67 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
67 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Why Gopher?
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Deep beneath the realm of the world wide web lives the hidden world of the
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gopher, a forgotten curiosity seemingly inhabited only by computer geeks who
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refuse to have the common sense to use the web as it exists today. To the
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casual observer, gopher usually elicits a scowl followed by a condescending
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"Text only?", "Monaco?" or, most commonly, "Why!?" Despite Cameron's excellent
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retort to the gopher-scoffers, I thought I might comment briefly on the last
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common scathing retort of "Why."
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And to that "why?", I reply: "Why not?" In forgotten days of yore, we traveled
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by buggy, by stream trains, horse, foot and many other obsolete and even absurd
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forms of travel. Yet, to this day, we still use these slow forms of travel.
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Many find such inefficient forms of travel to be enjoyable, calling such
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activities "quaint" or "nostalgic" with no reference to their efficiency at
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getting them from point A to B.
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For example, the fall time ritual of the "Hay Ride" is a most ridiculous
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and absurd form of travel imaginable yet, come autumn, people routinely
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give up their comfortable car seats, conditioned air, and spring/shock
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suspension to endure a bumpy, uncomfortable, hay fever filled ride that
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usually costs more than if you had simply drove your car around the
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block. Indeed, I have seen them - they flock in droves to country
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tractor trailer, gleefully exhorting their somewhat doubtful children
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with gleeful pleas, exclaiming "Isn't this FUN?" (Not to be overly demeaning of
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hay ride participants, in most fun is a fair bit of absurdity) Can a person
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not, with all this in mind, consider an alternate form of traversing the
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Internet?
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But, more so - with that in mind, imagine, if you will, finding a forgotten
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walking trail in the woods, hidden from the view of the world of mass transit,
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accessible only by those who don sneakers and take the proverbial road less
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traveled. Would you not be tempted to explore? Imagine, all the more, if the
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trail turned out to be a shortcut? Who, other than the dullest of the
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dullards, would not find that of at least some interest?
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You may say it's a stretch, but I argue it's not far off base from gopher.
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Indeed, here is that forgotten trail in the woods, that abandoned railway, that
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Internet superhighway of days of yore hidden from view beneath the surface of
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the World Wide Web. Not only does it still work but, for some purposes, it
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works quite well! Be your destination simple news (thanks floodgap), a or a
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quick weather report, gopher fetches your information with a speed that is very
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hard to beat!
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Dwell not on missing pictures, but think instead on what else is missing: Ads?
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Tracking cookies? Animated gifs or, worse, flash video ads? All gone in the
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realm of the gopher! Java vulnerabilities? Browser vulnerabilities? Java
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script nonsense? Not in the gopher tunnels. Computer old? Got windows 95 or
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even dos? Gopher doesn't care. With a half way decent firewall in front, a
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hacker is hard pressed to find any holes in gopher. Slow connection? Got a
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56k modem? That's plenty more bandwidth than gopher needs. Ad sponsors make
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you carefully consider what you write on your blog? Write as you want on
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gopher.
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Come one, come all - see the gopher holes of the Internet! Pull that 486 out
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of the closet and put it to good use! Enjoy the pure text goodness that the
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Internet founders intended. Pure text is the best, and even Courier can be
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cool! And, who knows, you may actually find something worth reading. That
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much I can't guarantee, but this I can almost certainly guarantee: You won't be
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disappointed with its speed.
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-Helpdeskdan
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***
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gopher://sdf.org/0/users/helpdeskdan/why.txt
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