Hi James, great video. I'm relieved that Gemini is still alive and kicking; it's been very quiet the last 7 months, and the mailing list suggests things are still in a state of flux, with Sean and Solderpunk seemingly stepping back. Hope things stabilise and we see this thing standardised.
I'm really liking Gemini because it reminds me of the old Ceefax service from the BBC and other teletext services. I remember using those long into the age of the internet because they were just really simple ways to get at the most relevant information without any of the fluff.
I just found out about Gemini a week or so ago, and it's pretty great! The only part that I've had trouble with is the TLS certs. Mainly how to (or whether I need to) transfer them between devices. That might be more of a problem with Lagrange and Deedum? Or just a I-need-to-learn-more thing. It's only been a week or two, I should be more patient haha
I've been thinking about how Gemini could find a home in Batocera Linux, a retro-gaming distribution that is meant to be navigated with a game controller. Lagrange's developer seems keen to add gamepad/joystick support. It would be the best use case for the protocol I have come across so far.
Not yet, at least to my knowledge. I wrote a gemlog on this topic a few months back thinking on some possibilities for that (gemini://tilde.team/~tomasino/journal/20211103-making-gemini-easy.gmi). Right now the easiest way to create a gemini capsule is to use one of the hosted platforms that provide an easy web interface like flounder.online or midnight.pub/ or on a multi-user host with free signups, like tilde communities. You can find more options on geminiquickst.art/
VERY Belatedly: I doubt we'd ever see Gemini on an NES because there just aren't really any peripherals that could be exploited to get an NES online. Technically there are hookup points on the board for peripherals, but the NES is frankly a not great platform. There *ARE* however other platforms of the generation that also use the same processor the NES used that I'm actually poking around the retro community to see if they can make any magic happen. Granted if anything does it'd be a kind of cheat by having the peripheral that handles networking do the TLS encryption/decryption with the main thing acting as renderer and handling instructions, but honestly? Gemini limiting itself to One Request, one Response? That massively helps retro hardware otu since it limits what it has to do at any one moment.
I did see somewhere online that someone got wikipedia to display on a gameboy using a custom cart that included a wifi chip, so it may well be possible but it won't be a software-only solution.
I can only speak for myself on why I find Gemini attractive but between text reflow that's baked in, dead simple page generation (no needing to remember how to make a link in gopher just => link.it,) and a lot of little things.... There are of course technical reasons like the protocol having a baked in request response system so the server and client know if requests get through instead of blindly flinging data into the void, but I'm speaking from the perspective of an end user. Won't bash gopher, it's just not something I found enjoyable when I tried it out. One thing that I genuinely loved about your video is pointing out that there are maybe two rendering engines for web browsers now and it's just too big for anyone to break in unless you have gobs of money to pay gobs of programmers. With Gemini you have... Options. Don't like how lagrange does things? Amphora. Don't like amphora? Bombadillo. Don't like that? Write your own! Though Ido wish Lagrange had an android port. Sure Ariane is nice enough, but I've gravitated to lagrange for desktop use. Also feeling really guilty over not putting out any new content, but I'm kinda at a spot where 'the heck do I have that's worth putting out?'
Your thoughts are of value. Post things like this to Gemini, not just about Gemini, but about other stuff you use. You've given thought here and that's something others will enjoy reading. What are your top Android apps for productivity? What about for fun? Go from there
@@jamestomasino As a note: I actually like Gempub from the standpoint of easily transmitting an entire archive in a readable format. Arguments could be made 'well why not just have clients able to read ip files, or open the damned zip file and read that?' Well, it's not hurting anybody so why not? Could gain traction as a bundled format for things like calibre, and e-reader software so the gempub creator doesn't have to futz about with restructuring directories or the like.' Now, as much as i would love a 'traditional' php like forum to be doable in gemini? To make one of those would bolt on too many things. It would make gemini into something it isn't. Granted I'd love a modernization of the BBS using gemini's philosophy. So that you have that baked in TLS (no it isn't complete security but it's... better than sending plain text,) some error coding, client/server response, and that basic functionality. however that is beyond the scope of Gemini. A lot of gemini's discussion though, I feel under-educated to understand and follow along without a three ring binder of notes on hand.
