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Gemini first impressions | |
July 29th, 2019 | |
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I finally spent the 5 minutes necessary to download one of the few | |
available Gemini clients. I went with AV-98 [0] from solderpunk. | |
It's interface is basically the same as VF-1, so it had that going | |
for it. Also, I didn't need to download a rust compiler. ;) | |
[0] AV-98 | |
While there's not a lot of content around gemini-space (more on | |
this in a second), it was still nice to have a way in to poke | |
around. I see some journal activity already taking shape, and | |
that's a great place to start. | |
I'll be honest. At first I thought of Gemini as a neat but | |
ultimately useless side project of the already-tiny gopher | |
community. The more I've seen it worked on and thought about it | |
the more I've come to consider it a "real thing" of some | |
importance. But lets come back to that idea in a minute. | |
First, lets talk about the naming of things. | |
"Gemini" is the protocol. It appears to be capitalized in all | |
occurences within solderpunk's FAQ. | |
"Gemini maps" are the temporary term for the document format of | |
a Gemini server. It's coined by solderpunk here [1] and only named | |
that "until a better name comes along." | |
[1] Gemini maps | |
"Geminiholes" - mentioned by solderpunk, but noone is using it. | |
"Gemini server/client" are the defacto name for individual tools | |
that power it. | |
"Gemini-verse / Gemini-sphere / Gemini ecosystem" - I haven't | |
noted any special term for this akin to "the web" or | |
"gopherspace". Is there something already in use? | |
"Journal" - weB LOG / goPHer LOG like structure. Is there | |
a playful term for these yet? | |
What other terms are we missing? | |
Okay, enough of that. Time for THOUGHTS OF IMPORTANCE! | |
The built-in TLS by design of Gemini is great, and combined with | |
the natural ability to run it unpriviliged and require very little | |
bandwidth I can see it serving a valuable purpose in safely | |
providing a platform for authors in situations where the web is | |
not. Take Khazikstan, for instance, who is MITMing the entire | |
country. Gopher was always a nice idea to help in these | |
situations, but the lack of reliable security on it meant major | |
problems for real applications. Gemini fixes that. What's more, | |
Gemini over tor adds in anonymity. | |
I have more thoughts on the tor thing, and around real-world | |
applications for a minimalist hyperlinkable publishing protocol | |
with built in anonymity and safety, but my internet connection is | |
dying and I have to finish this post while tethered to my phone. | |
Thank goodness for low bandwidth stuff like gopher and Gemini, | |
right? | |
In the meantime, what are your thoughts on using Gemini (one day) | |
in a setting that's not just hobby play? |