Welcome to the latest version of our web site, petergarner.net. We've recently moved from our self-hosted Intel NUC box to a shiny new VPS located somewhere in the UK. The gopher server has been moved at the same time along with its 15Gb (and rising) of content files: you're able to view the latest files direct from the home page but to explore it properly you'll need a proper gopher client app; more on this later...
The site is primarily a technical site, but I do write about other things as well: if you like coffee, beer, home-baked bread, alternative beliefs, minimalist computing and walking you've come to the right place. And then there's the Green Man of course...
Blog Content
Our famed collection of technical and other ramblings is available in our blog.
As is the norm here, there's an eclectic collection of articles that will inspire / amaze / offend / amuse you. Written by a human, AI-free.
Quite some time ago, when I was neither young nor old, I experienced a life-changing event.
Like many people who have been in that situation, I imagine, I decided to take a mental step
back and re-evaluate my life. I figured that it was as good a time as any, and if it prepared
me for the Road Ahead, then so much the better. I made a list of things to look at and maybe change
if I needed to, and one of those things was what I actually believed in. Rather than fill this page,
I've decided to write a blog entry, which you can read
here.
Gopherspace
Why Gopher?
There are many reasons to use gopher: here's a summary:
Simplicity & Speed – Gopher’s plain-text, menu-driven structure makes it extremely lightweight. It loads fast even on low-bandwidth connections or old hardware.
Focus & Minimalism – No ads, no JavaScript, no tracking. It’s purely about reading and sharing text. Great for distraction-free browsing or retro computing enthusiasts.
Archival & Preservation – Gopher hosts valuable archives of early internet content and public-domain texts, many of which are hard to find.
Educational Value – It’s an excellent way to learn about early internet design, protocols, and networking fundamentals.
Nostalgia & Aesthetics – Some people simply enjoy its 1990s-era feel and the small, tight-knit Gopher community.
Client Apps For All Platforms – There's no shortage of client apps available to install. Click here for a list.
Recognising right-wing extremists/Nazis by their dress code (machine-translated from German)
15kb
Last updated: Thu Jan 15 21:00:02 2026
Stats
As at Thu Jan 15 21:00:01 2026: 15,828 files, 16,244,195,527 (16G) bytes in our gopherspace
Monitoring Our Carbon Footprint
The whole point of this project is to run a useful, responsive web server that uses as few
resources as possible. I'm attempting a design which balances form and function,
and the carbon footprint of loading/viewing this, and other pages is low.
This is normally just 0.01g of CO2/view and you can verify this by
visiting
Website Carbon and The Green Web Foundation.
Lately, I'm taking more of an interest (and therefore an active approach) to where Skircoat's
electric power comes from, and a few days of research has resulted in an up-to-date breakdown
of the power sources that are used to generate the region's power. There's an update every 30
minutes via the API provided by the ESO/National Grid.
Suffice to say that the continued heavy
reliance on fossil fuels is extremely worrying. Yes,
'biomass'
as used in Yorkshire's Drax is still a fossil fuel, and the situation is made worse by the fact
that it's "mainly imported from the Southern USA (by sea!) but also from Europe, Canada and
Southern America". according to Drax. I smell greenwashing, but read
this
and decide for yourself. Oh, and there's a recent
article in the Independent (alt link) that lays bare more of the
unpleasant facts...
We run on Green Energy!
Skircoat Green Electricity Power Sources
See below for statistics, updated every 30 minutes.
Fuel sources for HX3, supplied by NG-ESO Region NPG Yorkshire
OK?
Fuel Type
Percentage Used
N
Biomass
23.2 %
N
Gas
50.4 %
Y
Wind
26.4 %
Fuel sources not used (0%) are excluded: Coal, Imports, Nuclear, Other, Hydro, Solar
Sample period 2026-01-15 20:30 UTC to 2026-01-15 21:00 UTC
Blog 
![[Link to file]](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAYAAAAf8/9hAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABGklEQVQ4jYXTwStEURTH8c+8JiwkTZaS/AeW/gU72VmSpsFCsp9bSiwUKUmKpZ2ysPE32Aj5D6TEpGiSJot5M57XuzNnc2+nc77nd+/v3pJYBBO4xXAm28rt70tRQBsyi0sMRCqaSR/ANebxEyspC2Ady6igAz0W1DGFcgxQEmxgT/tMX+m0C6xiBYc9NDbLqOIb04LHjPy1Ps2kcito5JoXcNCjr+tGovh8S/7uIh8nmEtVR4tuIvlT1ARXKSRq4w6OCiZXtS+2Y/FMMSCg7UIdd+lawyZ2M3VPBO+Cl4iSPPhZ8JlNJXq8soJI/P8PEnxgVDDZZ/o4RvCWTZdxhi08CF57ICoYwnkesI1BLGJMsbUtNLCfDuvGL2H2QDOO2W5KAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC "[Link to file]")
Download historical data from 2021-11-29 18:00 UTC to 2026-01-15 21:00 UTC.