Updates, vf1, mutt, etc.
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Tue 20th Nov 2018 /cpj

Been working on a few new things related to my descent back into the gopher
world. Reconfigured mutt in terminal, along with gpg and abook. Playing
around a little bit with gpg integration and some of the new features of
mutt in IMAP mode, that have emerged since last I used it (ca. 2007-2009).

I've also been playing more with vf1, in preference to lynx, which tends to
view gopher sites as translated html, and which, at least in my mind, is not
a pure implementation of gopher. Sure, lynx has some pretty sophisticated
options, but they really aren't atuned to gopher in the way that they should
or could be. vf1 suits me, and I have been exploring more of the features,
bookmarking, etc., as I trundle around gopher space.

Was reading sloum's burrow project posts, and made a couple of changes to
his github-hosted code to make it work on the Mac. Saw the most recent posts
respecting issues related to cross-platform compatibility and developer vs
user. Personally, I think gopher is rather arcane to begin with, and one is
likely to attract the attention of tinkerers with any gopher app, and not
the general public. gtk may work better, in the end, but I'm sympathetic to
the desire for a true graphical interface to gopher that isn't a gopher
gateway bolted on to what otherwise would be a web app, and is in fact, a
true gopher tool. I'm still learning python, I admit, and Tkinter is a level
of voodoo that requires a deeper dive.

On the home front, had a tech over to quote on a generator for the house. We
have natural gas service here, and most of the appliances are gas ones,
including two fireplaces (one for each level). With the recent tornado
touchdown in September, we lost power for the weekend, and I think that
shook a number of people up. Hoping the price point comes in in the sweet
spot, and we can get things set up and installed before winter truly sets
in. (Notwithstanding that we got 15 cm of snow over the last few days with
another 5 cm to come overnight and tomorrow. People's snow-dumbness hasn't
quite cured itself, and we had 68 accidents between the morning and
afternoon commute. I'm hoping more remember that winter happens, sort of
like summer, and they better get used to it.)

Peace out, as the kids say.