21 Feb 2021 Âť Gatewaykeeping considered harmful
Gatekeeping HTTP proxies for Gemini servers is not a great idea
On my gemlog, comments about a proposal to block gemini to http proxies.
11 Feb 2021 Âť January 2021 link log
Links from my gemlog for January 2021
I run a Gemini server on which I have a simple link log. At the start of the month, Iâll dump the last monthâs links in an entry here.
27 January 2021
The best web browser is the one you have access to
23 January 2021
The forâŚof loop in JS (works with any iterable)
The two ingredient taco everyone should know how to make
17 January 2021
Tracking books read with GitHub actions and Jekyll
14 January 2021
Falsehoods programmers believe about falsehoods
The meta list of falsehoods believed by programmers
Set up a Gemini server using Oracle Cloudâs free tier
12 January 2021
Using a Raspberry Pi Zero as a travel computer
11 January 2021
SSH apps and accessible Gemini publishing
2 January 2021
19 Jan 2021 Âť If you meet a Raspberry Pi on the road
Using a Raspberry Pi as a tiny travel computer may seem to be a good idea, but is it really?
If you want a travel computer, get a Dell XPS and run Windows or Ubuntu. If you really want or need a Mac, then get a MacBook Air. But for the purposes of this blog post Iâm talking about using a Raspberry Pi as oneâs travel computer.
The original idea was from a writer on opensource.com reporting on how they were using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as their travel computer. The reasoning is that the Pi Zero W is a five dollar computer and wonât be missed if stolen or seized by hostile government as long as you keep backups.
I think that the theft/travel to regimes that seize computers solution is a Chromebook.
Note that the Raspberry Pi Zero has a 32 bit processor. Itâs going to be unacceptably slow. Get a Raspberry Pi 4 with at least 4GB of RAM.
The writer complained about having to use a tiny Bluetooth combination keyboard and mouse. You can find small, folding bluetooth keyboards and mice. If you want a mechanical keyboard then get a Planck. Itâs small and you can put it, the Pi, your mouse, and a battery in a small case.
There are small LCD and even monochrome eInk (with acceptable refresh rates) screens you could bring. But after a point, youâre in âwhy donât you just bring a laptopâ territory.
Youâre going to bring your HDMI cable and plug into the hotel room TV.
You could attach a small screen to the GPIO pins, but youâre not gonna be able to use it for any more than terminal or maybe to watch a movie. This is why you want the PI 4 so you can plug a thumb drive with your music and video. But, remember that basic audio on the Pi is not so great, so youâll want an DSP Hat with pass through pins for your display.
As a travel computer, itâs going to be awkward setting up in your airliner seat. And you will get questions from passengers and crew, and the crew may take one look at your set up and say no, and you must comply with that and not be a horrible entitled techie.
Youâll also have to explain yourself to the airport security people. And they will want to know if itâs really a computer and demand you boot it up.
Worse you may get the TSA agent who has a kid who âhas one of those raspberry piesâ and theyâll be fascinated with it, and and end up holding up the line and everybody behind you will be grumpy as heck.
We havenât even talked about software yet.
The Pi 4 is a 64-bit computer. Run a 64 bit OS. For a browser you want Firefox or Chrome. As of September 2020, Visual Studio Code has ARM64 builds for Linux. For a music player, CMUS works well enough.
Bring a separate music player and ebook reader, you donât want to mess with that pile of kit on a plane just for tunes.
If you try this, let me know how it goes. Maybe it is easier than I think it is.
If youâre going to be on the road (when weâve got enough people vaccinated) bring your MacBook Air or Dell with an external keyboard because I hate laptop keyboards. A Planck is small and has the cool flashing lights. Your seatmate will ask, âthatâs really cool but how do you type on one of those?â Put your headphones on, feign not hearing the question, and get back to working on your functional computer.
12 Jan 2021 Âť December 2020 link log
Links from my gemlog for December 2020
I run a Gemini server on which I have a simple link log. At the start of the month, Iâll dump the last monthâs links in an entry here.
1 December 2020
- Gemini âgemlogâ formats and subscriptions
- Gemini server for interactive fiction: uses YAML to specify map
- Honeycomb co-founder discussing how you merge ops and dev without harming people
- How fascism appropriates from fan cultures
- NASA Goddard SFC guide to astrophotography with a smart phone
2 December 2020
- Emma Willard, American cartographer from the 19th C.
- Migrating an existing feature flag system to Launch Darkly
- An updated Comic Sans
- Contextual advertising is a scam that only benefits adtech companies
- Tracking 404 errors with Plausible
3 December 2020
4 December 2020
- Lagrange introduces pipes for post processing non-Gemini documents
- Spotify playlists are the new Facebook newsfeed, how do we get people to stop using them
6 December 2020
8 December 2020
9 December 2020
11 December 2020
24 December 2020
- Display a calendar with three lines of CSS grid
- Detect when a smart speaker is sending data back to the cloud
If youâre interested in Gemini, start at the FAQ. My favorite client is Lagrange.
02 Jan 2021 Âť Making tweets ephemeral
Expiring tweets as a liberatory practice
Iâm now running a job that will, once it gets through the backlog, delete all of my tweets which are ten days or older, and remove likes from older tweets.
Iâm using my own fork of a node project to handle the clean-up.
Iâm not using this to be unaccountable for what I write. Itâs to make me make my non-ephemeral posts somewhere other than Twitter.