Second day of the Old Computer Challenge 2024
=============================================
This is the second day of the 2014 edition of the Old Computer
Challenge.
Mastodon
--------
Mastodon mode in Emacs won't work when Emacs is running on the
terminal, and I had to look for an alternative.
Before using mastodon mode in Emacs, I have made use of `toot' quite
some time.
`Toot' is an TUI client for the Mastodon protocol, written in Python.
The installation went easy, there is now a FreeBSD package for it. If
I remember correctly, previously I had to install it using pip.
I have now read fifty or so of the latest messages, favorited some
toots and replied to some toots.
Either Mastodon has become more media-centric, or I have forgotten this
(or am in denial :). Whatever the case, when one accesses Mastodon in
a text-only environment, it is unmistakable.
It seems that like 75% of all toots come with an image or a video
embedded. Accessing Mastodon from a text-only environment is less
attractive.
Maybe this is a good medicine against spending too much time
on Mastodon :)
Display height
--------------
Curious to the dimensions, I activated the display of line numbers
in one of the Eamcs buffers. It turned out the display, with the
current font, displays 45 lines.
So, that's what I have to live in to, during this challenge :)
Building an OPML file
---------------------
Prahou has done a lot of work on the occ.deadnet.se website. Not only
did he create the marvelous art work, but he also added the list on
the front page with the websites, gopher burrows and gemini capsules
of the participants.
When I brought up the subject of also creating an OPML file,
containing the RSS-feeds of those websites, it turned out he had
already started collecting a list of all the feeds.
He was so kind to share this list, from which I created a GNU recutils
database. For each feed, I added the URL of the website and its title.
After this, I completed the database with the missing feeds, built an
OPML file from it, and put that on the occ-server.
Jabber
------
Yesterday evening I fired up jabber mode again, and was happy
to see a buddy online, which I immediately stalked :)
Chatting in Jabber works fine (why wouldn't it).
Mouse
-----
Yesterday I wrote that I have the mouse enable in /etc/rc.conf.
I turns out, the design of the laptop is such, that one can easily
accidentally paste with the palms.
I have had some embarrassing experiences with it today, and decided to
disable the mouse.
When needed, it can always be enabled again. Copy and past works fine
in tmux and in Emacs, so most of the time I don't need a mouse.
Email
-----
I have compiled a message in Gnus, but it didn't send.
I have not yet started debugging this, perhaps it has to do with the
settings of my central STMP server.
Performance
-----------
During the use, Emacs will sometimes be less responsive. This
happens when it e,g., autosaves some buffer content.
On other laptops, Emacs functions the same, but there those moments
are to short to be noticeable.
Booting the laptop is a bit slower than I'm used to.
Aside from these points, the performance is fine. This is to be
expected, as there are no resource hogs like Firefox running on it.
Things I have used in the past two days:
* tmux (to get the option to copy and paste)
* links (to open some websites and see the source of some web pages)
* lynx (to quickly view some gopher pages)
* GNU recutils, ed and vi: while working on the OCC OPML file
* ssh to access the occ server, some of my jails, and SDF.org
* toot, to access the emacs.ch Mastodon server
and Emacs, for editing, IRC, Jabber, RSS feeds reading, and so on.
Final words
-----------
At the closing of the second day, I am still not disappointed in the
laptop or working with just the console, and no X.
The main problem is not being able to see images, like screenshots
and art work. Sometimes links to those elements are shared in the
IRC channel, and I would like to open those.
