Date:  2021-04-10
Time:  07:06:58 UTC
Title: The Origins of the Beginnings
Hey all, it's only been about a week, but gopher has truly piqued my
interest, and, dare I say it, won over my heart. Indeed I first made my
SDF website (http://guofu.sdf.org) public in 2006, starting with HTML
coded in the terminal, later followed by CSS styling years after. If
only I had known about gopher at the time. Learning the syntax only took
a few hours, because it's just hierarchical text files! The links are so
much easier than HTML. This is the perfect blogging, er, phlogging,
platform - indeed, phlogging kicks blogging's butt. Already I have
applied my bashful scripting skills to automating phlog post
publication, as this file proves, assuming you are reading it.

What do I, a mere single puny human, plan to contribute to the
phlogosphere? Well, an assortment of goodies, ranging from tech how-tos
and commentary, to sharing life events (PhD defense coming up), to news
and political analysis. The Peruvian and Ecuadorian elections on April 11th
should make for some exciting discussion. Truly complex, unpredictable,
and consequential in both places. But in the mean time, there's still
more to read about gopher, and more tunnels to dig, pun intended.

The possibility of gopher scripting is especially intriguing, and might
lend itself to hosting all sorts of games if not gopher gardens. The
possibilities abound - Lost Pig becomes a gopher hole? A community
garden where people can plant virtual flowers or vegetables, share them
with each other, and watch a map change in real time? A dictionary,
translator, or AI therapist? Who knows, only time will tell.

Until next time, this has been guofu. Have a great weekend, everybody!