111–120 of 169 posts
Gemini is one of those things I see pop up and tell myself I should look into it more and then it fades into the back of my mind. Anyone have any hints on getting more use out of it or ways to make it more present in my day to day.
Get browser, read some capsules!
[1]https://kristall.random-projects.net/ [2] gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/
Regardless of the technical shortcomings of the protocol, a grassroots group of individuals has managed to create a viable new network protocol. The user base is small, but it is not tiny and it is not nonexistent and it has been going for years now. You can download a Gemini client and find regularly updated blogs on a Gemini search engine. You can have discussions on Gemini applications like Antenna or Station. It…
I think Gemini is great, and read from Nyxt browser. Don't know if I've seen any references to privacy benefits, so curious.
Regardless of the technical shortcomings of the protocol, a grassroots group of individuals has managed to create a viable new network protocol. The user base is small, but it is not tiny and it is not nonexistent and it has been going for years now. You can download a Gemini client and find regularly updated blogs on a Gemini search engine. You can have discussions on Gemini applications like Antenna or Station. It…
What did it do for privacy? I think Gemini is great, and read from Nyxt browser. Don't know if I've seen any references to privacy benefits, so curious.
The thing about Gemini is that it reads like someone who thinks Gopher sounds neat but has only ever dealt with HTTP and HTML/Markdown... so they took HTTP GET, chopped a digit off the response codes, and called it a new protocol, then tacked on an intentionally-broken Markdown implementation (more broken than the original Markdown, I mean). Interesting note: the first line of a Gemini response is a MIME type. It's u…
Then it's not Gemini. Interestingly this is why it was decided for Gemini not to have a protocol version. To prevent extension.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's this federated with anything?
No, it's as simple as it sounds. I should think about that at some point.
Edit: Checked it out and this is definitely a cool idea. Is there any way to change the unicode emoji next to your name?
The thing about Gemini is that it reads like someone who thinks Gopher sounds neat but has only ever dealt with HTTP and HTML/Markdown... so they took HTTP GET, chopped a digit off the response codes, and called it a new protocol, then tacked on an intentionally-broken Markdown implementation (more broken than the original Markdown, I mean). Interesting note: the first line of a Gemini response is a MIME type. It's u…
> The more people play with Gemini, the more they'll want to "extend" it... and the closer they'll bring it to HTTP Then it's not Gemini. Interestingly this is why it was decided for Gemini not to have a protocol version. To prevent extension.
2022-ish: Titan created (based on existed of https://web.archive.org/web/20220126075826/https://transjovi...).
The spec for Titan (https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/transjovian.org/titan/page/The...?) appears to be an implementation of PUT for Gemini, but since Gemini doesn't have verbs (GET is implied) it does it by creating a whole new "protocol" titan://
So you're right, they didn't extend the Gemini protocol, they created an entirely new protocol which many clients, servers, and libraries now implement because the functionality was desirable.
Wonder what they'll call the protocol that implements DELETE... maybe Deorbit?
Edit: oh there's also Spartan (2022), another protocol which is Gemini but if there are bytes after the request line, it's an implicit PUT: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/michael-lazar/spartan/refs...
As an early adopter and developer of a couple of service oriented capsules, as time went by my interest faded completely. I'm a strong advocate of live and let live, so this is not a critique or discouragement post, but rather my own perspective. Like many have mentioned already, I personally would have preferred pure markdown and no gemtext at all. Similarly, and although I understand the reasoning behind making enc…
The thing I liked about Gemini and its self-imposed limitations is that it was very much impossible to create a misbehaving Gemini document. There is no way a Gemini browser will phone home, run malicious code on my side, grab/upload my browser history or send sensor or other data because I forgot to turn off various options, etc. To me the entire thing was much more trustworthy. You can of course recreate this exper…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no 'proposal' here -- this is a review of an active ecosystem that has already had its ideas implemented and iterated on for the past six years. Having a different ecosystem is the exact intention of this project. If that's not for you, you're certainly not required to participate, but the world is a vast continuum of variation, and is full of niches and clines that are intentionally distant from the global m…
> a vast continuum of variation, and is full of niches and clines that are intentionally distant from the global mean. But they are all sharing the same world . It's all the same ecosystem. My objection is not because I am against people trying to do something different. My objection is to this delusional idea that this work needs to be isolated from everyone else. It's sterile at best and elitist at worst.
It is as elitest and isolationist as RSS - another limited system.
The format is limited, to preserve the user agent's ability to act... As a user's agent, rather than the host. That's it.
Your objection seems to be... People walking a path you wouldn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The more people play with Gemini, the more they'll want to "extend" it... and the closer they'll bring it to HTTP Then it's not Gemini. Interestingly this is why it was decided for Gemini not to have a protocol version. To prevent extension.
2019: Gemini introduced 2022-ish: Titan created (based on existed of https://web.archive.org/web/20220126075826/https://transjovi... ). The spec for Titan ( https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/transjovian.org/titan/page/The... ?) appears to be an implementation of PUT for Gemini, but since Gemini doesn't have verbs (GET is implied) it does it by creating a whole new "protocol" titan:// So you're right, they didn't extend t…
Additionally, your description of Spartan is simply incorrect. There are several significant differences between it and Gemini - the most obvious being that Spartan doesn’t use TLS at all!
I think Gemini is a step in the right direction for some things. I usually mention my "tersenet" ideas when I see Gemini. Now that we have the Gemini LLM and Claude etc. there is less excuse for me to not finish any real software demo for it. Maybe one these days I will make an actual client for part of it. I think there is room for things like media and applications even on an idealized web. But they should not nece…
I also think so, although I have criticisms of it too (e.g. mandatory TLS; I think optional (except files that require authentication for access) would be better), but nevertheless it can be used.
> I usually mention my "tersenet" ideas when I see Gemini
I have seen TerseNet, and I mentioned it in my "small web" document. I think it is good that media and programs are not loaded automatically, although there are other problems with TerseNet in my opinion, such as text being limited to 5K.
> I think there is room for things like media and applications even on an idealized web. But they should not necessarily be combined along with information browsing and search into one thing.
I agree, it is helpful, and they should be separated.
I also made up a protocol and file format specification, in order to deal with the criticisms of the other ones. In addition to avoiding many things, there is also adding things which would be useful, beyond what WWW and others might do. So, it is not strictly a subset of the functions of WWW, even though many things are deliberately avoided.