smolZINE - Issue 6

2021-07-15

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

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems

Spelunking

Emanations

Introduction

Wow, six isues already! No word search this time but it should be back in the next issue.

Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems

Alchemi.dev and Mice in Spaaaaaaceee!!!!

Emi's capsule definitely earns the classification of a gem. It's got personality, it's well written and the whole capsule is also available in Toki Pona! Then there is Mice in Spaaaaaaceee!!!! A delightfully silly and creative use of the gemini protocol to make a maze game in which you explore and scrawl things on the walls of the maze for others to read.

alchemi.dev

Mice in Spaaaaaaceee!!!!

Geddit

If you are a fan of link aggregators then have a look at Geddit. It's like a slashdot, a digg or a...reddit stripped back to the basics gemini style. Submit links and comment on links anonymously.

Geddit

Remini

There are plenty of quite good reasons to avoid reddit. However, it can be a very good source of information for niche interests and communities especially. Remini lets you avoid the tracking, the bloat, the questionable design of the website itself and browse via gemini.

Remini

Groovestomp's Gemini Capsule

Sit down with an ASCII cup of coffee and slice of sourdough while you read Groovestomp's interesting posts that don't adhere to any particular theme.

Groovestomp's Gemini Capsule

Spelunking

Antenna

There are a number of gemini feed aggregators available with CAPCOM, Spacewalk, Comitium, gmisub and probably a few others I'm not aware of. Antenna is another feed aggregator but it takes a unique approach in order to avoid unnecessary fetching of dead feeds and feeds that have not changed. I'll let ew0k, the author of Antenna, explain:

This is a feed aggregator with a twist. It doesn't have a list of feeds that it repeatedly checks. Instead it takes feed URLs as user input, and checks newly submitted feeds every few minutes.

If you want an Atom, RSS, or gemsub feed featured here then call gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/submit?<percent encoded URL to your feed> each time it's updated! This way Antenna will only fetch feeds that are active. No more useless hammering of dead feed files.

You write a post on your gemlog.

Your atom/RSS/gemsub feed updates.

You call gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/submit?<percent encoded URL to your feed>

A few minutes later Antenna fetches your feed and lists your entries.

Antenna

Emanations

Motivation and Inspiration

by nytpu

There are often long periods of time where I'll be unable to create anything new. For instance, I haven't written anything on my gemlog for several weeks, nor have I done anything really substantial in terms of coding. I used to think it was some nebulous thing I couldn't define, but now I believe it's because of two separate things: inspiration problems, and motivation problems. Sometimes both problems occur simultaneously, but for me it's usually one or the other.

The biggest problem I have most of the time is a lack of inspiration. In this stage I'm antsy for something to do but just have nothing to write about. I'm a bit in that stage right now, because I haven't had a single good idea to write for my gemlog lately despite being in the mood to write something. I had the idea for this article and now I'm writing great^W good^W for longer than a minute at a time, at least. Same thing happens with programming: I can be itching to write something cool and yet have no good ideas. Usually I will suddenly come up with an idea while sitting in bed or something and then I'll magically have something to write about. After that one piece of inspiration strikes then I'll usually have more afterwards, so it'll be a while before I get back into this stage again.

A lack of motivation is the second problem. I will often come up with great ideas, but then sit down and stare at an empty editor for half an hour—or maybe write out one or two intro sentences in a few minutes before sitting and staring—and then just go put on a podcast or something and just sit there not doing anything. This is the harder rut to get out of I think, as with inspiration you can randomly be hit with a good idea and start working on it, and yet I have no clue how to regain motivation other than “eventually—hopefully—it'll come back.” The worst part about this stage is that I'll usually have the entire thing written out in my head, but by the time I get to my computer to write it down I lose all motivation and enjoyment and just can't even force myself to transcribe it from my brain.

I'd love for this article to have a concluding aphorism (for some reason I'm obsessed in having those in things I write), but it's really just turned into me trying to figure out why I'm usually struggling to create things for one reason or another. Even writing this I don't feel like I understand why I get caught in this never-ending cycle, where I'll have a few days of productivity then slip into one of the two ruts that'll take three weeks to get back out of, before slipping right into the other one. Maybe other people will empathize with this, or maybe I'm the only one this ever happens toᵃ, but I guess it feels therapeutic to finally write about it.

[a]: it's unlikely that it's just me, at least on the “getting stuck in a rut” part, even if the “cyclical loop of issues” part is just me

Community Contributions

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.

Thanks

Thank you to fellow geminaut nytpu for their contributions to this issue of smolZINE.