+++++
9/18
+++++
I haven't contributed here in a bit. Work has been
absolutely kicking my ass -- in ways that neither instruct
nor amuse to reflect on, let alone write about.
Also, last Saturday I also picked up a silly side gig which
I got talked into by an old friend, but really just helped
his dad make a few more bucks. That ate up both my writing
time as well as time I could spend in the shop working on
the personally fulfilling projects that I then try to write
about.
Then I got sick for several days. I thought it was strep
throat, but then it moved into my nose and then chest, so I
have no idea what the hell this is -- it could be Covid,
but scratchy throat doesn't tend to be one of the signs.
Still, illness meant another week of no progress on the work
in the shop that I like to report here.
Instead, I will reflect a bit on this community -- at this
point (for me) more of an activity -- that I am both
committed to and still somewhat of a newcomer.
Gopher through sdf appealed to me because it was the
quickest way I could find to operate in a text environment,
from start to finish, if I so wished. I now realize that
this was only based on my limitations. Most of you are
able to write scripts to take your writing to servers for
gemini or html and bipass whatever bloatware you would like.
So what I love about gopher on sdf the technical are able to
achieve on all sorts of platforms. That's real power,
that's real magic, and I admire the hell out of it. In the
longer term, perhaps the next year, I'd like to work on my
own shell and scripting skills so that I can become more
and more of a text purist in my personal life. The mouse
is a nice convience, but mainly as a way to move around
blocks of text. Once icons are stacked on icons, it is at
first a crutch, then a mess, and lastly a cancer. To the
shell, I declare, though I don't know how quick of a study
I will prove. One day, I may emerge with my own gemini
capsule, or even a self-hosted web site. But that is a
time somewhat off in the future.
That's on the production end -- a statement of the kind of
work that I would find enjoyable becuase I would be using
tools I find beautiful -- but let's talk a bit about the
consumption end.
While I am sure there is much of gopher I don't know about,
I am also pretty sure there is not enough gopher to viably
take up a person's information diet. (In all seriousness,
please write me an email if you feel I am wrong. I would
love to know where else in the gopher space I should be
looking). I contribute to gopher, and occupy a weird niche
somewhat on purpose, because I want to be part of the
solution. But in the meantime, I feel a kind of defeat
when I go back to the lame-stream web. I've been hitting
library books pretty hard, but it seems like there should
be some way to make the internet expansive enough to serve
this purpose again.
Enter Ran Prieur with something I noodled around and found
out he got from Hacker News:
https://search.marginalia.nu/
This is turn, led to the recommendation of
https://wiby.me/
And (the overly slick, therefore suspicions *prima facie*):
https://millionshort.com/
What these sites allow for is real web-surfing. Enough of
it to get lost in. I like to switch the setting of
marginalia to "strongly prefer plain mark up." Also, It is
fun to hit "suprise me" on wiby. These tools might
not achieve the level of purity I wish for one day, but at
least they make the world bigger -- as opposed to the
suffocation I keep feeling in the FANMAG Matrix.
--
This work is hereby in the public domain.
Do what you want with it.
