21–30 of 82 posts
I don’t really see any way to get around corporations on the internet, unless I’m missing something.
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> I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I don't think that's working at all. Their website is so unapproachable bad, that it fails in selling me reasons why I should even care about this or read further. Letting something standing on its own only really works well if you have a small amount to deliver. Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a des…
> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. Is this a bad thing? Books are a "desert of letters", with little to break the text up outside of chapters, sections, and paragraphs. If you broaden the scope a bit, you can added illustrations and photos. People have been reading books for generations. While many books do break that mould, many books continue to follow that tradition.
You're forgetting pages. The fact pages physically limit the visual bounds of all the letters helps people read them. The words from page 6 aren't going to come into view while you're reading page 4 but scrolled down a little too far.
I am under the impression that an unstated design objective of gemini was preventing eternal september by trading it off for staying an eternal echo chamber tobe inhabited only by people smart enough to write their own client and server software.
Huh? There's plenty of ready clients and servers. It's limited to those that are primarily interested in text (and the occasional image). Which probably prevents it from ever going mainstream (and thus an eternal september). What it's generally sacrificing is interactivity. That seems like it's shooting more for the early internet. Which, yeah, has quite a bit of overlap with people who can code, but not as much as y…
Sure, but being smart enough to implement one usually also means being smart enough to use something of the shelf. But few of the available clients are very accessible to a non-programming audience. It is basically a "natural" filter mechanism.
> What it's generally sacrificing is interactivity. That seems like it's shooting more for the early internet.
There is a very rudimentary form mechanism, resembling a bit HTTP 0.9, where you could only do get requests with query parameters, which might allow to simulate a bit of interactivity, but I with the protocol being set in stone that would forever remain a hacky simulation (if you only have a hammer...)
People keep trying to make Gemini happen. I will keep repeating that in its quest for simplicity Gemini threw the baby out of with the water. Basic styling and inline images are invaluable.
Everything Gemini does, you can do it in HTTP. In fact, a subset of HTTP+HTML would be even simpler than Gemini (mostly because of a lack of TLS) and still compatible with all the modern web stack. Simplicity isn't the main goal of Gemini. Exclusiveness is.
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I agree that basic styling and in-line images add something, but I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I've taken to writing my markdown and other documetns simiarly. Cory Doctorow does something similar. https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/20/em-oh-you-ess-ee/#sexytim... We don't need Gemini. We can get the feeling of the Smol Web by just choosing an effecti…
Entirely this. I feel that if there were some way of promoting a Javascript-free web, everything the world needs is already there in all modern browsers. I suspect that between HTML5, and indeed XHTML, and CSS and all the many modern image formats and so on, everything important that almost any site needs could be done using these tools and no JS at all. And the result could also be interpreted and rendered successfu…
I like the gist and spirit of this, of course, but isn’t this basically impossible in today’s day and age? For instance, if I want to host a small web server running in my closet to serve cat memes to a small number of users, I still am beholden to my ISP who 1) must allow me to host a web server in its TOS and 2) provide me a static address. I don’t really see any way to get around corporations on the internet, unle…
I don't have a static IP, but it only changes on the order of weeks or months. So a dynamic DNS configuration with a 5 minute TTL works fine for me.
I have no idea if web hosting is in my ISP's TOS, and I also don't care.
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> I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I don't think that's working at all. Their website is so unapproachable bad, that it fails in selling me reasons why I should even care about this or read further. Letting something standing on its own only really works well if you have a small amount to deliver. Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a des…
> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. Is this a bad thing? Books are a "desert of letters", with little to break the text up outside of chapters, sections, and paragraphs. If you broaden the scope a bit, you can added illustrations and photos. People have been reading books for generations. While many books do break that mould, many books continue to follow that tradition.
Depends on the purpose. For a Webpage, which is a collection of short texts, to sell you on something, it is bad.
> Books are a "desert of letters"
Depends on the book. A phone book would be a desert of letters, I don't think many would enjoy reading them. Something like a novel, would be a forest of chapters, full of trees with letters arranged in a meaningful way, leading you on a road toward a goal. But a webpage is not a novel, it has an informative purpose, and is full of little small texts of equal value.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I like how Gemini strips so much faff out that the prose and links must stand strongly on their own. I don't think that's working at all. Their website is so unapproachable bad, that it fails in selling me reasons why I should even care about this or read further. Letting something standing on its own only really works well if you have a small amount to deliver. Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a des…
> Any slightly lengthy text will just bury you in a desert of letters. So what do you make of books, then? I don't think people "keep trying to make Gemini happen" in the sense that you mean. They're not aiming to replace the web. They've got a cozy little community that likes the 'smol', text-based web. And while 90% of people might think they're crazy, there are others out there who would like it too if only they k…
This webpage is not a book. It has a different purpose. With a book, I know what it contains, where it's leading to, usually they have an abstract for this.
I have nothing against Gemini and the people in general, I'm just saying the limitation is not working well for every type of text. Pictures and a bit more structure would be useful for the boring informative texts.
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Huh? There's plenty of ready clients and servers. It's limited to those that are primarily interested in text (and the occasional image). Which probably prevents it from ever going mainstream (and thus an eternal september). What it's generally sacrificing is interactivity. That seems like it's shooting more for the early internet. Which, yeah, has quite a bit of overlap with people who can code, but not as much as y…
> There's plenty of ready clients and servers. Sure, but being smart enough to implement one usually also means being smart enough to use something of the shelf. But few of the available clients are very accessible to a non-programming audience. It is basically a "natural" filter mechanism. > What it's generally sacrificing is interactivity. That seems like it's shooting more for the early internet. There is a very r…
? There’s a very nice one that runs fine on my iPad, Elaho.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's plenty of ready clients and servers. Sure, but being smart enough to implement one usually also means being smart enough to use something of the shelf. But few of the available clients are very accessible to a non-programming audience. It is basically a "natural" filter mechanism. > What it's generally sacrificing is interactivity. That seems like it's shooting more for the early internet. There is a very r…
> But few of the available clients are very accessible to a non-programming audience. It is basically a "natural" filter mechanism. ? There’s a very nice one that runs fine on my iPad, Elaho.