5, but more -
#MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA

Also, I'm sending out physical gifts to anyone that wants one and is comfortable giving me their address. This is mostly going to be zines, mixtapes, maybe some paperback books, comics, and possibly trading cards.

If I get a CD printer between now and the holidays, I'll even do some CDs.

#MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA

OH! I should mention that all the things I'll be giving away as part of the #MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA are legal to distribute, either because they are in the public domain, they are CC licensed, or I have direct permission from the copyright holder to include them in a random mishmash of very well documented media that I'm giving away.

So, If you want to contribute a thing, Just @ me.

#MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA

@RemindMe remind me to talk about this some more in 16 hours.

@ajroach42

I'll try to remind you then!

Your reminder receipt is: 3866

@ajroach42
⏰* REMINDER *⏰

#MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA remd me to talk about this some more in .

6 - Gopher is weird yo!

If you missed the original discussion, Gopher was what people used the internet for for a few years before the web. It was a way to navigate files and services available online.

Here: https://tedium.co/2017/06/22/modern-day-gopher-history/

I've been learning about Gopher and exploring gopherspace.

It is really neat!

It is super simple.

I like a lot of it more than the web.

It has some real unfortunate limitations.

(let me explain.)

6 - Still talking about #gopher and #gopherspace

I should tag my shit more often

Okay, Gopher works like a layer over the top of FTP. You access a gopher address, and it gives you a menu.

Some of the menu items are for things like SSH and Telnet to specific places (MUDs!!) The rest of the menu items either take you to files (Text! Images!) or other menus.

The protocol is dead simple. Lots of software implements it, even on 8 and 16bit PCs.

@ajroach42 It's so simple you can download and save files just with netcat and shell redirection :)

Everyone brags on Lynx as the best Gopher software.

I don't hate lynx, but I prefer Forg and Gopher Browser right now.

Okay, so limitations.

No Hyperlinks within text. Only the menus are linked.

This makes stuff like the Gopher implementation of wikipedia less useful.

Hyperlinks are good. The web was good when it was just hyperlinks and text and basic files.

But the web is big and bloated and ugly now, and I see the appeal of gopher.

Half of me is 100% tempted to make the #MASTODONHOLIDAYEXTRAVAGANZA
available primarily through gopherspace

But that's ridiculous.

and I like links.

(so, of course, I gotta do it.)

I THINK THIS CONCLUDES MY UPDATE.

@ajroach42 I just about remember using it in 1990s on hacked connections to Germany from UK - these went via a satellite that the DBP-Telekom had already spent loads of taxpayers money on only for it to be obsoleted by ISDN for commercial use, the bandwidth appears to have been basically given away to German tech/science Universities, where 1 second lag for each keypress (>70 000 km to Clarke Belt and back) would be more easily tolerated

@ajroach42 If you haven't discovered it already, a site called Floodgap has an HTTP proxy for accessing Gopherspace without a Gopher client or plug-in: http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/