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I go back on the 'net to the days of Mosaic, and earlier on Usenet and BBSs. I'm feeling pretty nostalgic, but also saddened. Between the crooks, the government, and fun loving pranksters it seems that there is no corner of the 'net that can be considered truly secure. I now routinely assume that nothing I do is safe.
I remember when the 'net was 90% thoughtful discussion, it was about web pages, pure HTML, and the content that they served up.
Now it seems as if no forum is safe from endless idiotic, threatening, and increasingly offensive trolls and bullies. Many good smart people just refuse to participate. In its early days the whole idea behind the 'net was the free sharing of information. Now you find things behind paywalls, registration pages, or removed after threats from lawyers.
Each week seems to bring another attempt by government or business to regulate the 'net, both what you can put on-line, and what you can look at. Add to that the many geographic blocks and other restrictions that keep out some of the people, some of the time. We rely on multiple layers of flash and java and other technology, each requiring some special software to make it work on your computer. Inevitably stuff breaks.
It was only a decade or so back that the very idea of marketing on the 'net was considered ridiculous. Now we're buried alive with ads, pop-ups, and stupid YouTube ads in front of every video - unless you want to pay them to remove them.
Increasingly using the 'net feels like more of a chore than a pleasure, and I can't see it improving. Is the Internet broken beyond repair?
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday May 18 2015, @07:02PM
In that case, we're all looking forward to your joining us in gopherspace. I'm serious! It's miniscule, entry is barred by those who know what it is and where to look for it, and can't be accessed using the software found on most consumer computers. We're few, we're elite, and it's basically plain text and downloading files. Very rudimentary, but by design, gopherspace is very highly organized. Start at my site if you need a point of entry: gopher://therandymon.com [therandymon.com] Otherwise have a look at the Floodgap and Overbite projects, and cross over the rubicon. Nice over there, actually.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 18 2015, @07:32PM
Try to report on the finer details on differential equation using gopher..
HTML has its uses. But it kind of stops being improved at HTML-2 or HTML-4. Then there's DVI, SGML, Math-ML, LaTex, PS etc.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2015, @10:18PM
Not knowing which client I should support, I've not merged that branch into the master branch, and certainly not asked the SN IRC admins to pull it. I'm always willing to pick up development on that branch if definitive answers can be found. I think I can probably discount w3m as being the one to support. I was 99% sure it was in the wrong, and "fixed" it, but alas in a way I couldn't rebase on top of more recent debian patches to it, as debian have changed the behaviour to a different non-working behaviour. The fact that all it says about your gopher page is:
"""
Index of gopher://therandymon.com/1
[unsupported]'/1' does not exist (no handler found)
"""
confirms that stock w3m still doesn't seem to know what it's doing (that was the error I was getting from my server too, before I patched the older version of it).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday May 18 2015, @10:36PM
W3M is pretty broken. Lynx is pretty much the go-to client, and overbite for Firefox adds it to the browser. I confess it's a limited ecosystem, but it's nice to have alternatives to the WWW for sharing info. My server runs pygopherd, for what it's worth - it's a dead simple install and runs practically straight out of the box.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:44AM
KDE has a gopher KIOslave (package kio-gopher) that makes gopher:// [gopher] addresses work in konqueror and rekonq, for another option that doesn't rely on a browser addon. Also, apparently Elinks has native gopher support too, but it's disabled by default for some reason. Unless you compile it yourself it just runs lynx.
I don't have use of it very often, but I like to keep clients with support around for occasional use. I hate how http has gradually subsumed other parts of the internet, absorbing other protocols and tasks to create less-functional http-only "replacements" via web APIs and javascript hacks, so I support any attempt to keep other useful protocols active.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:59AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by unitron on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:38PM
But are those *dancing* gophers?
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something