diff --git a/index.gmi b/index.gmi
index c881505..b6d2c53 100644
--- a/index.gmi
+++ b/index.gmi
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ Gemini is a young protocol with great potential. People are flocking to the proj
 
 => gemini://tilde.black/users/fox/journal/20190831-starting-out.gmi 2019-08-31 Starting out
 => gemini://tilde.black/users/fox/journal/20200513-ramping-up.gmi 2020-05-13 Ramping up
+=> gemini://tilde.black/users/fox/journal/20200527-mercury-hells-no.gmi 2020-05-27 Re: Solderpunk - Mercury? Hells no!
 
 ## My other projects
 
diff --git a/journal/20200527-mercury-hells-no.gmi b/journal/20200527-mercury-hells-no.gmi
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19666f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/journal/20200527-mercury-hells-no.gmi
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+Solderpunk recently started second guessing some gemini things over on cornedbeef:
+
+=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space:1965/~solderpunk/cornedbeef/the-mercury-protocol.gmi cornedbeef - the mercury protocol
+
+In short, I hate it and hope you don't do it.
+
+Why?
+
+* confusion toward the great momentum of gemini
+* we already have gopher and mercury doesn't do enough "new" to be worth it
+* formatting lines is important (see 10,000 mailing list posts for reasons why)
+* preformatting lines don't actually allow for extensibility if you just define the alt text thing in the spec
+* TLS is annoying and a barrier to server & client writing, but it's also one of the things that has attracted a lot of positive attention
+* "lang" is going to be essential
+
+Honestly, the only thing in the Mercury spec that I think is a good idea is just biting the bullet and saying UTF-8 is manditory for text/gemini. I don't see a downside there. So, uh... do that! And we shall never speak of this Mercury thing ever again, okay?