the field manual
why visit?
The protocol's own introduction, philosophy, documentation and software links.
a small doorway. a whole other internet.
Follow the little paths. Find something wonderful.
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_/./ \/ locating your corner of the world...
reading the sky...
calculating the moon...
Approximate IP region: IPWHOIS.io. Canadian observations/hourly forecasts: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Worldwide nearby observations: NOAA Aviation Weather Center. Global hourly model fallback: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0). Weather providers receive rounded coordinates, not your IP. Nearby station conditions can differ from your window; forecasts are estimates. Nearby weather stations may differ from your street. Automated clear-sky reports can miss high clouds. Regional scenery uses reviewed city silhouettes or nearby mapped features from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via VK Maps, using coordinates rounded to two decimal places. A compact NASA MODIS land-cover map provides worldwide scenery when local maps are unavailable. This 2024 map is sampled at about 11 km, so it depicts the broader region, not your street. Successful local map details are cached across restarts for up to 90 days. A country name uses a labelled representative capital from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); choose a city for local conditions. Holiday miniatures follow the selected region and local date, including nearby festive days. Their colors and motifs are decorations, not weather or statements about a visitor’s beliefs. Dates use the Hong Kong Observatory, Hebcal (CC BY 4.0), published country calendars and identified calendar estimates; local observances may vary. Choose Around the world to explore more traditions, or Off. Movable calendar dates currently cover 2026–2035. Each hour brings a fresh sketch. Use refresh sky to check the latest available weather and draw a new rendition; reloading the page keeps that rendition. Weather refreshes share provider data for up to a minute. VPNs can change the region; choose a city and country to correct it. The lunar phase is calculated from the current time; its tilt follows your approximate region. The small moon uses dim crater texture for its shadow and a bright rim for thin crescents; lit characters can represent partial illumination. It appears in the nighttime scene, including when below the horizon. This is a stylized sky, not an exact view from your window. Sunset colors follow the calculated sun, not observed cloud colors. Birds, occasional aircraft and night visitors are playful details, not live sightings.
Checking regional feeds...
These feeds cannot confirm that an area is safe. Follow local authorities; nearby reports do not establish local impact.
[ sources / regional notices ]Spartan’s own homepage describes a hobbyist protocol with just four status codes and familiar gemtext pages. Its maker puts simplicity and fun among the design goals. The source code and specification are part of the doorway.
Michael Lazar / Spartan →Spartan / tiny protocols / a fresh find each visit
Three hand-picked capsules. A fresh trail every day.
the field manual
The protocol's own introduction, philosophy, documentation and software links.
a laboratory of odd little doors
An early Gemini server with a long-running diary, its own source code, a quote machine and a Magic 8-Ball.
a personal maze of ideas
Sandra's capsule connects categorized essays, a tinylog, pictures and programming experiments. Pick a heading and follow a tangent.
Take a side path. These smaller indexes grow as our patient scouts explore.
Follow hand-built menus into phlogs, old computer lore and deep personal archives. The pre-web underground is still alive.
Counting the paths…
A tiny hobbyist protocol with familiar gemtext and a make-something-yourself spirit. Small, direct and experimental.
Counting the paths…
Plain-text stations connected by little links. Ride between writers, neighbourhoods and ASCII-lit corners of the small internet.
Counting the paths…
Gopher, Spartan and Nex use plaintext between our relay and the remote host. Your connection here stays HTTPS. Never send secrets through these worlds. Field notes & crawl policy →