Sorry Gemini 2021-05-03

When you look at a web page, what you see is usually a bunch of HTML and CSS and Javascript mashed together to create a sort of environment for you to experience. In a lot of cases much of the actual code used to generate that environment doesn't even come from the domain name you are visiting. Inside this web page environment will likely also be some images and possibly even video, and in many cases that content may be coming from a domain other than the one you are visiting. For example, snork.ca doesn't have enough bandwidth to serve up videos, so when you see videos on my site, they probably come from archive.org. Your browser very likely doesn't tell you it is getting the video content from archive.org, it just silently goes and gets it and displays it to you. When you visit sites other than snork.ca you may be downloading and running content and code from more than a dozen sites without knowing it.

One thing that really sucks about this design is that over time it has been increasingly abused by marketing and advertizing wankers to monetize your browsing and perhaps track you. If you do not care that this is going on then I can't imagine how you even found my esoteric collection of rants in the first place... go back to Facebork right now and forget you ever saw this. If you do care that marketing and advertizing goofs are abusing you, then you might be interested in hearing about Gemini. The idea is that Gemini is similar to web browsing except that it is intended to specifically avoid some of the garbage that has crept in to modern browsers and web pages. The designers of Gemini like to refer to it as being somewhere between what modern web site interaction is today and what what gopher has been for a long time. Sounds like it should be right up my alley eh?

Oh yeah?

Well, almost. You see that picture of Merrygold? That would arguably be described as an inline image, and Gemini can't do that. My understanding is that it could link to a photo of Merrygold, but not display it with the surrounding text. And speaking of links... Gemini can't do inline links like this one either. In Gemini, links exist on their own line and including pictures with your text is not possible. Those two deal-breakers will probably keep me away from gemini unfortunately. I'd really like to find whatever comes between the current shittiness that is web pages and Gemini. That would be bitchin'.