Gemini Articles of Interest
A Gemini client* is needed for the following links.
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Linux BTRFS continuous snapshots
As shown in my previous article about the NILFS file system, continuous snapshots are great and practical as they can save you losing data accidentally between two backups jobs.
Today, I'll demonstrate how to do something quite similar using BTRFS and regular snapshots.
In the configuration, I'll show the code for NixOS using the tool `btrbk` to handle snapshots retention correctly.
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More dabbling in CGI: Site Statistics
I decided to quickly write up a script for processing the access logs for my server and output some useful data. Simple python script, clone it, config it and drop it in cgi-bin.
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Re: Gemini is not decentralized
Over at the Midnight Pub, ~ostov complains [1] that Gemini is not decentralized, pointing out that capsules can be "banned" just the same as on the surface web.
On the face of it, this is a pretty ridiculous statement. There's nothing intrinsically centralized about gemini or http (or gopher - hello, we're still here!) as protocols.
However, I do agree that geminaunts tend to fall more often than not into the "centralization is bad" camp. So, like the author of this post, I've found it somewhat perplexing that people seem to be at the same time so quick to throw themselves behind explicitly centralized social hubs such as Midnight Pub, Station, etc. -
Making my Blog Mobile-Friendly
In 2015 I remade my blog to consist of static HTML and CSS files. I made the body of the page a single column of fixed width. (I chose the width to get the same line lengths as books and articles.) The margins to the left and right were set to fill out all the extra space, resuling in a centered column. My hope was that this would automatically make my blog look good in mobile browsers. Instead I found that the page seemed to be rendered with very wide margins, and that the page was then zoomed-out so that the whole width was visible, which in turn resulted in the text being too small to read.
* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.