# May 22 2024

I started this Gemini to help serialize my thoughts more efficiently.  I have
never been very good at writing, in the sense that it comes easily to me
without having to revise and rephrase things over and over to get them to
sound right to me.  I want to improve that, so I am going to play a game with
this post.  As I am writing, I will stick to two conditions:

1) Once I place a period to end a sentence I will not revise it any more.
2) I will give myself a time limit.  The way I measure the time limit I will
   not say here, but it will be in the ballpark of 30 minutes.

With that, we're off.

P.S. one exception I'll make is adding headers to sections after the fact, but
I will stick to "append-only" mode for them - once they're written they'll
stay written and will not move.

## Today

### Encryption

I've been working on getting a handle on PGP via GPG.  I've never used it much
which seems like a pretty big hole in my skillset given my general interest in
privacy and computer technologies.  At some point I'll post my PGP key on this
page and will perhaps even post encrypted or signed versions of posts just to
get some exercise, but I need to figure out the exact mode to do so first.
I'd prefer to keep my sdf/pubnix identities separate from the rest, and I
would prefer to not have to have passwords to 10 different secret keys to do
so.  In particular, I don't want my public key for, say, sdf to be mixed with
any other domains I am associated with.  It is surprisingly difficult (at
least for me) to figure out if this sort of identity separation is easily
achievable with gpg.  I know for sure that it can be done, somehow, it is just
a matter of how.

### Gemini Server Software

I have perhaps mentioned in previous posts that I'm working on a C library
called libpolluxd that will provide an implementation of the server side of
the Gemini protocol.  It has turned out to be a bigger exercise than I
initially thought.  The goal is to make the code as high of quality as
possible, make the API sensible and flexible, and keep the code performant.
The last point has been the biggest hiccup, at least from a theoretical
standpoint, but is also probably the least important given the nature and
volume of traffic on the smolweb as I understand it.  Can you say "premature
optimization?"  I've considered abandoning that last point, but it keeps
scratching at the back of my mind as a good way to practice writing performant
server software.  I have some theoretical uses aside from Gemini applications
but haven't really had an opportunity to flesh them out.  I will keep going on
the performance point, at least for now.

### Anonradio

(20 minutes to go)

kashifshah has gotten a hold of a timeslot Tues 21:00, which is great.  His
show will be called SloFI, and I think the tunes will be right up my alley.
It'll be cool to hear what he's got lined up.

tob is trying to get an SBR Proxy War going.  SBR = synth battle royale.  A
'proxy war' as I understand it involves pre-recording your set and uploading
it to the broadcaster instead of doing it live.  Apparently there were some
problems in the past with SBR being abused by low-effort participants that
killed the fun of it.  I wasn't around for this history, but it's what I've
heard.  Either way, I hope it takes off, it sounds like it would be a fun
addition to anonradio.

### Some exercises

Technology and people these days provide constant distractions.  The feelings
I've had focusing on this writing for the past 20 or so minutes has reminded
me of some of the things that gef has talked about on his shows regarding
meditation and self awareness.  In addition to writing I have never heavily
participated in any sort of meditation, but I am beginning to think that
setting aside the time to do some meditating may be worthwhile.  In some
senses what I am doing right now is a form of meditation, at least as I
understand it, because it has required a sort of control of the mind to stay
productively focused for this amount of time given the general distracting
environment I place myself in.  Perhaps gef was correct in that the best way
to write (and I imagine otherwise produce things) is to reduce consumption.

### This is the end

I haven't quite taken all of the time I allotted myself, but I consider this
exercise a success.  I've actually got some thoughts on e-paper.  Now the only
thing left to do is to scp it to sdf.  If anyone is actually reading this,
thanks for sticking around for the adventure.  I hope at least some of it made
sense :)

ingrix