Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does anyone remember websites?

tttthis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 386 posts

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#231

Post by djur »

cheschire wrote: post #195
pers0n wrote: post #193

Another thing is people often just go to Wikipedia, Wikipedia replaced the need for many fan sites. I had things copied from my sites and put on Wikipedia and tired to get a link back or a source mentioned and it was removed each time. So I lost motivation to even update fan sites, since whatever I type is going to get pasted onto Wikipedia with no link back.

And wikia. That replaced much of the need for fictional fan sites. I visit memory alpha weekly.

Unfortunately, Wikia looks like it's in the process of becoming a cautionary tale, with its recent move to start injecting its own video content into certain high-traffic wikis and a general decline in customizability and independence.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#232

Post by indubitable »

always_good wrote: post #73
outsidetheparty wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what we have now is a paradise compared to what we had then Here's how I recall it: Back in the day, you'd search for subject {$foo} and you would find mostly websites written by some cranky bearded weirdo who is obsessed with {$foo}, who has devoted weeks of his time to personally collating his every thought about {$foo} into one ghastly-looking site. Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully tem…

> Nowadays, you search for {$foo} and find mostly beautifully template-designed pages of text written by indifferent fiverr freelancers who had about 20 minutes to stuff in as many keywords into as many column inches wrapped around as many ad slots as possible before moving on to the next subject. Yeesh, does anyone else have this opinion? I sure don't. It's never been more trivial to find good, enriching content. Ho…

Can you prove an old crotcheteer wrong?

Let's take a really simple example. I'd like to see information about "rocket engines." Just masses and masses of enthusiast information for/from a technical point of view. Think something like Atomic Rockets [1] but more technical and less sci fi. An example of the 'ethos' I'm talking about would be something analogous to Fredric Parker's videos about KIC 8462852 / Tabby's Star / 'that star with the really bizarre dimming characteristics' [2]. Just an informed, obsessive, educated enthusiast targeting the exact same. I'm certain such sites exist. In the days before 80% of Google's links went to the same 20% of sites, they were really easy to find.

Google is excellent at finding low grade mass media on the latest topics, but I think their ability to find meaningful information has been deteriorating. E.g. getting back to those video's on tabby's star - if I search google for the same, I find no less than 4 hits with aliens in the title and just about as many alluding to have found 'the' explanation. It's complete trash (though Fredric's videos do hit the second page!). Granted, it's closer than the hardcore porn I might have found on the first page searching in the late 90s, but it seems like we've replaced porn with clickbait. If that's my choice, I'd prefer tits.

[1] - http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHLjfagBDOw

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#233

Post by fractallyte »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #201
rb666 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hit "Surprise me" and first site it hits autodownloads a .mid file, that used to work better I 'member.

I hit "Surprise me" and got this gem: http://g2mil.com . I like that search site already.

Thanks for that! Superbly informative website.

Someone, quick - point Ukraine and the Baltic states to this article "The Tank is Dead": http://g2mil.com/Anti-armor.htm

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#234

Post by jhiska »

snerbles wrote: post #88
jasode wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with 1980s dial-up modems (slow 300 baud!) to dial directly into BBS systems and USENET. I then continued dialup access into the early internet (GNN not AOL) in 1995. I now have Verizon fiber optic. To me, the modern web today is better in virtually every way compared to 1990s web surfing. + Google search engine is better than Alta Vista and Excite. + Google Maps with smooth scroll, 3D streetview, and satel…

Respectfully disagree on more votes == better. Visible score systems often lead to groupthink, and commenters aiming for the lowest common denominator in the form of karma whoring. While HN has some measures to reduce hivemind voting, it's quite rampant on the default subreddits.

Voting is gamed by corporations and governments -- easy with a few thousand IP addresses.

Comments are manipulated by teams of paid "trolls", including in English, and including Hacker News (when the article is of interest to a particular corp or gov -- like the Tesla mass firing article on Hacker News recently, just to give an example I know of).

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#235

Post by gfodor »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #74

It's clever of the author to use "website" in this more specific sense. Technically a "website" roughly means anything served as HTML over HTTP. But all us fogeys know what his title meant anyway. But I still think he protests too much. The style subject-oriented websites which the author is referring to evolved slightly and got the new name "blogs". The blogosphere might not be as popular as social networking, but i…

Eh, I don't think blogs are really that equivalent to old school websites. Blog, being short for "web log" implies a temporal-based feed of posts. Old school sites were often much more varied, webs of pages broken up by subject or topic with links scattered everywhere to the rest of the web.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#236

Post by jhiska »

userbinator wrote: post #80
ambrosite wrote: post #30

I do remember those websites. For me, the difference is that now the Web is much more useful, but back then it was a lot more fun. True, you could sometimes waste hours following random links hoping to find something good, but the thrill of discovery when you stumbled across a gold mine of information was a huge part of the appeal. Nowadays, anyone with a basic understanding of search engines can find almost anything…

Nowadays, anyone with a basic understanding of search engines can find almost anything they want within seconds. Almost anything popular and rather insipid, yes. Try to find more detailed information on very specific topics, however, and you'll discover that search engines like Google have been optimising more and more for the former content, making it harder to find the latter. I don't think that's a good thing at a…

You want in-depth information. Books are the go-to media for that.

Try Google Books.

The Internet encapsulates all media.

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#238

Post by [deleted] »

Zhenya wrote: post #184
dogcow wrote: post #167

Check out the search engine at http://wiby.me From their about page: Search engines like Google are indispensable, able to find answers to all of your technical questions; but along the way, the fun of web surfing was lost. In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercia…

My favorite website: http://www.otherhand.org/ And my favorite article on it: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... (No association)

[deleted]

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#239

Post by [deleted] »

spc476 wrote: post #190
dogcow wrote: post #167

Check out the search engine at http://wiby.me From their about page: Search engines like Google are indispensable, able to find answers to all of your technical questions; but along the way, the fun of web surfing was lost. In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercia…

That site reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote: “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

[deleted]

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#240

Post by DamonHD »

albeebe1 wrote: post #153

My website still uses tables http://albeebe.com/

Here is my '90s vintage still alive and kicking (we were one of the first UK ISPs):

http://www.exnet.com/

and a new old site also built with hand-crafted HTML but CSS rather than tables!

http://m.earth.org.uk/

It's nonsense to say that such things no longer exist.

Post reply on HN