information. Whether that's learning, recreational reading of fiction, or whatever, a subtle part of the experience is the structure of the document. It gives you cont…

I've found that the lack of good footnote handling in Gemini is a real pain in the rear. Consider footnotes in a book, you see the superscript 1 or the star or the cross and you know you glance towards the bottom of the page for that content, then jump back to where you were. On books, in dense text, you can put your finger on your current location, look to the bottom of the page, read that content, then pick up wher…

I drafted a long comment but you put it better.
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