Live data from Hacker News

gemini:// space

spwhitton.name

71–80 of 177 posts

Re: gemini:// space

#71
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini does support a `lang` parameter to its mime types, which can be used to indicate a document is in a mixture of languages. That could be enough of a hint for a client to tune its pronunciation. I do agree though that this is a far bigger problem space than HTML's `lang` attribute is capable of solving. It's not like knowing the language of the text always tells you the unique pronunciation of a string of charac…

Fair point, for example is it read or read? Maybe a better option would be a phonics tag or attribute followed by phonemes that no matter the language of the following word(s) would be able to be spoken by a reader?

That would surely place too great a burden on authors to do it and to get it right.

Reading, as a discipline, is hard at the edges, and lots of humans don’t get it right either!

Re: gemini:// space

#72
post #44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My vision is good and I also don't know if the word you quoted was supposed to be in English, French of Irish? The point being, a screen reader has no more or less information than a human reader. It might be better then to invest effort in improving language inference heuristics, which would help in all applications (pdf documents, text files) than to try to build in support in each underlying protocol.

But the screen reader needs to say the word, and the pronounciation of "coin" isn't the same in every language. I don't know about Irish, but it's radically different between French and English, the only sound in common is the "k". This means that if the screenreader picks the wrong language, then the user has to guess the spelling from the way it's pronounced to understand the text. Though I'll concede that right no…

Seems like the simplest fix is to allow the user to ask the screen reader how a word is spelled.

Re: gemini:// space

#73

I don't understand why the gemini people don't just use http 1.0 (+ host) with html (or plaintext/markdown/whatever even, without js/css). Seems like a case of NIH to me. Don't get me wrong, I am not against "reinventing the wheel" for a toy project or to learn but gemini seems to have become more popular than just that. If someone is really tired of the modern web I would suggest to them a distributed alternative ra…

> I don't understand why the gemini people don't just use http 1.0 Think of it as cars and bicycles: why do people use bikes if cars already exist? - because it's healthier - because given a proper infrastructure it's more pleasant (and probably safer) Of course one can ride one's bike on most car oriented infrastructure, but it's nice to know you're not going to be hit by a truck if you make a turn somewhere.

Sorry but I don't see how this analogy fits the situation in any way.

Re: gemini:// space

#74
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gemini isn't trying to reinvent the web > It doesn't try to replace the web This is what they claim, yes. > From this point of view it makes total sense to reuse TCP, TLS and DNS, because they're not trying to replace them I do not understand this point. Wanting to replace the web is irrelevant to using better and simpler protocols. > That would require adding headers Treat any server that contains extra headers as…

> This is what they claim, yes. No it is not. See the FAQ again at https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html : > 1.4 Do you really think you can replace the web? > Not for a minute! Nor does anybody involved with Gemini want to destroy Gopherspace. Gemini is not intended to replace either Gopher or the web, but to co-exist peacefully alongside them as one more option which people can freely choose to use if it s…

By "This is what they claim, yes." I meant that they claim that they are not trying to replace the web, not that they claim that they try to replace it.

Re: gemini:// space

#76
I respect the sentiment of starting from scratch to get rid of technical debt. The protocol is not very different than HTTP/0.9, with hindsight applied.

That being said, the protocol interaction model is essentially the same as HTTP.

There is another road where browsers get support for the text/gemini content-type but still talk HTTP only. It doesn't fix everything but it has the advantage of allowing normal users to participate in it.

Re: gemini:// space

#77
post #69

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…

If you like the idea of having bare-bones text-only web then you will see how everybody and their granny have a feature that they won't get onboard until it is implemented. Then at that point we will have HTML again.

I'm more optimistic, I think it might be able to find its niche. I agree it would be hard to outright replace the web, but there's room for more than one way of delivering text. man pages are still around, for instance.

Re: gemini:// space

#78

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…

> 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 problem with this you'll get a million other people saying "Gemini is a really good simple format that the internet needs, but you need to just add feature X". But if Gemini added all those features, it would become as bloated as HTML/CSS/JS!

Re: gemini:// space

#79

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…

> 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 problem with this you'll get a million other people saying "Gemini is a really good simple format that the internet needs, but you need t…

Gemini is to a large degree a reaction to the commercialization of the web, all that huge load of Javascript etc. arose through the ad economy. Accessibility isn't that, accessibility is something that people trying to do business would prefer to avoid. But letting the disabled be first-class citizens in an online community alongside the rest of the population is a matter of justice. Adding accessibility features isn’t making a standard "bloated", it is simply doing the right thing.

Re: gemini:// space

#80
post #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 f…

> gemini, Urbit, IPFS

There could be a distributed blogging/wiki platform where the articles are all written in Gemini markup (or maybe Markdown) and hosted over IPFS.

Post reply on HN