+++++
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.