Top all-time · #4410
Jen’s Substack
Personal blog · thedorkweb.substack.comhardwarehistoryculture
Jen’s Substack is a personal blog at thedorkweb.substack.com about hardware, history and culture. Since 2020, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 46 times, most often “Gopher, Gemini and the Smol Internet”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Tales From The Dork Web for its posts on the smol Internet, Gopher and Gemini, the tildeverse, and low-tech computing. It is cited as a guide to these topics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
My personal Substack. Click to read Jen’s Substack, a Substack publication. Launched 4 years ago.
Most-linked posts?
- Gopher, Gemini and the Smol Internet6 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-11-19
- The 100 Year Computer2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-12-17
- Taking You Down to Tilde Town2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-26
- A Week with Plan 92 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-01-14
- Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-22
- A Demoscene Conversion2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-07-02
- You're Almost Entirely Blind: An Introduction to RF Spectrum2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-06-18
- Cyberdecks for High-Tech Low-Lifes2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-27
What Hacker News says?
If you could build a computer that held and displayed the data, you might be able to preserve it - a tablet or handheld device that gets handed down through generations and only activated one a decade or so? Beyond preservation, though, that's an interesting engineering puzzle - could you fashion a computer intended to operate for 500 years, without replacement parts? It'd need serious shielding, components that wou…
Comment linking /p/the-100-year-computer
on “Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?”Submitted A Week with Plan 9 as a story · 226 points
HN discussionThe "smol Internet" movement is what you're looking for. Returning to smaller online communities using things like Gopher, Gemini, fediverse, pubnixes, etc. https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol...
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter”Submitted Cyberpunk: Then and Now as a story · 216 points
HN discussionIf you'd like a guided tour of the tildeverse, there's one on The Dork Web: https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/tales-from-the-dork-web-5 Also relevant community: https://tildes.net/~tildes
Comment linking /p/tales-from-the-dork-web-5
on “tilde.town: A social network over SSH”Submitted Personal Computing on an Amiga in 2021 as a story · 214 points
HN discussionThere's a resurgence in general against the "bloated web" where a chunk of people move back towards primarily text-based sharing of information and simplicity. This drive is expressed in many different ways both in the frontend and backend. In a way, static site generators were a reaction to complex CMS systems. Another expression is people going back to retro design using only basic features provided by HTML / CSS…
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet?s=r
on “Gophie – modern gopher client for Windows, Mac, Linux”Submitted Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future as a story · 182 points
HN discussionAs someone rooting for [NetSurf]( https://www.netsurf-browser.org/ ) (and any other remaining independent browser engines) to survive, I wonder if they'd be better off not supporting Javascript at all and simply focusing on good support for modern HTML and CSS, so it can at least be used to read documents. If Javascript is what finished TenFourFox, maybe attempting to support the full weight of modern Javascript and…
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “The end of TenFourFox and what I've learned from it”Submitted Show HN: A Commodore Amiga Workbench Style Smart Watch with Mod and Say Support as a story · 122 points
HN discussionGopher is still alive (albeit small), Gemini sits between Gopher and Web, https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol... https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “Kristall – Visual cross-platform browser for gemini, http, https, gopher, finger”Submitted The 100 Year Computer as a story · 108 points
HN discussionI think neither model provides a catch-all solution. Whatever mode of interaction with an audience fits best hinges entirely on a myriad of factors, both technical and non-technical. Human communication, whether digital or analog, is a continuum. You could have a discussion via snail mail letters, online mailing lists, letters published in a paper, blogs who publish as if corresponding through letters, pamphlets and…
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “An announcement about the comment section”Submitted Crash and Burn: The Amiga ST Story as a story · 56 points
HN discussion> I have an X220 from 2011 Sounds like you're in good company. The author recently upgraded from a 2015 Mac to a heavily modded X230[1]. [1] - https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/everything-but-the-kitchen...
Comment linking /p/everything-but-the-kitchen-sync
on “The 100 Year Computer”Submitted Taking You Down to Tilde Town as a story · 53 points
HN discussionI always liked Gopher for its simplicity and therefore efficiency. Check out also Gemini with Deedum, the gemini browser for Android too :) more reading: https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol...
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “Gopher Protocol (2020)”Submitted Cyberdecks for High-Tech Low-Lifes as a story · 15 points
HN discussionI've been running Tales From The Dork Web ( https://thedorkweb.substack.com/ ) since January on Substack. In some respects TFTDW is a bit like Tedium. So far it's been a pretty good experience, but I keep expecting the day to come when it turns into Medium.
Comment linking /
on “The time it takes to run a paid newsletter”Submitted Towards a Solarpunk Future as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI set up Tales From The Dork Web[1] on Substack because I wanted somewhere to write non-commercially, and Medium was a cess-pit. I fully expect one day for Substack to end up like Medium, but having spoken to quite a few of the people there on all kinds of matters, they're fighting against it really hard. When the inevitable does happen, I'll take Tales From The Dork Web elsewhere. Until then, It's the first non sel…
Comment linking /
on “Ben Smith on the rise of Substack and independent journalists [video]”Submitted You're Almost Entirely Blind: An Introduction to RF Spectrum as a story · 8 points
HN discussionHere's a tip: look into the Smol Internet movement. https://thedorkweb.substack.com/p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol... So, the premise here is that the Web is broken as well. And it's broken at various levels. There are various ways of dealing with this brokenness. You could move towards a text-only browser all together (e.g. Lynx, elinks) but that solves things partly. Smol Web takes it a notch further. It's doing awa…
Comment linking /p/gopher-gemini-and-the-smol-internet
on “Ask HN: Is “lowtech” and “up to date” mutually exclusive?”Submitted The 100 Year Computer as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Weird Wide Web of Shortwave Radio as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Dune, Part 1: Dune in print and pictures as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cryo and Westwood's 16-bit Dune games as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Loveletter to the Atari Lynx as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Week with Plan 9 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hacking ZX Spectrum Games Like It's 1989 as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
