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GNU Terry Pratchett
- JayOtter 12y agoSome more context is available in this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2ysv26/sir_terry_has_gone_for_the_long_walk_across_the/cpcmru1 http://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2ysv26/sir_terry_...
- erodingvar 12y agoPointless.
- porsupah 12y agoRather beautifully appropriate. I'd be delighted to see this adopted, and would myself, if I ran my own webserver these days.
- TylerE 12y agoYes, let's waste 40 bytes on EVERY SINGLE HTTP REQUEST. That's a fitting tribute. What's with the pointless GNU shoe horned in as well?
- ChrisClark 12y agoBecause that's the way it was in the books. The GNU code needed to be there to make sure the name is spoken forever.
- wging 12y agoIt turns out stuff like that is already done. I just found out, by viewing that thread, that reddit responds to GET requests with the X-Moose:majestic header.
- pests 12y agoGNU stands for something specific in one of his books this tribute is coming from.
- jordigh 12y agoValid question, and not easily duckduckgoable. I found this explanation on tumblr, by blackboardmonitor. I wish I knew how to link to the damn thing, but I can't figure out the tumblr interface. In Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, the operators of the clacks tower use “GNU” as a code to mean the message should be passed onto every tower. An article on wiki-Lspace says that “The G in the code means to send it on the U at the end means to turn the message around at the end of the line and the N means not logged.” When a clacks operator died while working, or was killed, their name was passed in the overhead with “GNU” in front of it, as a way of commemorating them, of not letting them die, because, “a man is not dead while his name is still spoken”. It’s a way of keeping them alive, you see. Terry Pratchett, may he rest in peace, wrote the clacks as a fantasy equivalent of social media, of emails, in particular, but general interweb communication as a whole. Therefore, people are posting “GNU TERRY PRATCHETT” because it’s the equivalent in our world of commemorating him on the clacks; we’re keeping him alive, in a way, in a way which I think he would have liked. Because no one is really dead until the ripples they caused die away. So, now & until I myself die: GNU Terry Pratchett.
- Tomte 12y agoI don't see any real connection. The HTTP header doesn't make the requested web page be sent over and over. A better way would have been to establish a series of SMTP servers ("towers") that forward the mail in a circle endlessly. Let people subscribe to that kind of mailing list, getting one mail per day. And let the SMTP chain exist as long as there is one subscriber left.
- cben 12y agoI'm considering a cookie instead of an X- header, to at least mimic the "U = turn it around" aspect by the browser sending it back next time...
- oneeyedpigeon 12y agoIf you're caching your content properly and sending 304's when appropriate, this header won't get sent with every HTTP request. And if you're not using 304's properly, you're wasting a lot more than those 40 bytes.
- asd00 12y agowas the ad at the bottom of the page really necessary...?
- quiddity 12y agohttp://www.orangutan.org.uk/ http://www.orangutan.org.uk/ and http://orangutan.org/ http://orangutan.org/ oblig. plug for Orangutan Foundation (UK) and Orangutan Foundation International (US), who try to protect them and their habitat.
- drivingmenuts 12y agoIt's an interesting idea, but it should not be implemented. We all lose people of value: Terry Pratchett, Aaron Schwartz, Robin Williams, etc. The worth of such individuals is rarely objective and is mostly subjective, but sometimes on a large scale. Were we to memorialize everyone of value to someone somewhere in such a manner, the weight of the headers could easily outweigh the value of the information we're trying to access. Yes, it is proposed for one person only. Next week, it might be one more. The week after, a few more. And so on. Turtles all the way down. Just because we can do a thing, doesn't mean we should.