re:Six years of gopher                                        05/25/23
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Really  enjoyed  solderpunk's 6  year  post[1].  He called  it  "naval
gazing" (I was an early slashdotter too my friend!), but I didn't find
it self-absorbed  at all; I  mean, not more  than I would  expect from
someone's personal  journal/log. That's  the point  of the  journal, I
think! And  it's a pleasure  to read what  other people are  doing and
thinking. At least, that's how I view it.

So thanks, solderpunk!

The time  really has  flown on  gopher and pubnix.  I'm sure  the time
would have flown no matter what we were all doing, because that's what
time does.  But it is still  fascinating how the years  stack up, when
viewed through the lens of some  simple activity done with some amount
of consistency. I  used this line (thanks stackexchange)  to count the
words in my gopher directory:

   find . -type f -name \*.txt -print0 -exec cat {} + | wc -w 

and came  up close to 200k  words. That's a lot  of navel-gazing right
there! Which makes this a meta-navel-gazing activity, I think...

Solderpunk also ruminated on long-form  vs. short-form. I have to say,
I'm absolutely a  huge fan of both. For writing  and reading; though I
probably tend  to ramble on  needlessly, for  my part. However,  it is
pleasant  to  read/write something  brief,  some  small experience  or
thought. And, it's  pleasant to just write a stream  of whatever comes
to  mind--or, to  meticulously piece  together something  complex over
time,  though I  do this  less frequently.  And to  read long-form  is
pleasing too.

All that to simply say: bang out  whatever is on your mind! If nothing
else, you'll  enjoy it; and  there's a  great chance someone  else out
there will enjoy it too.

Here's to the next 6 years!

[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/six-years-of-gopher.txt