+++ Happy Holidays, and a Reply to Sysdharma +++ | |
Friday, December 29, 2017 | |
I hope everyone is having a good holiday season! I've been perusing | |
gopherspace today and have a reply to sysdharma@sdf, who has a new | |
phlog [0] - welcome to the phlogosphere! | |
Continued... | |
+++ Gophernicus and Scripts in Gophermaps +++ | |
Friday, December 15, 2017 | |
Gophernicus (the gopher server used at SDF) has a nice script | |
feature for gophermaps. Any line that starts with '=' is assumed to | |
refer to a script, and the output is sent to the client. | |
Continued... | |
+++ The Unix Console +++ | |
Monday, December 11, 2017 | |
Jynx [0],[1] and Jandal [2] phosted on their favorite programs, and | |
use of the Unix console in particular. I love hearing about how | |
other people work in the console so I can try out new utilities or | |
ways of getting things done. | |
Continued... | |
+++ On Mutt and Email Servers +++ | |
Monday, December 04, 2017 | |
I read some recent phosts by jynx ([0],[1]) on email, where he | |
mentions mutt and the fact that self-hosting is difficult. I've been | |
using mutt and self-hosting my own domains' email for many years, | |
and have had few problems with blacklisting or blocking. Here is a | |
broad overview of what I do and recommend. I haven't changed this | |
setup in a long time, it just runs: | |
Continued... | |
+++ Old Books and Old Tech +++ | |
Saturday, November 25, 2017 | |
I was back in the States last week to visit friends and family. We | |
generally travel the week before the US Thanksgiving, just to avoid | |
huge delays at the border. Anyway, while there I was able to grab | |
some boxes of books that have been in storage for a while - not all | |
of them but just the ones I'm likely to re-read or that have some | |
sentimental significance. Most of the others I'll be giving away, | |
but I have the fantasy and scifi classics I've collected over the | |
years, including Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov and Clarke. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Weekend Update +++ | |
Thursday, November 02, 2017 | |
Finally some downtime! Work has been crazy lately, and I just | |
haven't had the energy or motivation to update the ol' | |
gopherhole. But I'm off for a long weekend, headed south into | |
Vermont tomorrow with the family for some r&r, and I feel a bit | |
rejuvenated already. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Of Cabins and Simple Living +++ | |
Saturday, October 21, 2017 | |
Jynx started off the fascinating discussion on simple living, | |
asceticism, and technology use [0]: | |
Continued... | |
+++ Old Time Radio +++ | |
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 | |
My wife and I enjoy listening to old-time radio shows (OTR), mainly | |
CBS's Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT) [0], but also CBC's Nightfall | |
[1] series. This past weekend we listened to Orson Welles' rendition | |
of Dracula, from 1938 [2]. They make a nice change from TV if you | |
want some entertainment for an evening. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Thoughts on Privacy +++ | |
Saturday, October 07, 2017 | |
Like many other privacy-minded geeks, I've been trying to lessen my | |
public footprint and use of big-provider emails. I've had my own | |
mail server for many years - In the US I ran my own server from a | |
decent business-class connection with static IPs, but that all went | |
away when we moved to Canada. So I migrated my mail server to | |
Ramnode, where it has been ever since. But for a time during the | |
move, when things were uncertain, I relied more heavily on | |
gmail/yahoo mail. Now that we're settled, I've stopped use of both | |
of them entirely and moved everything back to my own email server | |
again. I don't consider using SDF email in this context, since I | |
don't want to associate my real name with my SDF account. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Francisation +++ | |
Friday, October 06, 2017 | |
I started a conversational French class this week, what they call | |
here 'francisation'. It's basically a group conversation course, | |
taught by a native speaker of Quebec French - actually it's better | |
than that, as the instructor speaks both English and French and did | |
so from a young age. So he can explain the nuances of both languages | |
and how they might translate. I'm rather jealous of his ability to | |
switch freely between languages. For me, I just want my French to | |
get to a basic conversational level, where I don't have to struggle | |
to find words. My goal is to be in a conversation with a native | |
speaker, and _not_ have them switch to English, something that | |
happens a lot. I don't blame them, they see someone struggling and | |
want to help, or maybe they are busy and don't want to | |
wait. Sometimes they even want to practice their English. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Weekend Update +++ | |
Sunday, October 01, 2017 | |
My wife continues to recover from her concussion. She can't watch TV | |
or read, so she's settled on audio books as a way to pass the | |
time. Our local library doesn't participate in Overdrive, but I was | |
able to get a card at the provincial library in Montreal, which | |
does. We found the android app Libby which is quite usable as a | |
wrapper around Overdrive. It has its own reader built-in, so my wife | |
has been able to listen to audio books with her phone. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Tales of a Former Paramedic +++ | |
Saturday, September 30, 2017 | |
I've seen lots of death. I'm not proud of that fact, and sometimes I | |
wish I hadn't. But it is part of me, part of my past. You may not | |
want to read this if you are bothered by descriptions of death. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Bike Crash and Comments to Tomasino +++ | |
Sunday, September 17, 2017 | |
My family had a scare yesterday when my wife crashed on her mountain | |
bike, going down a steep trail. She was dizzy afterwards and had no | |
memory of the accident, and her friends she was riding with ended up | |
calling for the mountain rescue, who did a great job packaging her | |
up and getting her to an ambulance. After an ER visit and CT scan, | |
she was diagnosed with a mild concussion, and has lots of bruises | |
and scrapes. So she will be fine as long as she takes it easy for a | |
while, and of course we're thankful as it could have been much | |
worse. When we moved to Quebec she bought an upgraded helmet (MIPS), | |
because she knew how much downhill biking there was here. Given that | |
her injuries are not serious, I'd say the helmet worked. To anyone | |
riding a bike - don't skimp on the helmet. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Citizenship Ceremony and Thoughts on Immigration +++ | |
Friday, September 15, 2017 | |
My son received his Canadian citizenship certificate this week, at a | |
ceremony in Montreal. He was with about 200 others, a group | |
unsurprisingly as diverse as you can imagine. The ceremony itself | |
consisted of a group oath-taking, presided over by a judge, then the | |
newly-minted citizens received their certificates. Finally, they | |
sang the Canadian national anthem. The whole thing took about two | |
hours, and was quite well-run. I imagine it has to be to keep 200 | |
people moving along. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Of Fairs and French +++ | |
Friday, September 08, 2017 | |
Over the Labor Day weekend we went to a local fair, the 'Brome | |
Fair'. It was a bit nostalgic because when we lived in Connecticut, | |
every year we also went to a local fair - you know the kind, with | |
fried food, games, rides and farm animals. This was the same, but | |
was even more similar since Brome is in a part of Quebec that is | |
heavily anglophone. There are a few of those areas in Quebec, | |
including the West Island of Montreal. A region is termed | |
'anglophone' when a majority of families speak English at home as a | |
first language. What we've noticed is that most young people in | |
Quebec are bilingual, and talking to natives, it seems to be a | |
trend. The Quebec language law has done a good job keeping French | |
relevant (holding a job is impossible without at least an | |
intermediate level of spoken French), but parents are increasingly | |
realizing that English is important for their kids to learn. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Comments on Free Speech +++ | |
Saturday, August 26, 2017 | |
There is some good commentary on free speech and protest rights | |
lately in the gopher-verse [0], [1], [2]. I thought I'd add some | |
comments on the matter. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Random Gopher Updates and Replies +++ | |
Sunday, August 20, 2017 | |
There continues to be lots of new activity in gopherspace. Always | |
great to see. I notice leveck.us moved his phlog to SDF [0], and is | |
now using slerm. Let me know how it works for you, also note there | |
is a newer version of slerm with a few bugfixes (1.8) available in | |
my gopherspace [1]. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Vacation and Other Goings On +++ | |
Saturday, August 19, 2017 | |
I was on vacation this past week, it was nice to get away from work | |
for a while and spend more time with my family. A full week it was - | |
including my 50th birthday, a visit to a water park, some tennis, | |
hiking with my wife and camping with my son. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Thoughts on Terror and Trump +++ | |
Tuesday, August 15, 2017 | |
Tomasino writes on his phlog about the recent terror attack in | |
Virginia [0]. I have the same visceral reaction to these events, and | |
I'm saddened to see hatred for race or political beliefs reach such | |
a point that someone feels they have to kill for it. | |
Continued... | |
+++ More Gopher Thoughts +++ | |
Friday, August 11, 2017 | |
First a quick thanks to Logout for his phlog aggregator 'bongusta' | |
[0]. This is a great resource, if anyone reading wants to get their | |
phlog on his list, let him know, he has a contact email on his phlog | |
[1]. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Trip to the Library +++ | |
Thursday, August 10, 2017 | |
I made a trip to the local library yesterday, something I'd been | |
meaning to do since we moved. Libraries in general are an amazing | |
but underused resource. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Books +++ | |
Sunday, August 06, 2017 | |
I mentioned previously [0] that most of our books are in storage, | |
about 20 boxes. I estimate there are 300-400 books. Since they have | |
been in storage for over a year, I'm beginning to think I need to | |
get rid of a big chunk of them. Books I read once but will probably | |
never read again, or books I never read at all. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Ham Radio +++ | |
Saturday, August 05, 2017 | |
Hobbsc's latest phlog entry [0] got me thinking about amateur radio. | |
I've been a ham for nine years, I have a general license in the | |
US. I never did too much with it, although I have an HF transceiver | |
and at one point I had started to learn morse code [1]. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Phlogit Tutorial +++ | |
Sunday, July 30, 2017 | |
Just a quick note that I put the latest version of 'phlogit' in | |
/sys/sdf/bin and checked it into RCS there, so it is available to | |
all SDF users who have /sys/sdf/bin/ in their path. MetaARPA members | |
can edit it. | |
Continued... | |
+++ The Indestructable HP 15-C Calculator +++ | |
Saturday, July 29, 2017 | |
I still have an HP-15C I bought new in 1987. I don't use its | |
programmable features anymore, but just as a desktop calculator | |
(after getting used to RPN, I could never get the hang of 'normal' | |
algebraic entry again). These are probably the slide rule of my | |
generation - every computer science and engineering student had one. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Welcome to the New Phlog +++ | |
Saturday, July 29, 2017 | |
As I hinted in my last post [0], I've moved the current slerm-based | |
phlog to a static one, using my phlogit script [1]. It simply | |
updates a gophermap top-down with a date, title and a short blurb | |
(just the first paragraph of text). I think I'll do yearly archives, | |
with the current year always pointing at /phlog for the sake of | |
people's bookmarks. For now, I have all of my prior years posts in | |
the same format, that is 2009-2015 [2]. Along the way I converted | |
some posts from my old motd blog that had never been posted on the | |
gopher side. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Days of our Phlogs +++ | |
Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 15:46 | |
I've gotten some great feedback by email and bboard on how others | |
like to write phlogs. Thanks to those who have replied. I've | |
discovered that the UMN gopher client sometimes truncates text when | |
displaying a type-1 entry (normally directories but also CGI's), | |
something I never noticed as I use lynx. As I was writing and | |
thinking about this, some functional goals for the phlog came to | |
mind: | |
Continued... | |
+++ Help me Decide How to Phlog +++ | |
Monday, July 24, 2017 at 19:58 | |
I received a nice email today from a member of the SDF phlogging | |
community. In it he noted that he enjoyed reading my phlog, but was having | |
layout and spacing issues while using the SDF gopher client. I'll share some | |
of my response, then I'd love to hear your thoughts about what I should | |
do. Reply by comment here, or shoot me an email, or grab me on SDF jabber. | |
Continued... | |
+++ More on Walled Gardens +++ | |
Sunday, July 23, 2017 at 16:15 | |
The discussions from Solderpunk and Jandal around walled gardens and | |
what makes them good or evil are interesting. Read them and come | |
back here for my thoughts, just follow the 'View Post or Comment' | |
link below. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Comments on Phlogs +++ | |
Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 09:44 | |
Below are some collected thoughts on a few interesting phlog posts | |
I've read recently where I felt I had something to comment on. I've | |
put a link to the original post in each case so you can follow it | |
through. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Privacy +++ | |
Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 16:18 | |
The new 2600 is out, and it has a few articles talking about various | |
aspects of privacy and anonymity online, which got me to thinking | |
how difficult it is to opt-out from, well basically anything that | |
doesn't spy on you in some way. Take gmail. While it's relatively | |
easy for us geeks to simply not use it, it provides the MX records | |
for a remarkable number of private, edu and business domains. Many | |
more people than that have @gmail.com addresses. So you can have | |
your own email server, or use SDF for email, and in the end what | |
does it get you? When you reply to or send an email to anyone using | |
Google's email infrastructure, Google (and by extension, the NSA) | |
gets your IP address, email address and content (because, let's face | |
it, no one encrypts email). I've had my own email server for about | |
15 years, and will keep it as long as practicable, but it is | |
disheartening to see the hold one company has on email. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Downtime +++ | |
Tuesday, July 04, 2017 at 14:05 | |
Happy 4th of July! It's been a quiet day today. One oddity of | |
working for a US-based company in Canada is that I observe US | |
holidays. So unlike the rest of Canada, I have today off, and am | |
spending some time reading and catching up on various creative | |
outlets. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Happy 150th Canada Day! +++ | |
Saturday, July 01, 2017 at 16:10 | |
We're celebrating the sesquicentennial Canada Day here up | |
north. Since it's a Saturday, it kind of feels like a normal | |
weekend. We're just taking it easy, doing some outstanding home | |
projects and enjoying the company of family. I found this neat | |
ascii-art Canadian flag, and gopherpedia has more: | |
Continued... | |
+++ The Value of a Canadian Citizenship +++ | |
Friday, June 23, 2017 at 14:15 | |
Yesterday my daughter received her Canadian citizenship | |
certificate. Kids under 19 who are permanent residents get automatic | |
citizenship, the parent who is already a citizen just has to apply | |
on their behalf. If they are under 14 (which is the case with my | |
daughter) they do not have to take a written test or go to an oath | |
ceremony. My son, who is 16, took his citizenship test today, and | |
passed. So in a couple of months he gets sworn in and given his | |
certificate in a group ceremony. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Happy 30th Anniversary SDF! +++ | |
Friday, June 16, 2017 at 17:21 | |
) ) |# | ( * | |
. ( . \___/ . | |
+ .-"-. * /^ + ( | |
/ \ ) ( .-"-. ) + | |
. |# | ( * / \ ( ) | |
\___/ ) ( |# | ( ' | |
* /^ ) \___/ | |
( * ' ( ^\ * ' | |
. \ , , , , , ' \ + | |
) | | | | | ) . | |
* . @%@%@%@%@%@%@ ( ) | |
( { happy } \ ( * | |
) * { birthday! } ) ( | |
( @%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@ ) ' | |
+ { SDF } * ( | |
{ 1987 - 2017 } . ) | |
jgs { June 16 } ( | |
* @%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@ + | |
Continued... | |
+++ The Modern Web +++ | |
Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 13:44 | |
Solderpunk has a well thought-out commentary on the issues with web | |
apps: | |
Continued... | |
+++ Gopher to Web Proxy +++ | |
Tuesday, May 09, 2017 at 15:51 | |
I recently setup the gophper proxy [0] on my SDF web page [1]. It | |
has a few quirks (like not handling binary downloads all the time), | |
but overall seems to work reasonably well. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Update to the Slerm Phlogging Engine +++ | |
Monday, May 08, 2017 at 09:58 | |
This is a small update fixing a bug with selector line | |
endings. Basically, with my last update I mistakenly used \r\n as | |
the line ending for the comment file output, resulting in odd | |
formatting bugs. So now \r\n is strictly limited to direct gopher | |
output. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Settling Down in Canada +++ | |
Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 19:40 | |
I've mentioned before our intent to move to Canada. I'm a dual | |
US-Canadian citizen, so at least for me it was easy. I moved last | |
April to Quebec, in the process sponsoring my wife and kids for | |
permanent residency. It took 16 months in total, but after much | |
paperwork and stress, it is done. On January 23rd, 2017, my family | |
became landed Canadian immigrants. Now begins the process of | |
settling in - my wife has to trade in her US driver's license, we | |
had to sign everyone up for provincial healthcare, and we are | |
learning french. | |
Continued... | |
+++ Other SDF Phlogs +++ | |
Tuesday, January 03, 2017 at 16:28 | |
I was pleased to see a bit more activity in gopherspace here at SDF, | |
a few more phlogs I found linked from the phlogosphere page. I | |
linked to them on the main page of my own gopher space, under a new | |
heading 'Other SDF Users With Interesting Gopher Spaces'. | |
Continued... |