Assorted replies and acknowledgements
-------------------------------------

Some long overdue reps and acks, in random order:

Relative newcomer to the phlogosphere dokua (welcome!) replied[1] to my
"disertation" on lead acid batteries (they must be new here, that post was not
especially long by my standards!) with a few good thoughts.  I have done some
reading on deep cycle batteries, and on the care and feeding of  lead acid
batteries in general today.  There is more to know and think about than most
people would ever dream, but it still seems relatively accessible, and I look
forward to reading more and getting my hands dirty.

Dephanor responded[2] to my post on the possibilities for server discovery and
content searching in a hypothetical large and decentralised network of Gopher
servers.  He mentions distributed search and also the semantic web "FOAF" tech.
I have long been interested in both, but haven't had much hands on experience
with them.  Many years back there was some excitement around something called
FOAF+SSL which seemed like a cool idea to me at the time, but I'm badly out of
touch with semweb though.  Part of me wonders if such modern and high tech ideas
are an appropriate match for Gopher.

Tfurrows commented[3] on my recent post about snow.  He's right that I'm in
Finland.  This winter hasn't quite been my first encounter with snow, but it's
certainly been the first time that it has been a real part of my daily life,
where I get to experience it falling, and then that same snow sticking around
for days, and then eventually melting.  Every other time I've seen snow I've
been travelling somewhere and passing through, getting to see just a snapshot of
this process, which feels quite different, at least to me.  Earlier, tfurrows
very correctly pointed out[4] that, of course, "bug out" scenarios are not
*always* the macho fantasies I dismissed them as and that they can and do happen
for real to ordinary people.

kvothe mentioned[5] a small Bic lighter as a handy thing to carry which takes up
very little space and weights almost nothing.  This seems sensible, so I've
added one to one of the many small pockets in my gasmask bag.  We'll have to see
if it ever proves worthwhile.  pet84rik carries[6] sugar packets for treating
hypoglycemia (in others, not himself).  This is interesting, and something I
might have to read up on.

Ze Libertine Gamer, I still owe you an email about contributing to VF-1[7],
sorry for the delay.

Auzymoto, I have seen your BBOARD post on gopher aggregation, and I feel
terrible that nobody has responded yet after you clearly put a boatload of
effort into writing it up.  I have skimmed the proposal but not yet had time for
a detailed read and think, but I hope to find that time and I hope you're not
too discouraged.

That's all for now!  I'm away for the next few days, so don't expect any Gopher
activity.  Hope everybody enjoys their weekends.  I will return next week with
some exciting news!

[1] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/dokuja/phlog/20180214
[2] gopher://uberspace.net:70/0/~defanor/phlog/on-searching.rst
[3] gopher://grex.org:70/0/~tfurrows/phlog/2018/FEB2018/amn_snow.txt
[4] gopher://grex.org:70/0/~tfurrows/phlog/2018/FEB2018/amx_bugOut.txt
[5] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/kvothe/phlog/2018/02/11-edc-part-ii
[6] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/pet84rik/phlog/FEB18/Feb12-makeemail
[7] gopher://zelibertinegamer.me:70/0/phlog/2018-02-06_2233.txt