Captain's Phlog                            2020.01.11
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Reinventing the QSL Card to Promote Gopher

The QSL Card is a Ham Radio 'thing'. Basically, in
days of yore -or is that eeyore?- you could send away
for a unique postcard mailed to you in confirmation
of your tuning into a radio source (either by
participating in a two-way ammateur radio exchange or
by catching a broadcast from a far-off station). I
was thinking how this sort of thing could help to
promote gopher:// in a small, fun and unique way.

For the moment my poorly conceived notion looks like
this:  My www server has been reduced to little more
than a landing page of no import. I will modify it to
basically say "Hey there, Tildecow has LOTS of great
stuff on our gopher site. Click [HERE] to explore
it". [HERE] will be a special gophermap receiving
denizens of the web most likely served via the
FloodGap Proxy (Cheers Cameron!). Said map will link
to my usual gopher stuff as well as a few curated
links around gopherspace BUT - and here's my big but
- It will also feature an offer send me an email
requesting a postcard unique to my site that
commemorates their entry into gopherspace.

Since the WorldWideWhathavewedone has made so many
people so paranoid about electronic contact I expect
the number of requests I receive will be small owing
to folks not wanting to wager their meatspace
contact info against my honesty but that's okay.
It's just an experiment.

Gopher is old-school. That's part of the charm. The
idea of sending away for something free and 'waiting
for it to come in the mail" is a natural dovetail.
I'll update y'all on this when things are squared
away. As always, if you have any input on this idea
or if you just want to say 'howdy', drop me a line
[thenumbersixtytwo]connolly[at]gmail[period]com

-Tim

P.S. A bare bones implementation is in place now.
Visit www.tildecow.com to see what I mean.

P.P.S. There is a 'feature' of gopher:(3.0.15build1)
that will not display the entire /welcome landing
page. It seems to have something to do with not
having a selector near the top of the gophermap. Of
course, if you're viewing the page using the gopher
package from the ubuntu commald line, you're likey
not a Gophirgin anyway!  ;-D

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Extra Credit                      Baked Squash & Kale

I had this a few weeks ago in a fancy restaurant and
this is what I worked out through trial and error.
It's really yummy (for vegetables).

Ingredients
  1.5 qt squash in small cubes
  1 qt kale, chopped small
  .5 qt red onion, chopped
  2 Tbsp oil
  1/8 tsp black pepper
  4 Tbsp maple syrup (La chose réelle tabernac!)
  salt to taste
  

Combine all ingredients in large bowl and toss well.
Dump into baking dish. (I used 12" stoneware.)
Dust well with bread crumbs.
Bake at 375F for 45-60m - Until squash is tender.  
Serve hot.