Stanislav OchotnickýJun 29
Neil Brown

Sometimes, I receive questions which leave both me, and the person asking, bamboozled.

> Your website loads so quickly! What CDN do you use?

There is no CDN. It is just really small and simple, mostly text.

> Sure, but is that Cloudflare, or...?

None. It is a tiny website, just a few kilobytes per page, on a tiny server, at my home, connected to the Internet via my ISP, Andrews & Arnold.

> But are you / they in the cloud?

No. The webserver is in Newbury, in my garage.

> Neil, please can you pass my questions to your technical person? I don't think you understand, your website cannot be in your home. It must be in the cloud or have a CDN.

*Neil puts on glasses and false nose and moustache*

Jun 29 at 6:43pmWeb
Show threadHugo MillsJun 29
@neil Is that moustache from AWS or Azure?
Show threadMaryMarasKittenBakeryJun 29
@darkling @neil
🤣🤣
Show threadFlorens Verschelde6d ago
@darkling @neil We regret to inform you that Google Stache will cease all operations in 3 weeks.
Show threadthey call me the botJun 29
@neil damn that *is* just text! huh!
Show threadDamonHDJun 29
@neil Same for my tiny site on my solar-powered RPi...
Show threadDerfJun 29
@DamonHD @neil Ironically a cloud could take it offline! 😉
Show threadDamonHD6d ago
@derf @neil It would have to be a 10-day cloud!
Show threadDerf6d ago
@DamonHD @neil Sounds cool. Did you blog the setup? I’ve wanted to try a solar powered pi but get scared as soon as I get into the batteries etc.
Show threadDamonHD6d ago

@derf @neil Here's some links!

https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-Raspberry-Pi-3-setup.html

https://www.earth.org.uk/battery-bank-replacement.html

https://www.earth.org.uk/energy-systems-diagrams.html

On Setting Up a Raspberry Pi 3 Off-grid Server (2018)

RPi3B upgrade for more speed and space... #frugal #offGrid

Show threadDamonHD6d ago
@derf @neil Note that the RPi draws at most about 100Wh (0.1kWh) per day, and the effective usable capacity (down to 50% DoD) of the battery is ~1kWh, thus my handwavy 10-day claim above. Actually RPi draw is lower on winter days as I trim processing to fit generation, but empirically this capacity is enough.
Show threadRadomír ŽemličkaJun 29
@neil I think we should burn the modern web down and just start over at this point. 😄
Show threadThe Penguin of EvilJun 29
@Razemix @neil Can we please also burn down javascript and html and replace them with markup ?
Show threadFish Id WardrobeJun 29
@etchedpixels @Razemix @neil I could go pher that.
Show threadZillion6d ago
@fishidwardrobe @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil 😂
Show threadTim ChaseJun 29

@etchedpixels

HTML itself isn't so bad and (when written properly/semantically) completely usable in a text-mode browser like lynx(1), It's mostly the JavaScript (and to a much lesser degree the CSS) that ruins it. Cookies (especially 3rd-party) were also a pretty bad idea.

@Razemix @neil

Show threadCassandrichJun 29
@gumnos @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil It's not even the js that ruins it. It's the model of engineering an application inside a js context in the browser that's essentially its own browser loading and presenting the publisher's content from a proprietary format they've chosen that involves all sorts of API requests to load, rather than serving a potentially interactive document, that ruins it.
Show threadRadomír ŽemličkaJun 29
@dalias @gumnos @etchedpixels @neil 100% agree. I like JS. I don't like several megabytes of JS on every goddamn page.
Show threaddatenwolfJun 29

@etchedpixels @Razemix @neil

It already exists: https://geminiprotocol.net/

Project Gemini

Show threadSpace HoboJun 29
@etchedpixels
Make every browser parse djot.
@Razemix @neil
Show threadRobert Kist 🇦🇹🇸🇬Jun 30

@etchedpixels @Razemix @neil that'd also mean we'd have to replace Mastodon with a old fashioned .php forum... but I guess I'm okay with that /s

(I think I'm gonna add an /s tag here before anyone takes this waaaay to literally. I don't want to stir any old php wounds)

Show threadRyan QuinnJun 30
@kwramm @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil Egh. Leave the API and let the client deal with it. Most clients do that anyway.
Show threadRobert Kist 🇦🇹🇸🇬Jun 30
@rmq @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil if we'd need a dedicated client, we could just go back to usenet though
Show threadlil5 🚲 🇳🇱6d ago

@kwramm @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil

The old web didn’t only use php, and nowadays even golang and rust have cgi packages.

The domain code was mostly written in the database so your cgi scripts didn’t have to be that large.

Show threadpurple 💜6d ago
@etchedpixels @Razemix @neil hey bud what do think HTML stands for? any idea?
Show threadThe Penguin of Evil6d ago

@purple @neil @Razemix I know what the M stands for, but it's like the 'D' in a lot of "democratic republic of" these days.

A clean markup language, or even a fairly light adhoc one like markdown would work rather more nicely.

Show threadzbrown6d ago
@etchedpixels @Razemix @neil replace the markup with markup?
Show threadmit_scharf6d ago
@zbrown @etchedpixels @Razemix @neil HTMD?
Show threadh3artbl33d  Jun 29

@Razemix @neil

YES!

Show threadGeorge6d ago
@Razemix @neil How about we revitalise the web3 by making sites in IPFS?
Show threadMikalai6d ago
@Razemix @neil
It is already smoking. Let's focus on making proper thing.
Show threadEdward DoreJun 29
@neil put some cotton wool on top of the server and send them a photo asking if that is cloudy enough for them 😉
Show threadlonely extrovertJun 29
@edward @neil brilliant
Show threadmartinl 🇨🇦🤝🇺🇦Jun 29
@rothko @edward @neil No, cloudy! 🤓
Show threadlonely extrovertJun 29
@martinl @edward @neil hah iswydt
Show threadB_BirdJun 30

@edward @neil

Checks the Server Log

Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ Jun 29
@neil No, see there is this old forgotten tech from the elders, you can store your data into the bush too!
Picture of the first Mario game on the NES. There are two screens. On the first we see a green bush on the ground. On the second one, there is a white cloud in the sky. Both sprites are the same, only their color palette changed.
Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ Jun 29
@neil In fact probably could also use that image for drawing a parallel to growing vegs/fruits/… in your garden.
Show threadJanneJun 29
@lanodan @neil didn't check but very likely this png image is wa larger than the original super mario game cartridge, which was 32 kilobytes..
Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ Jun 29
@janvenetor @neil Yeah possible, like how readme files can be bigger than the demo on the demoscene side of things
Show threadAsahi Lina (朝日リナ) // nullptr::live6d ago

@lanodan @neil @janvenetor The image is 10 kB ^^

It would actually be kind of sad if a clean PNG screenshot were larger than the whole game, since PNG should be pretty good at eliminating redundancy the same way the original game does!

I think this meme probably originally happened with degraded images (stuff like JPEG artifacts compressed as PNG again) which adds a bunch of hard to compress noise.

(Also, the game is technically 40KiB, 32K code + 8K graphics)

Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ 6d ago
@lina @neil @janvenetor Nah, look at it in a good image viewer, there's no jpeg artifacts (like jpeg can't do monochrome background like that).

And I'd kind of doubt PNG encoders are that clever, more likely that you could gain space by having the relevant parts of the sprite sheet in PNG + compact vector format (SVG isn't, more like flash).

Although trying to make it smaller: Passing it to pngcrush I get 7957 bytes instead of 10432.

Edited it a bit in LibreSprite as the red line joining the circles used anti-aliasing and so transparency (luckily circles don't), that encodes it to 8399 bytes.
And then passing that to pngcrush I get 6924 bytes, nearly 50% less but still pretty big.
(Interestingly making the red line+circles with the light-wood color of the ?-item box ends up at 6930 bytes)

> I just put up a megabyte high resolution photo as a login page background, on explicit customer request, and cried a bit :/ they are considering a background video :/

Urgh, I hate background videos, they always take so much time to load and sometimes it means actually important stuff loads afterwards if it's on the same CDN.
super mario bush cloud edited.out.png
Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ 6d ago
@lina @janvenetor @neil Oooh switched LibreSprite color mode to Indexed (No Dithering) which is probably somewhat lossy as otherwise pngcrush would have changed the color-mode, got 5673 bytes out, pngcrush'ed it and got a much more reasonable 4698 bytes.
super mario bush cloud edited.out.png
Show threadAsahi Lina (朝日リナ) // nullptr::live6d ago

@lanodan @neil @janvenetor Right, that's what I would expect! PNG isn't smart enough to do literal sprite/tile mapping but zlib compression is still pretty good at eliminating the duplication, and does a better job within tiles themselves which makes up for it in other ways.

What I meant is the original "this screenshot of SMB is larger than SMB" meme (it's a thing) probably used a really degraded screenshot, which is not the case here.

Show threadalcinnz6d ago
@lina @lanodan @neil @janvenetor My understanding is that ZLib is a core part of PNG compression?
Show threadAsahi Lina (朝日リナ) // nullptr::live6d ago
@alcinnz @lanodan @neil @janvenetor Yes.
Show threadAleš Roubíček6d ago
@janvenetor @lanodan @neil it's just 10KiB PNG ;)
Show threadJanne6d ago

@alesroubicek @lanodan @neil so only one third of the mario game, and five times the working RAM memory of the console.

I just put up a megabyte high resolution photo as a login page background, on explicit customer request, and cried a bit :/ they are considering a background video :/

Show threadAleš Roubíček6d ago
@janvenetor @lanodan @neil So you can load 92kB WASM implementation of NES emulator plus the game cartridge and be way more cool than the background video in a lot less download size :)
Show threadWilliam D. JonesJun 29
@lanodan @neil @dalias Fun thing I noticed recently in F-Zero (SNES)... Mute City and White Land have the same city background, just with different palettes :D. It took me _years_ to notice :'D...
Show threadDana das Grau 🧙🏻🧝‍♂️Jun 29
@lanodan @neil there was even a song about it. https://youtu.be/xM2cImmoQdY?si=ewZIExPWt0lT8o5n
Musique - In The Bush (Prelude Records 1978)

YouTube
Show threadtinydoctorJun 29
@lanodan @neil
Show threadAlexander KnochelJun 29
@lanodan @neil there's no bush, it's just someone else's garden
Show threadAndreas, DJ3EI, he/him6d ago

Cold-war spies already knew that.

Come to think of it, bush data storage using cuneiform technology probably dates back to the early bronze age.

@lanodan @neil

Show threadLux 6d ago

@lanodan @neil may I suggest a better alt than the filename ?

This would make you post accessible to everyone.

Picture of the first Mario game on the NES. There are two screens. On the first we see a green bush on the ground. On the second one, there is a white cloud in the sky. Both sprites are the same, only their color palette changed.

#alt4You

Show threadHaelwenn /элвэн/ 6d ago
@orange_lux @neil Yeah that works, thanks
Show threadLux 6d ago
@lanodan @neil thanks !
Show threadDr. Vorsprung6d ago
@lanodan
Green computing, I see.
@neil
Show threadSimon HewisonJun 29
@neil quick. Invent a pretend CDN domain that will only sign up customers with web sites that are extremely efficient, and it doesn't actually exist, it just looks as if it does, but the data is served directly from garages.
The CDN's bandwidth usage would be tiny, because it's PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
Show threadrcgj_OxPhys6d ago
@zymurgic @neil 640KB of JS should be enough for anyone.
Show threadRadomír Žemlička6d ago
@zymurgic @neil Garage Delivery Network 😁