smolZINE - Issue 16

eZine lover (@eZine)

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smolZINE

· 24 Sep 2024

smolZINE - Issue 16

2021-12-15

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Introduction
Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems
Emanations
Spelunking
Recreation
Community Contributions & Discussion
Thanks

Introduction

Welcome, or welcome back! Either way, please have a gander at the great capsule gems, the entertainment and community submissions.

Hidden (and not so hidden) Gems

Hundred Rabbits

Hundred Rabbits is a resilience research lab aboard a sailboat. Our focus is on exploring and documenting minimum viable solutions for living and technological tooling. Together with online contributors, we push for cultural and ecological permanence in computing.

Their capsule has some really good reading with subjects relating to living off-grid such as cooking, solar power and writing software with limited power available. They also have a site in the small corner of the big web with even more resources.

=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/hundredrabbits/ Hundred Rabbits
=> http://100r.co Hundred Rabbits on the web

Smokey's Capsule

With a section about fractals, a gemlog and a very good collection of other intreresting gemini links this capsule is a treasure. Also checkout the gemcade which features links to some different games that can be found around geminispace.

=> gemini://sdf.org/smokey/ Smokey's Capsule

Peptalk

A small oracle program that provides entertaining dynamic bits of advice and information.
> The Oracle may engage in a kind of dialog depending on how you talk to it. Often it will come up with proverbs, adages, or nonsense messages. Sometimes it prints ascii art, or suggests patterns of notes, or internet links to places that probably don't exist.

=> gemini://oberdada.pollux.casa/peptalk.gmi Peptalk

THE ASCII ART EMPORIUM

"The self-proclaimed largest collection of ASCII Art on the internet!" On gopher but mirrored to gemini as well. A very cool and huge collection of ASCII art, ASCII art creation resources and history.

=> gemini://ascii.mozz.us:7070/ THE ASCII ART EMPORIUM

Emanations

Finvenkoismo and Raŭmismo

Finvenkoismo ("final victoryism") represents the traditional programme of the Esperanto movement: to propagate the language until its official adoption as a universal lingua franca. This was seen as a way to promote internationalism and prevent war, especially in the early days of the movement.

A manifesto was circulated at the 1980 conference of Esperanto's youth organization in Rauma, Finland which challenged finvenkoismo. It asserted that since the officialization of Esperanto in the next decade was not probable (quite an understatement), the movement required alternative goals. The manifesto's authors conceived of Esperantists as a kind of linguistic diaspora with a distinct culture and proposed that they develop that culture so that they could "show the world that we can [...] say something [...] culturally original and internationally valuable." This programme became known as raŭmismo.

At first look, raŭmismo is more appealing than finvenkoismo. But no community can survive without new members, and one which becomes too inward-looking risks becoming incomprehensible to the outside world; no one will recognize your achievements if they cannot even tell what the point of the effort was in the first place. On the other hand, anyone who has been a part of any social space on the Internet is familiar with the tendency for a community to cater more and more to a "lowest common denominator" as it grows. So it's necessary to strike some balance between getting bigger and getting better.

- Jesse Onland

=> https://thefringthing.smol.pub/

Spelunking

Terminal Duck Hunt

Every few minutes a duck will appear in your terminal. You capture it by hitting ENTER. Try to catch them as fast as possible for a good average time.

The real challenge is to have a terminal window open running the game while you're doing something else entirely. Happy hunting!

Editor's Note: Those familiar with the linux/unix command line will know what to do with the code below. Those less familiar can follow these directions to try Terminal Duck Hunt.

Either copy the code from the preformatted block below into a text editor and save OR download the termduck.sh file linked below
Make it executable by doing chmod +x termduck.sh in the terminal OR in a graphical file manager right click the termduck.sh file and "make executable" (will vary depending on your file manager but usually under properties/permissions)
Execute the script with either typing ./termduck.sh in the terminal and hitting enter OR double-clicking termduck.sh .

Bonus: See if you can figure out how to change the script to adjust how frequently ducks appear.

=> termduck.sh

``` 
#!/bin/bash 

echo "Catch the duckies! When a duck appears, press ENTER as fast as possible. 
Aim for a low average time to capture. Ctrl+C to quit." 
total_time=0 
total_duckies=0 

while true; do 
	sleep $((RANDOM%120+1)) 
	duck_start=$(date +%s) 
	echo "  -._.-._.-. \_o< --QUACK!" 
	read 
	duck_time=$(($(date +%s)-duck_start)) 
	((total_duckies+=1)) 
	((total_time+=duck_time)) 
	# This is a bit of a neat trick. Bash only does integer arithmetics. 
          Therefore we first get the number of seconds in the average, and then 
          the extant number of hundredths of seconds, and print that as a faux 
          floating point number. 
	echo "Yay you caught it! Your average is now $((total_time/total_duckies)).$( 
             (100*total_time/total_duckies%100)) seconds.\n" 
done 

```

- ew0k

Recreation

Chess Puzzle

```chesspuzzle418689 
. ♕ ♖ . . . . . 
. . . . ♗ . . ♙ 
♔ ♙ ♛ . . ♙ ♙ . 
. . ♙ . . . . . 
. . ♞ . . ♜ ♟ . 
. . . ♟ ♙ . . ♟ 
. ♟ ♟ . ♟ . . . 
. . . ♚ . . . . 

Black (♟) mate in 2. 
```

=> chess-solution-16.gmi Solution

Stinky Pinky

To play Stinky Pinky you will need to read the two descriptions below. They each describe a word and the two words rhyme. Example: 1. Smelly, 2. Finger; Answer: Stinky Pinky. Get it? You can email your answer to the address found at the bottom of each smolZINE to confirm if you are correct. The first to answer wins...uhhh I haven't figured that out yet so my congrats will have to do for now.

Cold weather head covering
Stuffed pasta

Community Contributions & Discussion

Please consider taking part in making this zine better and more diverse by contributing your thoughts and finds. If you are interested in contributing a short article or capsule picks email me at: smolzine (at) cyberbot.space.

If you have any feedback or just want to discuss anything related to gemini or smolZINE hit me up at the above email or ping me on the fediverse at kelbot@retro.social and/or use the #smolZINE tag.