[=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=] [<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>] [=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=] Stardate: 20190104.21h56 Location: Guest Room Input Device: Cyber Rig Audio: Central heating Visual: Cyber Rig and guest room periphery Energy: 60% Mental: 70% Emotional: slowing down, settling. [=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=] Melton mentioned in a phlog entry today [1] about keeping things lean in the gopherspace. The text is very lean and I really appreciate that, especially when I am going over congested wifi or hotspot with a faint signal to the tower. With larger files, I usually make note of them and download them later. I still have not found a good workflow for downloading stuff. What usually ends up happening is I download to the server that I am attached to, especially when mobile or using a low powered machine (like right now) and download from the server when I am back at a regular workstation. I don't really like doing things that way, especially with pictures, since I seem to lose the continuity of reading a post and viewing the picture after and then rereading the post. Right now, I am using my cyber rig again, with Pi0w on battery and the face mounted display (FMD). I am also using my "zero gravity" Target recliner and testing this out with a cheap compact Chinese mechanical clicky LED keyboard. I like the breathing glow of the rainbow LEDs, especiallly since the face mounted display is not enclosed right now. I am not wearing my Carhartt ambient light shield at the moment and my periphery is visible, so looking at the FMD is like looking at the ceiling with my head tilted back against the head rest. When I gaze downward, I see the room and the keyboard. That's if I am in full recline, like now. If I sit in seated position, my periphery is more of the keyboard and my legs. Also, my head is tilted downward with gravity. I am enjoying using the cyber rig for gopher and taking my notes. Right now, I just have 2 screen sessions. One for reading gopher and the other one for typing out my notes. For some reason, when I am doing this on a full desktop/laptop, the experience starts simple, but then becomes complicated and distracting. First, a terminal in gopher, then a terminal for notes. Then a terminal for email. Then I need tunage and fire up an mp3 player/streamer. Then something I read in gopher takes me to the web so I fire up a browser. Then the browser has me and I get distracted by something else, not related to the gopher session. Then I end up on mastodon and it goes on ad infinitum. Then I realize it's after 3AM and I have to get up for work in 3 hours. At that point, my notes are incomplete, I'm feeling burntout with all of the web stimuli, and did not feel like I accomplished much of anything except consume a whole bag of multidistracting. So going back to what Melton wrote, the noise on the web was mentioned and how people are looking for pure content. I think I am one of those people. I don't like having to keep filtering out all of the noise to get a decent signal. I don't like how hard it is to find stuff on the web these days. Before, you would be able to find decent content when you did a search. I would even find more content related to the thing I was searching and sometimes even whole communities of people interested in the things I was searching for. And that was only on page 1 of my search results. Now, I struggle with finding the same kinds of results. Even not too long ago, I would see some forum entries related to my inquiries in the results. Not so much these days. If I need to do a deep dive, it takes so much longer with so many distracting things...or my patience has become shorter. Yeah, the results hit the glass at super fast speeds, but the results are not what I inquired about...until I hit page 5 or later. And the amount of resources to go through the noise, the cookies, the banner ads, the bad scripts, the hijacked browser pages, the unrelated, and get to page 5? Forget it. So I enjoy the gopher tunnels for the pure content. Searches are still questionable for me since veronica-2 and other search tools are hit or miss, but at least the content that is there and still available is just about the content. Same with logging in to SDF and enjoying com or bboard...or even listening to anonradio while chatting on com in the #anonradio channel about what is currently being broadcasted...a shared and interactive experience with the community in real-time. So yeah, I find myself experiencing and enjoying the pure content more so lately at my speed and on my terms and taking the time to digest and ruminate, instead of being force-fed and rushed into consuming more. So toxic! Maybe I have been too over-exposed and developed an allergy to the World Wide Web of now, kinda like Cayce Pollard's allergy to fashion labels in Gibson's, _Pattern Recognition_. Maybe the pure content of the gopher tunnels are giving me an exit. ASCII and the shell does seem to have a Zen quality to it that seems to calm me down to be here in the now. The traffic, billboards, road rage, and accidents on the Information Super Highway are too much for me right now. I'm turning off at the next exit and gonna drive this dirt road and enjoy the scenery with no destination planned. Maybe I'll pull off the road and hitch hike a ride to the closest outpost for a cosmic voyage. Maybe I'll request for asylum in your colony. Or maybe I'll jack in and share a consensual hallucination like before. Or check in at your gopher hole to see what you're up to. Maybe I'll even pull your finger. [1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/melton/phlog/more-fun-with-images.md [=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=]