
Secret blog published in robots.txt file - soundsop
http://www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt
======
hhm
Very interesting blog I see! Don't think it's only hype because of the title,
the content is really worth a read, and no doubt much more interesting than
many blogs that get to the front page.

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jyothi
I second. It dawns on me today - the web is made unnecessarily heavy. For most
blogs and content all we need is simple text :) so light, so clean.

PS: Repeated the note as it was hidden and in the wrong context.

~~~
bootload
_"... For most blogs and content all we need is simple text :) so light, so
clean. ..."_

Plan files?

Back when linux was new and lots of servers started popping up, .plan (dot
plan) files ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol> where the blogs
of that era. Easy to read, quick to load you get a heads up of what was going
on via text - a lot like HackerNews. And the best .plan files to read had to
be iD & John Carmack.

    
    
       3/23/1997 - Damaged F40
    
       Someone ran into my F40 in the 
       parking lot, then took off. Words 
       cannot do justice to how I feel 
       right now.
    
       If anyone knows a tall white male 
       in the dallas area that now has 
       red paint and carbon fibre on their 
       tan pickup truck, turn the bastard in!
    

Not only did you get the best technical insight in to programming they where
more personal than blogs, funny even. No ads. No cutting edge design to get in
the way of the information. Plan files don't really exist now. Carmack closed
his down in 2005 ~
<http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/johnc/Recent%20Updates> and now blogs
like the rest us. An archive exists at [http://www.scribd.com/doc/14193/John-
Carmack-Archive-plan-19...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/14193/John-Carmack-
Archive-plan-1999?from_related_doc=1) Port 79 and plan files went the way of
telnet and the Dodo. Btw it was reported the esteemed Rtm and his pesky worm
exploit ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm> that had a part in plan
files demise. After exploiting a buffer overflow in fingerd (among others) [0]
_"too risky"_ , ISP admins claimed.

[0] Not confirmed ~
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol#Security_concer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol#Security_concerns)
but mentioned ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris#The_worm>

~~~
michael_dorfman
I have to admit, I miss finger (and would take it over Twitter any day)

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ken
I don't tweet, but I might update my .plan. I'd even hack something together
to generate RSS from it, but Firefox and Safari don't support finger:// so it
would be kind of useless.

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kirubakaran
Also write an aggregator and call it 'hand' :)

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ivank
Google did index it, but only with an extra URL parameter:
<http://www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt?view=producecode>

~~~
jyothi
Google has it in its pages - <http://www.google.com/search?q=brett+tabke+blog>
and with a nice meta description

Brett Tabke experiments with writing a weblog in a text file usually read only
by robots. Commentary on the world of search engine marketing.
www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt - 2k

It dawns on me today - the web is made unnecessarily heavy.

~~~
teamonkey
It's listed on Dmoz:

[http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Develo...](http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Weblogs/)

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j2d2
Fans of this might also like outguess by Niels Provos.

<http://www.outguess.org/>

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dhotson
This is awesome.. it kinda reminds me of _why's hoodwink'd.

