______  _     _  ______   _______  _______  _  _  _
        / _____)(_)   (_)(_____ \ (_______)(_______)(_)(_)(_)
       ( (____   _     _  _____) ) _____    _______  _  _  _
        \____ \ | |   | ||  __  / |  ___)  |  ___  || || || |
        _____) )| |___| || |  \ \ | |      | |   | || || || |
       (______/  \_____/ |_|   |_||_|      |_|   |_| \_____/

Surfaw - Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Against the World wide web

(pronounced like `surfer' but with a really, really deep south draaawl)

 Surfaw provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of
 popular WWW search engines and other artifacts of power. It reclaims
 google, altavista, dejanews, amazon.com, research index, slashdot
 and many others from the false-prophet, pox-infested heathen lands of
 html-forms, placing these wonders where they belong, deep in unix
 heartland, as god loving extensions to the shell.

 Surfaw abstracts the browser away from input. Doing so lets it gets
 on with what it's good at. Browsing. Interpretation of linguistic
 forms is handed back to the shell, which is what it, and human
 beings are good at. Combined with incremental text browsers, such as
 links, w3m (or even lynx), and screen(1) a Surfaw liberateur is
 capable of research speeds that leave GUI tainted idolaters agape
 with fear and wonder.

 For example:

        $ ask why is jeeves gay?
        $ google -results=100 RMS, GNU, which is sinner, which is sin?
        $ austlii -method=phrase dog like
        $ ryhme -method=perfect Julian

        $ rhyme -help
Usage: /usr/local/bin/rhyme [options] [search words]...
Description:
 Surfaw search for rhymes and other word correlations using
 Lycos Rhyme (http://rhyme.lycos.com/)
Local options:
 -method=                      Type of word correlation to search for
         prefect       |       Perfect rhyme
         syn           |       Synonyms
         hom           |       Homophones
         cons          |       Consonsant rhymes only
         rel           |       Semantically related words
         sub           |       Phrases
         spell         |       Similar spellings
         pic           |       Pictures
         shake         |       Match with Shakespeare archives
         def                   Find wordnet definition
                               Default: perfect
                               Environment: SURFAW_rhyme_method
Global options:
 -browser=EXECUTABLE           Set browser
                               Default: lynx
                               Environment: SURFAW_browser
 -elvi                         Display a list of other Surfaw mechanims for
                               conquering evil
 -escape-url-args=yes|no       Apply url escaping to arguments
                               Default: yes
                               Environment: SURFAW_escape_url_args
 -p0rn=yes|n0                  Yes, yes, harder, deeper, faster, oh baybe
                               Default: yes
                               Environment: SURFAW_p0rn
 -help                         What you're reading now, dude
 -quiet=yes|no                 I can't enjoy it with you talking all the time
                               Default: no
                               Environment: SURFAW_quiet
 -version                      Display Surfaw version (0.5)
Copyright:
 Copyright (c) 2000 Julian Assange <[email protected]>
 Copyright (c) 2000 Melbourne Institute for Advanced Study
 ---

 Global options are common to all Surfaw elvi (clients). You can
 get a list of the currently installed elvi, with the craftily named
 -evli option. For example, from the currency elvi

 $ currency -elvi

altavista       -- Search the web using Altavista (http://www.altavista.com)
ask             -- Question the web using Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com)
austlii         -- Search Australian Law docs using Austlii (http://www.austlii.edu.au)
cite            -- Search the web using Cite Seer (http://www.researchindex.com)
currency        -- Abuse the Universal Currency Converter (http://www.xe.net/ucc)
deja            -- Search usenet using Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com)
google          -- Search the web using Google (http://www.google.com)
ircsearch       -- Search irc channels Liszt (http://www.liszt.com)
raging          -- Search the web using Raging (http://www.raging.com)
rhyme           -- Search for rhymes et al using Lycos Rhyme (http://rhyme.lycos.com)
slashdot        -- Search stories on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org)
xxx             -- Superior XXX, hot and ready to press (http://arXiv.org)
yahoo           -- Search Yahoo categories (http://www.yahoo.com)


 Read HACKING. Surfawize the soul of your favourite internet wonder.
 Join the Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Against the WWW by
 submitting code. Reclaim heathen lands. Bear witness to the
 truth. Its love will set you free.

 Copyright (c) 2000 Julian Assange <[email protected]>
 Copyright (c) 2000 Melbourne Institute of Advanced Study

 Surfaw is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 (at your option) any later version.

 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 GNU General Public License for more details.

 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

Comments are welcome.

       - Julian Assange <[email protected]>