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X-Clacks-Overhead

xclacksoverhead.org

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11–20 of 44 posts

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#11

Post by alternatetwo »

mikl wrote: post #4

I guess we should all be glad that the Internet was not designed by Pratchett. If it was possible to send infinitely repeating messages like he describes, the whole Internet would soon be completely bogged down with useless overhead packages filled with spam and ads. At least the fanboys who implement this nonsense header on their servers are only wasting the bandwidth of themselves and their visitors.

All those ... 50 bytes or whatever it is, yes.

If you want to pick a fight about bandwidth waste, start with spam, not this.

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#12

Post by aarestad »

I understand that the “GNU” is a series of commands and not an acronym, but is there any sort of connection with FSF GNU? Or is it just an interesting coincidence?

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#13

Post by cmeacham98 »

aarestad wrote: post #12

I understand that the “GNU” is a series of commands and not an acronym, but is there any sort of connection with FSF GNU? Or is it just an interesting coincidence?

It's possibkle Pratchett meant it as an intentional reference to the other GNU, but if it was he never told anyone.

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#16

Post by c22 »

mikl wrote: post #4

I guess we should all be glad that the Internet was not designed by Pratchett. If it was possible to send infinitely repeating messages like he describes, the whole Internet would soon be completely bogged down with useless overhead packages filled with spam and ads. At least the fanboys who implement this nonsense header on their servers are only wasting the bandwidth of themselves and their visitors.

https://github.com/yarrick/pingfs

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#17

Post by blep_ »

superkuh wrote: post #2

Not that it matters, especially in a just for fun context, but X- prefixes in http headers are currently depreciated (but will probably last forever). https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6648

Ehh. IMO there's still a place for them in extensions that it would make no sense to standardize - this is one example (I hope nobody attaches any behavior to this); a more common one is application-specific headers that aren't generic enough to ever have meaning outside of interop with that one application.

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#18

Post by blep_ »

aarestad wrote: post #12

I understand that the “GNU” is a series of commands and not an acronym, but is there any sort of connection with FSF GNU? Or is it just an interesting coincidence?

I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Terry Pratchett, is in fact, GNU Terry Pratchett, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Terry Pratchett.

Re: X-Clacks-Overhead

#20

Post by Majestic121 »

aarestad wrote: post #12

I understand that the “GNU” is a series of commands and not an acronym, but is there any sort of connection with FSF GNU? Or is it just an interesting coincidence?

I think it's too specific an acronym to be a coincidence, and if you read "Going Postal", it's a pretty clear love letter to the hacker culture, so in my mind officially recognized or not, the connection with FSF is there
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