Too much for a commonplace book entry, too little for a proper gemlog

Piled up a bunch of stuff in my head today, which I'll try to get out. Like the title says, it's too much for the commonplace book, but too little for a proper gemlog. I wanted to do some replies, but I think instead I'll just do some linking and let people know that their writing is appreciated.

Digital minimalism and mindfulness

Been following [Alyssa Rosenzweig's gemlog] and how she's finding Gemini more gentle than the web, and it really resonates with me, and clearly with some other people. [FemmeAndroid's reply] was also meaningful to me.

Alyssa Rosenzweig's gemlog

FemmeAndroid's reply

Friends, the web has not been kind to me over the last week or so. Probably it hasn't been very kind to you, either. I was starting to write an article about some alternative social platforms on the big web (Lemmy and Discourse), and what I found good and bad about them. Then (the morning after election night) the private Discourse instance I was on melted down, with the liberal majority denouncing the leftist minority in a series of bad faith attacks, and friends, my feelings were hurt. I junked the article.

My job requires a lot of time in a web browser, so I've been trying to minimize my non-work browser use. I try to spend as much of my non-work computing time in a full-screen Cool-Retro-Term terminal, because I find it extremely soothing. That's where I'm writing this (green phosphor, 25 lines on the screen, Terminus font rendered with scanlines). I can do pretty much anything that isn't DAYJOB in this setup. I do cheat, and let lynx, for example, call a graphical program to view images. But at least I never see inline images.

I've been really wanting a real terminal again. There was a time in the late '90s and early 2000s where they were free, and I had an off-brand terminal then; my Linux box had an actual serial port to wire it to. Now, vintage terminals go for as much as decent complete computers – I keep shopping for them on fleaBay. I have to admit that I really don't have any place to put one in my small house, anyway. It can't be closed up and tucked away like a laptop running C-R-T.

The other strategy I've been using is to never read long articles in the browser. I use a browser plugin to save them to Wallabag and then close the tab. Later I'll use the Wallabag plugin in KOReader on my Kobo reader to fetch epubs generated from everything tagged "ToRead". A lot of them I don't end up reading, to be honest. But if I do, it's better to read it on the e-ink screen than on the "bad screen" I do work on.

New group of people in the gemiverse

Zach writes:

> //e-worm.club is now on gemini

> It’s mostly an aggressively unpolished look into the minds of hot twenty-somethings living rent free in the strangely vibrant hollow shell that is 2020 San Francisco.

//e-worm.club

It's a neat bunch of new content. I read the most recent entry by [juhi], and it was quite a thing to see young people with joie de vivre still exist.

juhi

Out of time

I had a lot more little things to add, but I've forgotten them now, and today is already the next day... perhaps eventually.