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A website to destroy all websites

henry.codes

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Re: A website to destroy all websites

#211

Post by II2II »

pavlus wrote: post #148
Aurornis wrote: post #25

I think the comments here are a great example of why this idea always sounds better in nostalgic reminiscence than in practice: As I write this, nearly half of the comments here are complaining about this website. There are complaints about requiring JavaScript, the font size, the design, the color choices, the animations. Complaints about everything the designer did to make this site unique and personal, which was t…

I've read your comment before visiting the site, and it got me wondering -- how bad can it be? Can it be worse than those acid green on red sites of the 90s-00s? Imagine my surprise, when I opened the site and it looked and felt just like a museum or art exhibit. This was the literal feeling I had -- being at an art gallery, but online. I guess, these comments tell more about the commenters, than TFA. We should remin…

> Can it be worse than those acid green on red sites of the 90s-00s?

I think people are nostalgic for the social environment that enabled people to create websites of all fashions, may they be well or poorly designed. We simply hold up the poorly designed websites as an example of how accessible content creation was ("hey, anyone can do it"), though perhaps we should hold up the better sites ("hey, look at what we can accomplish").

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#212

Post by agnosticmantis »

I’ve started experimenting with Quarto[0] for scientific/technical publishing on a personal website, and it’s been quite easy to use so far. I especially like that it has builtin support for LaTeX, markdown, code blocks and Jupyter notebooks. Only thing is I wish there were more templates ready to use.

[0] https://quarto.org

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#213

Post by venturecruelty »

Aurornis wrote: post #25

I think the comments here are a great example of why this idea always sounds better in nostalgic reminiscence than in practice: As I write this, nearly half of the comments here are complaining about this website. There are complaints about requiring JavaScript, the font size, the design, the color choices, the animations. Complaints about everything the designer did to make this site unique and personal, which was t…

I don't know when this retcon happened, but this was never actually a site for hackers. People here complain because they like the modern web, because it pays their salaries. They get fabulously rich because of the steady enshittification of the web.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#214

Post by venturecruelty »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #34
Aurornis wrote: post #25

I think the comments here are a great example of why this idea always sounds better in nostalgic reminiscence than in practice: As I write this, nearly half of the comments here are complaining about this website. There are complaints about requiring JavaScript, the font size, the design, the color choices, the animations. Complaints about everything the designer did to make this site unique and personal, which was t…

[flagged]

Lmao sure. Every comment I make about unions gets downvoted, and every comment about "maybe it's okay to destroy the planet for one more solid quarter" shoots into the stratosphere.

More projection here than a drive-in movie theatre... This website sucks, but not because of any (incorrectly) perceived leftwing bias.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#215

Post by baubino »

pavlus wrote: post #148
Aurornis wrote: post #25

I think the comments here are a great example of why this idea always sounds better in nostalgic reminiscence than in practice: As I write this, nearly half of the comments here are complaining about this website. There are complaints about requiring JavaScript, the font size, the design, the color choices, the animations. Complaints about everything the designer did to make this site unique and personal, which was t…

I've read your comment before visiting the site, and it got me wondering -- how bad can it be? Can it be worse than those acid green on red sites of the 90s-00s? Imagine my surprise, when I opened the site and it looked and felt just like a museum or art exhibit. This was the literal feeling I had -- being at an art gallery, but online. I guess, these comments tell more about the commenters, than TFA. We should remin…

I too think it’s a beautiful website and really refreshing in its simplicity. Too often “good design” means “needlessly complex.” The design of the site also nicely fits the argument being made in the text.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#216

Post by venturecruelty »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #45
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN is so depressing, but at the same time so Im addicted to it. It’s like tiktok but for people who enjoy plain text and hacking related stuff. When I first visited HN more than 10 years ago (without account) like, 90% of the content was exciting and you got to learn something. Nowadays it’s about 40-50%, and the rest is crap (including comments). I have been trying to leave HN, let’s see if I can do it in 2026.

1. Delete your account.

2. Block the website.

3. Critically evaluate your goals, and whether or not your actions align with those goals.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#217

Post by ryandrake »

madeofpalk wrote: post #129
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I promise you Hacker News was exactly like this back in 2011. > It has become political (toward the left) I wonder what you're talking about - your definition of 'political' or 'left'. Tech and politics are so deeply intrenched. More than just "is DEI evil and there's no such thing as algorithmic bias". Should Apple be restricted from collecting its Apple Tax and locking down its devices?? Should the EU be able to re…

It would be informative if, when someone complains that XYZ is "to the left" they define exactly what they mean. Is the person they are complaining about really advocating for the proletariat to seize the means of production?

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#218

Post by venturecruelty »

jimbokun wrote: post #154
Y_Y wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "negative" to identify shitty things as being shitty? I wouldn't necessarily blame the commenters for that.

It's useless without describing concrete, practical solutions to those problems. What do the voters want? Zero taxes, no crime, world peace and infinite benefits. It's easy to identify things as shitty because the above doesn't describe the world yet and thus it's a banal observation. Implementing real, practical improvements is really hard and requires much more thought and consideration and introduces the possibili…

Not every complaint needs to have a goddamn essay attached describing some utopia. Sometimes you just need to kvetch, and I'm sick of getting tone policed otherwise about it.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#219

Post by AnimalMuppet »

shimman wrote: post #167
jimbokun wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useless without describing concrete, practical solutions to those problems. What do the voters want? Zero taxes, no crime, world peace and infinite benefits. It's easy to identify things as shitty because the above doesn't describe the world yet and thus it's a banal observation. Implementing real, practical improvements is really hard and requires much more thought and consideration and introduces the possibili…

Why don't people that perpetuate the current system defend its existence? Why is the onus on us to develop a new realm of government when the current system never had to do this? Your comment is "but you live in society too!" Society acknowledging the shitty things is the first action in rectifying them.

God did not create the current system of government on the seventh day of creation. The current system had to defend its existence (or rather, creation) at the time of its origin.

The thing about criticism is, we're a long way from "the worst possible outcome". That is, there is a lot that the current system gets right.

That's why the burden of proof gets put on the one proposing changes. The wrong change could make things worse rather than better, and we really don't want that.

So it's not enough to note that society is broken in some ways. Yes, it is. Yes, we notice too. Now, what are you proposing? Let's take a hard look at your concrete proposal, and see whether it's an improvement or not.

Oh, you don't have one? Yes, it's still valid to point out that there are problems. It's valid to demand that we not become complacent with the current problems. That's not wrong.

Re: A website to destroy all websites

#220

Post by 100721 »

LPisGood wrote: post #64
tkiolp4 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is so depressing, but at the same time so Im addicted to it. It’s like tiktok but for people who enjoy plain text and hacking related stuff. When I first visited HN more than 10 years ago (without account) like, 90% of the content was exciting and you got to learn something. Nowadays it’s about 40-50%, and the rest is crap (including comments). I have been trying to leave HN, let’s see if I can do it in 2026.

Haven’t people been saying that since the late 2000’s?

It's still really early 2000's! We have over 900 years left :)

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On topic: discussions like these are as old as human discussion forums and communities. I think that the participants each grow and change on an individual level just as much as the community and platform does. I think humans have a hard time identifying how much of their feelings of nostalgia are based in reality.

Maybe the platform has not actually changed in the ways people fear, and instead, peoples' opinions on what is interesting, important, or valuable has changed?

Since this thread has been discussing politics-adjacent things, let's consider Senator John Fetterman from the United States. Mr. Fetterman is notably different today from when he first started his campaign, regarding what he believes is important and valuable. (Mr. Fetterman suffered a stroke, which is suspected to have brought about personality changes and shifts in political ideology.)

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I think we, as individuals, should always be focusing our first line of questioning on how _we're_ changing, rather than trying to figure out how the world, or the zeitgeist, or Hacker News, etc. is changing.

Sometimes we outgrow things that we hold dear, and instead of accepting that it's not really the place for us anymore and moving on to a different environment, we try to shape our current environment around our new personality by instituting new rules or adding new features.

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