Quick announcement: this blog now lives on the small net too. If you have aGemini client around, point it at:gemini://gemini.rahuljuliato.comYou'll find the same posts there, rendered as plain gemtext.Wait, Gemini?Gemini (the protocol, in case the name nowreminds you of other things) is a small internet protocol that sits somewherebetween Gopher and the early web. It works like this: the client sends a singlerequest, receives a single response, and the connection is done, always overTLS. Pages are written in a tiny markup format called gemtext, which gives youheadings, links, lists, preformatted blocks, and that's about it. A link isalways 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 writtenservers and clients for it in pretty much every language you can think of. Thecommunity around it is usually called the "small net" or "smolnet": personalcapsules (that's what sites are called over there), gemlogs, and a generalfeeling of the web before it became an application platform.I've been lurking in Geminispace for a while and finally decided this blogshould have a capsule of its own. The mirror is generated from the sameMarkdown sources as the web version, so both stay in sync.Browsing it from EmacsThis 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 textbuffer. But EWW speaks HTTP only. For Gemini (and Gopher, and Finger), thepackage you want is elpher. It's availableon 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 RETIt renders gemtext beautifully in a buffer, history and bookmarks included, andit integrates gracefully with EWW: bump into an http:// link inside elpherand 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 clientsThe official project site keeps a list of clients for every taste, from TUIones like amfora to full GUI browsers like Lagrange:geminiprotocol.net/softwarePick one, type in the address above, and enjoy the quiet side of the internet.See you there!