
GNU Terry Pratchett - JayOtter
http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/
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JayOtter
Some more context is available in this Reddit thread:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2ysv26/sir_terry_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2ysv26/sir_terry_has_gone_for_the_long_walk_across_the/cpcmru1)

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porsupah
Rather beautifully appropriate. I'd be delighted to see this adopted, and
would myself, if I ran my own webserver these days.

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TylerE
Yes, 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?

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jordigh
Valid 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.

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Tomte
I 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.

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cben
I'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...

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quiddity
[http://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.

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drivingmenuts
It'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.

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asd00
was the ad at the bottom of the page really necessary...?

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JayOtter
Didn't even notice that, I've an an blocker on - the id of the element is
"shamelessmoneygrab". Hmm.

