Tower District News
A neighborhood newspaper for Fresno's Tower District, published over the Reticulum mesh network. Readable over LoRa and packet radio.
What it is
A full newspaper served as a NomadNet node on Reticulum. You read it in NomadNet, MeshChat or any other Micron browser, over TCP, LoRa, packet radio, or anything else Reticulum can carry.
It has hyper-local Tower news, Fresno and world news, a markets board with charts, tech and space with NASA and Webb pictures, ham radio news, weather for any Fresno neighborhood, Caltrans live cams, and an arcade with Hunt the Wumpus, Blackjack, Hangman, Towerdle and heads-up Texas Hold’em.
Built for slow links
Reticulum links can be slower than 1 kbps, so the paper is pre-rendered every 30 minutes while the server has internet access:
- The front page is about 8 KB.
- Photos are tiny WebP files (about 10 KB) that load only on fast enough links, with colored text-art versions for clients that can’t show images.
- If the uplink drops, the last edition stays up on the mesh.
Also on the mesh: Root Access
A sister project mirrors the Root Access hackerspace
website onto Reticulum, with their approval. It follows the real site on its
own, and nobody edits it by hand. Anyone with Docker can host a copy with one
./install.sh, and nothing needs to be opened on the router.
From the notebook
Build log
No entries yet. They'll show up here as the project moves along.