smolZINE - Issue 18

2022-01-15

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems

Emanations

Recreation

Community Contributions & Discussion

Thanks

Introduction

Who still has a bit of a holiday hangover? *raises hand sheepishly* It's alright smolZINE is here to pull you out of that funk.

Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems

Cosmos

Many of you may already be familiar with skyjake's work. The creator of the excellent gemini browser Lagrange has made another very cool contribution to geminispace in the form of a super-aggregator that makes it easy to see all the related posts in one place.

> COSMOS is a Geminispace Super-Aggregator that collects posts from various other aggregators and groups threads of discussion together into "constellations". Notably, posts on Station and anonymous comments on Geddit are also shown as part of threads.

Cosmos Announcement

Cosmos

Ainent's World

Welcome a new capsule to geminispace. Ainent's World has a young but nice gemlog and is the home of a new gemini server called smolver.

Ainent's World

Lantashi Files

I have Ainent to thank for discovering this gem of a capsule as they list it in their gemring section of their capsule. Lantashi Files has some excellent fiction to read about the the capsule's namesake, a character named Lantashi, as well as various other stories. You will also find an excellent gemlog with some posts about technology, linux, writing and more.

Lantashi Files

Keith Aprilknight's Capsule

Keith is into "programming, arts, and some other pretty niche things". If that sounds pretty neat to you as well then check out their gemlog and links page.

Keith Aprilknight's Capsule

Gemi Mission Control

This capsule has a number of resources and projects revolving around hacking on the gemini protocol and making doing interesing things with it.

Gemi Mission Control

Emanations

The Worst Journey in the World

After finishing a whole lot of fiction books since Christmas I browsed lazily through the catalogue at standardebooks.org, trying to figure out how many books they have (622). At the very last page I stumbled upon the intriguing title "The Worst Journey in the World." An account of Scott's last and fateful Antarctic expedition, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Apsley was there, though not in the Pole Party which perished.

I've read 46 of the 557 pages, and am so far still in the introduction. The book is already a gripping tale, as Apsley has briefly summarised the bakcground of Arctic and Antarctic expeditions which led up to the main story. He has gone on to detail the different parties and some of the hardships they endured while Scott himself attempted to venture with three other men towards the geographical South Pole and back.

The story is of expeditions beseech by problems and miracles alike; ships with extra provisions that fail to make it through the ice and parties of suffering men having to make improvised camp through extremely hazardous winters with horrible conditions. Lack of food, illness, frostbite, soot poisioning, and eventual victory against odds so unbelivable that shivers run down my spine as I read it.

It's a personal account backed up by passages from books written by the other explorers. Apsley is continuously humble about his own efforts and experiences, and writes with reverie about those who endured and conquered or died in the harshest environments imaginable. It's a moon's landscape, if the moon was plagued by winds so hard that men had to crawl several miles because standing up was impossible; if the astronauts landing had been unprotected from the cold and constantly running out of food.

Even though I have yet to reach the main part and purpose of this book I can highly recommend it. No fictional adventure can compare, because fiction written this way would be chastised as unrealistic.

- ew0k

Recreation

Chess Puzzle

by carriunix

Solution

Stinky Pinky

by kelbot

To play Stinky Pinky you will need to read the two descriptions below. They each describe a word and the two words rhyme. Example: 1. Smelly, 2. Finger; Answer: Stinky Pinky. Get it? You can email your answer to the address found at the bottom of each smolZINE to confirm if you are correct. The first to answer wins...uhhh I haven't figured that out yet so my congrats will have to do for now.

1. Frightening

2. Small tree fruit

Community Contributions & Discussion

Please consider taking part in making this zine better and more diverse by contributing your thoughts and finds. If you are interested in contributing a short article or capsule picks email me at: smolzine (at) cyberbot.space.

If you have any feedback or just want to discuss anything related to gemini or smolZINE hit me up at the above email or ping me on the fediverse at kelbot@retro.social and/or use the #smolZINE tag.

Thanks

Thank you to the following geminauts for their contributions to this issue of smolZINE.

carriunix

ew0k