This Blog Now Has a Gemini Mirror
Quick announcement: this blog now lives on the small net too. If you have a Gemini client around, point it at:
gemini://gemini.rahuljuliato.com
You'll find the same posts there, rendered as plain gemtext.
Wait, Gemini?
Gemini (the protocol, in case the name now reminds you of other things) is a small internet protocol that sits somewhere between Gopher and the early web. It works like this: the client sends a single request, receives a single response, and the connection is done, always over TLS. Pages are written in a tiny markup format called gemtext, which gives you headings, links, lists, preformatted blocks, and that's about it. A link is always its own line, so pages end up reading like a well-organized text file.
The whole spec is short enough to read in an afternoon, and people have written servers and clients for it in pretty much every language you can think of. The community around it is usually called the "small net" or "smolnet": personal capsules (that's what sites are called over there), gemlogs, and a general feeling of the web before it became an application platform.
I've been lurking in Geminispace for a while and finally decided this blog should have a capsule of its own. The mirror is generated from the same Markdown sources as the web version, so both stay in sync.
Browsing it from Emacs
This site has always been totally browsable on EWW, I wanted that by design,
the web version degrades gracefully to plain HTML and reads just fine in a text
buffer. But EWW speaks HTTP only. For Gemini (and Gopher, and Finger), the
package you want is elpher. It's available
on NonGNU ELPA, so a plain M-x package-install RET elpher RET gets you there. Then:
M-x elpher-go RET gemini://gemini.rahuljuliato.com RET
It renders gemtext beautifully in a buffer, history and bookmarks included, and
it integrates gracefully with EWW: bump into an http:// link inside elpher
and it opens in EWW, follow a gemini:// link from EWW and elpher picks it up.
EWW for the big web, elpher for the small one, and you never leave Emacs.
Other clients
The official project site keeps a list of clients for every taste, from TUI ones like amfora to full GUI browsers like Lagrange:
Pick one, type in the address above, and enjoy the quiet side of the internet. See you there!