* * * * *

                 So tonight I'm gonna Internet like it's 1993

A few days ago I recived this email (which was not directly addressed to me):

> From: Rouan Lucas van Ryn <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
> To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> Subject: The Gopherspace Cookbook
> Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2018 08:47:45 +0000
>
> Greetings good people,
>
> I have recently created a new Gopher hole, known as The Gopherspace
> Cookbook. It is a compendium of recipes from around Gopherspace. You're
> receiving this message to let you know that one or more of your recipes has
> been listed in the cookbook.
>
> The cookbook is available at:
>  gopher://tellus.strangled.net/1/cookbook [1]
>
> Keep on cooking!
>  Keep on Gophering!
>
> Feel free to get in touch if you have any queries.
>
> Best,
>  Rouan aka jandal
>
> --
>  gopher://grex.org/1/%7ejandal [2]
>  gopher://tellus.strangled.net/ [3]
>

It's not spam, as the post in question [4], does have a recipe (if you are
having problems with the link, don't worry, that is expected, but in the
meantime, you will probably have more luck with this link [5]). The links in
question deal with Gopher [6], a protocol invented at the same time as HTTP
(HyperText Transport Protocol), but was soon eclipsed as you couldn't inline
cat pictures in a gopher page unlike a webpage [7]. It's mostly dead [8].

But not all dead.

I'm surprised [No he's not. —Editor] that I haven't mentioned this before [He
was being lazy. —Editor], but I set up a server to mainly serve up my blog
via gopher: early last March. And if pressed for a reason—it was because I
could [9]. I thought it might be fun to have a phlog [10] in addition to a
blog [11].

It's not like it was hard to write the code [12] (alternate link [13]). It
just took a day or so for me to get it working, and most of the conversion
from HTML (HyperText Markup Language) to plain text is done by Lynx [14]
(which is why it looks the way it looks [15]; alternate link [16]). And I do
get the occasional hits on the gopher server, which I find amusing.

And yes, people do still use Gopher.

[1] gopher://tellus.strangled.net:70/1/cookbook
[2] gopher://grex.org:70/1/~jandal
[3] gopher://tellus.strangled.net:70/1
[4] gopher://gopher.conman.org:70/0Phlog:2002/07/25.1
[5] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/07/25.1
[6] https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher-protocol
[7] http://www.funnycatpix.com/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbE8E1ez97M
[9] http://www.cartania.com/cartania.html
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlog
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
[12] gopher://gopher.conman.org:70/1Obsolete:Gopher:Src:
[13] http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?gopher://gopher.conman.org:70/1Obsolete:Gopher:Src:
[14] http://lynx.browser.org/
[15] gopher://gopher.conman.org:70/0Phlog:2018/01/09.1
[16] http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?gopher://gopher.conman.org:70/0Phlog:2018/01/09.1

Email author at [email protected]

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