A Few Of My Favorite Things (Gemini, Mastodon, Odysee)

[@babciaprowadzacego3956]

Hey DT! What in your opinion is the reasonable limit in applying the Unix philosophy? After all we could say that modern Internet browsers are designed for browsing web pages using the http protocol. These pages contain videos and images, so a program which could display all that in one place is needed to browse efficiently. Would it be more appealing to you if a browser was actually built of many separate programs which would display text/display images/handle javascript and render the whole output altogether? It seems like the Internet has taken a path which is hard to follow with the Unix philosophy, because it's such a mixture of everything! Many people got used to graphic interfaces and moving the cursor around, especially when it comes to browsing the web

[@mattig89ch]

The issue with mastodon, that I can see, is the ease of falling into echo chambers. Each server becoming an echo chamber very easy.

[@SenatorMailman]

I don't think that's a "Mastodon" issue rather than a "Micro-blogging" issue.

[@mattig89ch]

@@SenatorMailman thats fair i think. But if you have one giant server, you have a harder time of that. Assuming the rules are enforced equally ofc.

[@SenatorMailman]

@@mattig89ch that's not the core issue, you're pointing at an infrastructure for the solution to a social problem. MIT did a study recently on that which was a further re-affirmation of this: news.mit.edu/2021/partisanship-social-media-echo-chambers-0211

[@mattig89ch]

@@SenatorMailman I'm not sure I agree on the infrastructure position. I'm only pointing out a very easy pitfull to fall into. That single stumbling point is what gives me pause in even trying to get into mastadon. I'm 100% in favor of some sort of decentralized social media. Just not one that can so easily fall into this pitfall. If there is already a fix in place for that, then so much the better.

[@SenatorMailman]

@@mattig89ch I'm sorry, but I do not think you are thinking with the right mentality. The problem does not seem to be that the infrastructure is what causes echo chambers much rather than people themselves.

[@ukyoize]

7:10 people alway forget that it ends with "...but better than master of one"

[@SpaceTimeBeing_]

Hey can you take a look Archcraft Linux once again? Seems like they made a lot of changes since when you did the review

[@paarthjuneja3707]

+1 Came to type the same comment! Also, the small font issue that DT faced was not a bug, it was a feature ;) I recently noticed that the developer had that issue addressed in their Welcome app. He developed it on a low-res laptop, and that's the reason the fonts were small!

[@tiitulitii]

Odysee appears to be really, really slow in North Europe and the iOS app is too bad: You cannot even login on iPad due to its bad design. Is this only working in the USA?

[@sheryllamb]

Yeah the app is pretty naff at the moment and I’m waiting for a iPad version, however until then it is possible to log into the iOS version on iPad by putting the iPad into portrait mode. It’s still more annoying than the browser version but it does work :)

[@---Ferran---]

Derek since 1 June i will follow you from 'the astronaut' platform.

[@swebb9658]

Curious about all the hardware behind you myself. Maybe (definitely) not practical for my uses, but it looks neat! Wonder whatcha got there

[@RasmusFrederiksen169]

But aren't web browsers composed of multiple underlying programs that do their one thing? JS runtime, styling parser and html parser... (simplified) Also it wouldn't be that hard to add gemini support into browsers, a basic client is 100 lines of code, just a html parser is potentially 10x more.

[@vorrnth8734]

The web browser should not open images but emacs should do games ... No offense but the consistency is limited here.

[@aaoth4689]

well, it's because emacs is not a text editor, but a emacs lisp interpreter

[@vorrnth8734]

@aaoth well by that logic current browsers are java script runtime environments. So ...

[@aaoth4689]

@@vorrnth8734 fair enough :)

[@taidee]

You’ve got a serious point there about lack of consistency. I’m a strong believer in using the tools that serve me best. If I can do stuff great with one application, then one application instead of 3 I will use.

[@its4you984]

we need something like trillian, with which we could use icq and msn similiarly, for the social networks, so that we can use minds, mastodon and so on similiarly

[@balazsbb]

Your gemini capsule no longer works :(

[@StijnHommes]

The problem with Mastodon is that I have so many different interests, there is not a single instance that serves all my needs and I don't have the money or the time to spend on running my own instance. I want to be able to talk to the people I'm already talking to on Twitter without any admins or moderators deciding to cut the links between two servers that I need to exist and on top of that, it is impossible to figure out the rules when you're talking to people on a dozen different servers. There is no single ruleset to follow or a single place where I can compare all rulesets of a group of instances. (only partly) It overcomplicates things massively all for very little benefit.

[@justsomeguy8385]

I'm all for minimalism if that's your thing, but forcing it on everyone because a small percentage of users want it is ridiculous. That's why protocols like Gemini are impractical and will never gain any traction. You might think the Gemini syntax is nicer, but the truth is it's gimped just for the sake of being gimped. You can make a website with just HTML and no CSS or JS right now and it be just as fast as Gemini, but you'd still have those other tools at your disposal if you ever wanted to add functionality.

[@kjkardum]

Completely agree

[@night_h4nter]

Well, yes, except nobody's actually forcing anything on you.

[@justsomeguy8385]

@@night_h4nter Gemini does, that's the whole point

[@night_h4nter]

@@justsomeguy8385 Oh, well... Maybe. But nobody's forcing you to use gemini.

[@justsomeguy8385]

@@night_h4nter I never said they were. And what does that have to do with anything?

[@eliseuvideira1319]

if you dont like images, videos or javascript because they slow your website, you could just serve plain markup using http/https, you dont need to make a new protocol

[@michaelshort2388]

I like the idea of Odysee instead of youtube, although it's painfully slow to load compared to youtube.

[@marcello4258]

I am already in love with gemini.. I live in the terminal and most webpages are so dang bloated .. same goes for html formatted emails.. this was invented by the devil himself.. how could a 2 lines reply be over 16k? anyway.. thanks dt! pictures and all other medias or scripts are always potentials risks.. yes also in a jpeg there can be malware.. just sayin and not having inline links is also very good imo.. less distraction.. but for any reasons your webpage in html does look bloated again :P

[@kingtutlearning]

Really appreciate that you still like these alternative tech. Thanks for showing me a Gemini capsule that allows to get me a capsule for free. Might go check it out.

[@tumon001]

I like FOSS alternative also...

[@dungeon4971]

Your site looks and feels awesome, dt.

[@wasted5742]

alright, bro.

[@AriannaEuryaleMusic]

I don´t understand why you say web browsers shouldn´t display images, it is much more practical and efficient. That is primitive way of thinking. it´s like why should I have to download another browser to check your only-text web page? You contradict yourself.

[@charlibareel5141]

I totally agree with u , people want beautiful UI's these days, I'm studying UX and UI design and all the clients want efficient and attractive websites,, it's the same thing with some user's who use tiling window manager and bashing other users who use Debian or other distros because they don't use keyboard shortcuts to open or close something, I'm an Arch fan and I use tiling window managers also but I dual boot it with Windows 10 because I still need windows 10 for some applications like Adobe products I know there is alternatives on Linux but I didn't like them TBH, and odessy can't replace KZbin at all.

[@justsomeguy8385]

I just don't get the need to use Gemini at all. If you want to create a website that's super fast and has no images or inline links, you can do that in HTML without any compromise. It just seems like a sort of minimalist OCD. It's like the people who count the lines of code a program has before installing it. I actually feel bad for them not being able to just use stuff without all the obsessing over some arbitrary boundaries.

[@092_deepak_kumar3]

"You have a youtube channel and are in favour of privacy? You contradicted yourself"

[@singletona082]

I would swap to odysre if it had an Android app. I do not count the lbry app because it is, frankly. Terrible... Especially in the face of m current vision issues it is literally unuseable due to not being able to read anything in the app because of poor contrast. I honestly love Gemini. Sure it isn't going to take over everything... But they isn't the point. For most people Gemini would be enough. St an aggrigate that gives a streaming feed of 'ok these people have updated' and most people would be happy so long as they can share photos and video. And that can be done with a client that makes it simple to do. Make it simple and most people woukd love Gemini for bandwidth savings and the snappier responses. Sure I find it annoying that there is no easy way to do an in protocol community, but... To be blunt? What we need is effecrivky something that is to the old BBS what Gemini is to gopher. Similar philosophies but with hindsight inspired changes to make it more user friendly. Because not everyone wants to bother with mailing lists.

[@yhz2K]

Odysee have an android app now

[@kjkardum]

It should not be alternate protocol, at most it should be a standardized form which then people can implement on their http server using one of these: Basic html and maybe, maybe minimal css so it can look fancy in browser or The gemini syntax which is just another markup syntax (and to almost everyone would not be preferable over very basic html) which would then be rendered using cli application The second one is barely acceptable because it doesnt create another unnecesary protocol. The first one is very acceptable, it would just be a way for people to format their pages, these pages would with that formating be fast, not have any js „to worry about” and would look exactly like your gemini site except because they use a more standardized and logical syntax that non markdown languages are (why everyone hates yaml and similar ones otherwise?) and just have plain text with basic html elements like b,i,ul,a, and similar that are very easy to understand. The „downside” your page isnt _special_ because you dont use a protocol nobody else would use that can be replicated with https and html but because of its limitations not the other way around. And scripts like yours allow people that really want gemini syntax to use it then convert it to html. Why would you not accept gemini just as style of creating webpages, why would you need another protocol and special browser. Ps. If the https gemini page used gemini styling: there could still be made cli browsers for it. Simply because its https and html doesnt make it not supported by cli. If you are going to bother answeing comment (tho I will be happy if at least you see this one) Id be happy to respond (and maybe in response find somethin to at least somewhat understand using it)

[@magnusanderson6681]

You say that using only Gemini offers no features to the user. In a way, that is possible - however, it isn't necessarily true. Gemini is designed to not make tracking, cross site scripting, tracking in HTTP headers, and other forms of malware impossible - so using a different protocol means that if you're going to a new capsule, you never have to wonder about that kind of stuff. Sure you could use a very minimal https client anyway which doesn't allow that to, but I'm not sure such browsers except maybe lynx exist, and lynx is 3 MB of code, a bit different from the 100 lines of code that it apparently takes to create a minimal gemini capsule.

[@kjkardum]

@@magnusanderson6681 it still allows a ton of server side tracking, it only needs IP which you can't hide except with VPN(but that works for https) to track you, user IP's are usually changed about once every few days by ISP. And that's why I said You can still have CLI apps if needed which will simply not send any personal data in http headers, just the functional ones, that way you get all privacy for those who are privacy focussed while also convenience for 99.999% of people that would rather just use browser.

[@humm535]

@@kjkardum It’s not like just not sending any sort of personal data makes you very anonymous; rather you should send very generic, wrong data.

[@vidhukant1073]

Yahallo, DT A bit off topic but congrats on getting a new office! I will miss this one because I think your background looks really cool but I think a better workplace means better content so that's better!

[@bhofmeister]

@distrotube - is your site down? Just tried to visit it using gemini and it says the connection is refused.

[@Doctor_X]

holy crap... i havent heard about gopher for decades.... not since early 90s

[@clarkgene]

What about Diaspora?

[@wacesferpit]

To be honest I'd like a gemini style simple protocol but that supports images and videos, no, inlines or backgrounds, just media with at least an alt text for the visually impaired or when it doesn't load

[@louistournas120]

I want something that filters the flash videos or whatever it is now, filter the popups and scrolling thing popups. Some websites move the page while I'm reading them. Please disable all this dynamic crap. I prefer the web from the 1990.

[@eliseuvideira1319]

@@louistournas120 try disabling javascript on your browser

[@louistournas120]

@@eliseuvideira1319 Yes but they don't make it easy. Firefox doesn't have the option to disable it anymore or it is buried deep deep inside it's config file. Yes, I know I can install addons.

[@ukyoize]

aaaaaaaaaand it's gone

[@itsgood3019]

Love your vids 💜

[@youkee6722]

tommorow odysee will be released on android, which will make it way more easier to bring new audience seems like odysee got some bright future ahead

[@siddharthbhandari2680]

Its already available for android. I've had it for over a month now.

[@deepakshivraj4881]

@@siddharthbhandari2680 Can u give the link for android app?

[@cezarcj9357]

I love the way you presented Gemini and I think it's the best way to surf the internet, if you're into using it as a learning platform. In many ways we like to complicate things (i.e the web - today)

[@viennakrakatoaleipzignumbers]

Are there any lightweight LBRY clients? I like the protocol, but Odysee performance is terrible.

[@abhabh6896]

there is a LBRY android app.

[@wasted5742]

@@abhabh6896 You serious?! it the slowest piece of software I've ever seen.

[@notuxnobux]

I was going to make my own lightweight lbry client but then I saw that lbry search is centralized and there isn't any easy way to setup your own search. I cant recommend lbry for this reason. lbry can remove search results whenever they want (and they have done that for dmca complains). Thumbnails are also centralized. lbry (the corporation) also seeds all videos, which is why they load at all. If lbry (the corporation) dies then who knows if playing videos will even be possible. Also live streaming is 100% centralized.

[@chrisbohn3746]

You mentioned Source Hut offers free gemini hosting, which won't always be true. Source Hut will only be free during the alpha. Once Source Hut switches to the beta it will be a paid service.

[@JacobMoen]

Seems like you moved away from Gemini.

[@ricowallaby]

Off topic . . . Hey DT it would be nice if you did a video on "nushell" a shell written in Rust, luv your vids, cheers mate!

[@thecashewtrader3328]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJKUg596aNVkprs

[@abhijitsipahimalani]

That’s every similar to like Powershell but for Linux , it’s not great honestly. Yes I know ps is on Linux

[@billfarley9015]

Odysee looks like it could become a serious competitor to KZbin. Bitchute maybe too but it's a mess. Let's hope KZbin keeps up their arbitrary bans and political bans. And their increasingly annoying advertising. The more people they drive to Odysee the better it's likely to get. There's a search engine called Wiby which seems interesting and Dogpile, the meatsearch engine. (Correction: metasearch engine)

[@notuxnobux]

Unfortunately i cant see your posts on mastodon because you have defederated with the mastodon instance i use

[@092_deepak_kumar3]

Join a different instance

[@notuxnobux]

@@092_deepak_kumar3 He has defederated from all freedom and privacy respecting instances. You basically have to use the large centralized instances with worse rules and users than twitter.

[@pacioli]

sorry, what now? does he follow that fediblock garbage or something?

[@joshhardin666]

I respectfully dislike the lack of in-line links and images and the possibility of video on gemini. to be fair, I don't like that html integrated javascript and css. if I had my way, we'd all be using html 3.2 (perhaps with some additional multimedia extensions) because light inline formatting is WAY better than interpreting a bunch of style sheets and processing of code belongs on the server, not the client. - browsers would be WAY lighter while still allowing all the nice multimedia content most of us love and expect in this day and age.

[@Chr0n0s38]

I'm not sure I agree that GUI applications like web browsers should follow the Unix philosophy. The Unix philosophy works really well in the CLI due to things like pipes letting you use multiple small applications together, but you can't really pipe GUI applications, at least not in the way things are currently designed. Having to use two different windows to navigate the web just takes up more screen real estate and is overall less efficient than having a single application that can handle both protocols. Honestly I think the ideal solution would be for there to be a minimal HTTP mode that web developer can activate. That simplifies it to one protocol, but in the simplified mode you'd get the simple text pages that gopher/gemini offer (no JS/CSS/etc.).

[@weedeater64]

Says he hates twitter because 'some guy' can ban him, creates a mastadon and blocks whole federations. LMAO.

[@tristen_grant]

When does he say he blocked whole federations?

[@rojosinalma]

Talking about alternatives, what about Libera.Chat and the whole Freenode issue?

[@lasc1991]

I think it's totally positive the alternatives instead of KZbin which is full of annoying ads all the time. It's no good to have only one option for videos streaming.

[@micaelviana]

Mastodon: I don't have an opinion Odysee: seems interesting Gemini: No images, no videos, I think Gemini doesn't have a great future, you cannot use Mastodon or Odysse with Gemini

[@sumitmamoria]

i like the philosophy behind Gemini, but I wish there was something with at-least an option to display images so that I could write a blog or something similar, without all the javascript baggage.

[@deepakshivraj4881]

Yeah me too. Im not a web dev but I want gemini to display images when Im learning something. For ex: Imagine someone is posting linux output and the terminal pic of that output if I cant see it then I dont know what I am doing is right or wrong

[@092_deepak_kumar3]

Use a SSG (the easiest way). Make templates for yourself. Or WordPress (I don't use it so no idea if what would work but from what I seen it should work).

[@dustycarrier4413]

I think simplified websites should make a comeback, but I just don't know, or think, that the solution is something like Gemini. The fact is that people do like their browser to have inline photos and the like. It's just nicer. But I think the better solution is to have a browser that calls other programs to integrate into it instead. Like how VLC and other media players use FFMPEG.

[@Gadottinho]

Yeah, it would be good, like using mpv to play videos, or something like that, would be very useful

[@NeroLeMorte]

Keep everything else keep out the social aspects and forced politics. Social media should go back to being like classic forum boards.

[@deepakshivraj4881]

Im not a web dev but I want gemini to display images when Im learning something. For ex: Imagine someone is posting linux output and the terminal pic of that output if I cant see it then I dont know what I am doing is right or wrong

[@nojus963]

Well, you can just copy and paste the output, but i agree.

[@Gadottinho]

Mastodon is shit, honestly... Pleroma and misskey are better, I would say in every way...

[@tristen_grant]

In what ways?

[@AllwinJeba]

Gemini is cool, it can have its own purpose but to discredit other technologies to make it shine is not cool. Internet speed used to be a thing way back in the dialup days, today we are in 2021 most people are streaming 4k videos are we are discussing 20kb file or 2 mb file ? to summarize a Picture speaks a 1000 words :)

[@kjkardum]

Exactly

[@vorrnth8734]

While I also do not like Gemini I have to disagree with internet speed. Here in Germany the speed is still abysmal in slot of rural areas. The Lofoten have better internet than we do.

[@AllwinJeba]

@@vorrnth8734 exactly they can still use http plain text html website without images or video. But to ask the rest of the world to move back to an inferior technology is plain wrong. We live in a forward looking socities

[@zeroxhunter826]

I would definitely move to Odysee when they fully implement 'video quality' option like in youtube. And they don't have a android app :(

[@dave-zm5vx]

Android app is coming out this week.

[@zeroxhunter826]

@@dave-zm5vx Oh! that's nice. Thank you kind sir. Do you have any information on the 'video quality' option?

[@dave-zm5vx]

@@zeroxhunter826 no i dont sorry.

[@mohammadfaizkhan5310]

You have, grown old man 🤣..... We can't live without inline links.....JK

[@itdepends604]

I really wish I could use odysee, but for whatever reason, videos on the platform often stutter etc.

[@devhypercoder2522]

They don't have transcoding afaik. The devs are working on it

[@micaiahflores1592]

Imagines DT singing a few of my favorite things

[@prasenjeetbanerjee2867]

Linux users are already living in Cyberpunk world lol