111–120 of 286 posts
You explored it. That's it. Turns out there's less of it than you imagined. There are, of course, plenty of sites that you could visit. Most of them will be incredibly boring. Years ago you found that interesting just because it was all new, but you don't any more because you've seen similar things already. I suspect that most of those "5 to 6 sites" are aggregators like Hacker News where people seek out new stuff (o…
I feel I still explore the Internet. Sites like HN introduce me to new sites all the time as does Google search.
I've put some thought on this topic, and I think the driving force between the Internet seeming so small nowadays is a combination of changes to how search engines work, as well a move from forums to big social media which has meant a shift from organic community discovery to being drip-fed content from based on what an algorithm thinks will be engaging. The Internet, as you remember it, still very much exists. Some…
Well for starters, we used to call it "Surfing the Internet" not "exploring the internet". The modern web was designed to rope you in and keep you there. Look up random stuff that interests you, not using a big name search engine. Then if you find a site on a webring, and look at connecting sites.
You explored it. That's it. Turns out there's less of it than you imagined. There are, of course, plenty of sites that you could visit. Most of them will be incredibly boring. Years ago you found that interesting just because it was all new, but you don't any more because you've seen similar things already. I suspect that most of those "5 to 6 sites" are aggregators like Hacker News where people seek out new stuff (o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Brown
gonna go for a walk. bye.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is half the explanation. The other half is that people stopped making cool internet things just out of the passion and craft of it. Now everything on the internet is "content," a hyper optimized form of human intellectual output that is devoid of art, minimal on information, excreted instead of created, measured to the lowest common denominator, monetized yet worthless, just enough bait on the hook for t…
> The other half is that people stopped making cool internet things Nah, it was always a small group of people making cool internet things. Now they are just drowned out by the commercial internet.
But they're not putting those things on quirky hand-coded websites, so Hacker News doesn't care. The idea that most of the modern web is boring, uninteresting and not worth anyone's time is just peak tech-hipster contrarian nonsense. Sheer volume alone would suggest that, even if that were true, the interesting remainder would still be bigger than one could see within a lifetime.
You explored it. That's it. Turns out there's less of it than you imagined. There are, of course, plenty of sites that you could visit. Most of them will be incredibly boring. Years ago you found that interesting just because it was all new, but you don't any more because you've seen similar things already. I suspect that most of those "5 to 6 sites" are aggregators like Hacker News where people seek out new stuff (o…
I think this is half the explanation. The other half is that people stopped making cool internet things just out of the passion and craft of it. Now everything on the internet is "content," a hyper optimized form of human intellectual output that is devoid of art, minimal on information, excreted instead of created, measured to the lowest common denominator, monetized yet worthless, just enough bait on the hook for t…
Just because strip malls are plentiful, doesn't mean good architecture no longer exists.
And I remember the old days. For every hand-crafted gem of a site, there were a 100 with little more than a grainy photo of Slipknot and an "under construction" animation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is half the explanation. The other half is that people stopped making cool internet things just out of the passion and craft of it. Now everything on the internet is "content," a hyper optimized form of human intellectual output that is devoid of art, minimal on information, excreted instead of created, measured to the lowest common denominator, monetized yet worthless, just enough bait on the hook for t…
This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. Usually more often. Even in the hellscapes of Twitter or Facebook, you'll find interesting writing, weird animations, or new illustrations. There's immense creativity released daily. Too much for one person to ever keep up with. Just because strip malls are plentiful, doesn't mean good architecture no longer exists.…
I will sometimes start with a zone file, like com.zone. I search for keywords in registered domainnames. Then I filter by nameserver (registrar). Finally, I run a script to fetch the page titles. You would be surprised at how effective this can be in finding websites that you would never be able to find using simple Google searches. Of course, it is cumbersome; search engines can make this process very easy but they…