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What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

drewdevault.com

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Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#111

Post by Santosh83 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #109
Semiapies wrote: post #107

This all seemed interesting at first, but the more I look at Gemini, the more I shrug and say, "Why not just build some text web sites without ads or trackers?" Literally millions of those exist, some dating back to the first eta of the web that every geek my age or older seems nostalgic for. (Really, they're nostalgic for an era when almost everybody else they ran into on the internet shared the background of being…

> Nobody is going to force you to use JavaScript. But they sure try. Latest iteration of coercion is called Google AMP. Images, videos and other embeds are fine, because they're clear siloes; it's easy to make sure the website degrades gracefully. JS is not, and fonts are not. These do not degrade gracefully. Neither do complex styles in CSS. Canvas does not degrade either. Gemini is a bit too simple to be really use…

Are you sure fonts don't degrade gracefully? The font stack can always fallback to serif/sans-serif right? Icon fonts are a different beast though.

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#112

Post by Semiapies »

AstralStorm wrote: post #109
Semiapies wrote: post #107

This all seemed interesting at first, but the more I look at Gemini, the more I shrug and say, "Why not just build some text web sites without ads or trackers?" Literally millions of those exist, some dating back to the first eta of the web that every geek my age or older seems nostalgic for. (Really, they're nostalgic for an era when almost everybody else they ran into on the internet shared the background of being…

> Nobody is going to force you to use JavaScript. But they sure try. Latest iteration of coercion is called Google AMP. Images, videos and other embeds are fine, because they're clear siloes; it's easy to make sure the website degrades gracefully. JS is not, and fonts are not. These do not degrade gracefully. Neither do complex styles in CSS. Canvas does not degrade either. Gemini is a bit too simple to be really use…

Google AMP is five years old. Hardly the latest anything. And it's yet another thing you simply don't have to use.

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#115

Post by e3bc54b2 »

Y_Y wrote: post #100
knowledge-clay wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kineto might be what you're looking for: https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/kineto/ Inline images is a violation of the Gemini spec: > clients MUST NOT automatically make any network connections as part of displaying links whose scheme corresponds to a network protocol (e.g. links beginning with gemini://, gopher://, https:// , ftp:// , etc.).

On a related note, it seems strange that I can't access sr.ht content over gemini. I know that it's not quite trivial to render something suitable if you're starting with DHTML (lol) but it seems like srcmpwn would be the kind of person to bother doing it.

His posted sometime in his blog that this is on agenda. Can't say when though.

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#117

Post by why_only_15 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #109
Semiapies wrote: post #107

This all seemed interesting at first, but the more I look at Gemini, the more I shrug and say, "Why not just build some text web sites without ads or trackers?" Literally millions of those exist, some dating back to the first eta of the web that every geek my age or older seems nostalgic for. (Really, they're nostalgic for an era when almost everybody else they ran into on the internet shared the background of being…

> Nobody is going to force you to use JavaScript. But they sure try. Latest iteration of coercion is called Google AMP. Images, videos and other embeds are fine, because they're clear siloes; it's easy to make sure the website degrades gracefully. JS is not, and fonts are not. These do not degrade gracefully. Neither do complex styles in CSS. Canvas does not degrade either. Gemini is a bit too simple to be really use…

I don't understand the level of interest in degrading some people have. Really I don't understand any level at all. What percent of users are running something other than an auto-updating browser?

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#118

Post by mattowen_uk »

tdeck wrote: post #71
zchrykng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Gemini being its own stand-alone thing that is different from everything is a serious hindrance for people to try it. I've read Drew's stuff for a while and even wanted to test out Gemini out of interest, but it is really annoying/frustrating to use in my experience. And that is even before you get to the fact that there is nearly nothing there and/or it is nearly impossible. to find.

I don't see any reason why someone couldn't create a web gateway and/or search engine for browsing Gemini if they were so inclined.

There are quite a few web proxies for Gemini (Here's two):

- https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/

- https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#119

Post by mattlondon »

Semiapies wrote: post #107

This all seemed interesting at first, but the more I look at Gemini, the more I shrug and say, "Why not just build some text web sites without ads or trackers?" Literally millions of those exist, some dating back to the first eta of the web that every geek my age or older seems nostalgic for. (Really, they're nostalgic for an era when almost everybody else they ran into on the internet shared the background of being…

Non-american, non-white, and non-males were using the internet back in the early 90s too! Can't vouch for prior to that but there was at least one :)

I think of it as more of a "childhood memories" type thing rather than a bias thing - just like for a child everything they see is novel and new and interesting to them because they've not encountered it before. The internet was the same for a lot of us in the early days because it was novel and new and interesting because we'd never seen or used anything like it before.

Now people take it for granted and we're totally 100% used to it (and it has been commercialised sure), so it is not novel or new or exciting for many of us any more, and we wistfully look back on "the good old days" like we might do the same when we spent hours playing with lego or on an old 8-bit micro etc as a kid.

Re: What is this Gemini thing, and why am I excited about it? (2020)

#120

Post by corobo »

zchrykng wrote: post #21
cheesetable wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTTP supports extensibility via HTTP headers and methods. Gemini to not be evolved: * HTTP is now for interactivity, complex clients, WebGL, Webassembly, ... * Gemini is for a segregated simpler web: links and text.

And Gemini being its own stand-alone thing that is different from everything is a serious hindrance for people to try it. I've read Drew's stuff for a while and even wanted to test out Gemini out of interest, but it is really annoying/frustrating to use in my experience. And that is even before you get to the fact that there is nearly nothing there and/or it is nearly impossible. to find.

> Gemini being its own stand-alone thing that is different from everything is a serious hindrance for people to try it

This is the only reason it has any attention. People who understand it like it because others are excluded

It's trivial to serve your site as .txt files if you want. This is the digital equivalent of sticking a "no girls allowed" sign on your treehouse

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