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Using the internet like it's 1999

joshblais.com

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Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#121

Post by 101008 »

tsylba wrote: post #120

Albeit I agree with the general thesis, I find it funny that the very next sentence after the author say: > the moment I find something that crosses my desk which starts with “it’s not this, it’s THIS”, I immediately click off and move on. He follows it by his very own "It's THIS, not this" statement: > I want real people, real creators, and real content in my feed, not LLM slop. The Machine must have learn it somewh…

To be fair, it's different. The order is important. If he would have written "It is not LLM slop what I want, is real people, real creators, and real content no my feed", it would have sound like AI. But not in the way he wrote it.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#122

Post by nick__m »

vunderba wrote: post #4

If it were 1999, most people would still be browsing the web on their US Robotics 56k modem (at best). This page is about 1 MB of assets (500kb gzip compressed if your browser supported it) , so it would have taken at least a minute just to finish loading.

I had cable internet in 1997; it was wonderful in it's unmetered¹ symmetric 10Mbs glory.

1) wasn't supposed to be unlimited but the ISP didn't bother to mesure it until sometime in 2000

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#123

Post by anatoli_k »

deadbabe wrote: post #34

I think it’s time to give up on the old web. What made the old web cool, is that it was the first time we can communicate with so many random people in far away places digitally and share information through cool web pages. That novelty has mostly died now. Communicating with people in distant lands is mundane now. And there is little new things to share that we haven’t already seen or heard before. So what’s the poi…

[flagged]

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#124

Post by slumberlust »

klondike_klive wrote: post #118
9dev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they are by now, though. The websites of social media sites are crippled and bug-ridden - try using Instagram in a browser, for example. They want to coerce you into using their apps, because that gives them better tracking opportunities.

That's just what I've been doing after deleting Instagram from my. phone. I can't trust my evening dopamine-seeking behaviour with the phone app, but there's much much less stickiness in the browser.

Tried greyscale yet?

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#125

Post by bryanrasmussen »

xg15 wrote: post #106
stra1ghtarrow90 wrote: post #97

part of the problem is that most people don't own a pc or personal laptop - they use their phone and apps. None of my friends (35 years +) use laptops other than for work and openly say how much they have regressed technically. Some of these guys grew up with the internet in the early 00's and would be setting up switches for lan partys, using torrents and usenxt, limewire etc. These days they can barely open up micr…

Yeah, I don't think the true scale of the "war on general computation" is apparent for many technical people: It's good to think about alternative distribution models for the internet, better use of protocols, etc - but a large and growing number of users literally don't have (administrative) control over their client devices anymore. The "cognitive control" of tech companies is underpinned by a much more concrete te…

>but a large and growing number of users literally don't have (administrative) control over their client devices anymore.

would those users have had devices over which they had administrative control in the past though? Perhaps for software to eat the world, and for hardware to get distributed far enough that it could, a percentage of the world had to forego administrative rights when getting that hardware.

I suppose those who miss it can still get it, although yes, for how much longer is a question.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#126

Post by myself248 »

anilakar wrote: post #110

We should also also embrace offline mode more. Disable all network connections until you make a conscious choice to go online. Heck, make a Windows 3.1-esque GUI for it and call it Trombone Winsock just for fun. If any program complains it needs network connectivity for offline features, it goes into the Recycle Bin.

I found myself doing a particularly intense stint of work the other day, finally had all the source documents and the destination program all lined up, happily finding and comparing and synthesizing and entering, and I realized it was going to take all night. Or realistically until the middle of the next day.

I put the laptop into airplane mode, to block any updates that might unceremoniously reboot it and wreck my layout. Figure if I needed to be on Teams in the meantime, I've still got a phone for that.

Airplane mode already exists, it's _wonderful_ for this, and I should use it more often. If I'm not actively internetting, just toggle that and the distractions can wait.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#127

Post by myself248 »

pjmorris wrote: post #71
pragma_x wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It even comes pre-packaged with a theme song.

I confess that I had this in mind. Is it time to start running LAN parties again?

I've been to several retro LAN parties recently. They're wonderful, and they cost nothing to run. 10/100 switches are free, and cat5 nearly so, and the people attending can probably bring plenty of both.

Today is Friday. Send out a group text right now. Saturday evening. Bring whatever. We'll order pizza, it'll be a good time. Make it happen.

Logistically: One was specifically focused on the CDROM era. Any game that shipped on CD or came out roughly 1995-2005 was fair game, and the organizers mentioned a few by name that you might want to pre-install. The other was anything-goes, networking optional; I brought a TI 99/4A and a handful of cartridges, and it was very popular, apparently that grabbed a bunch of folks right in the childhood, in between rounds of Quake.

The only thing missing was the Josta. RIP.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#128

Post by myself248 »

msla wrote: post #30
Loughla wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a lot more careful about clicking things when it took a full minute to load. Now I know that it'll be open in less than a second and I can leave immediately if I need to, so there's WAY less thinking beforehand.

Also, tabbed browsing was still a couple years off for most people, although some browsers got there earlier than others: > In 1994, BookLink Technologies featured tabbed windows in its InternetWorks browser.[citation needed] That same year, the text editor UltraEdit also appeared with a modern multi-row tabbed interface. The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997…

I just opened multiple copies of the browser; I'd have 5 or 10 running most of the time on my 98se box. It's where I got my habit which I still use today, of opening outlinks as I read the page, so they can load in the background, then once I finish the content of this page, I'll go skim those to fill in context.

It meant I cared _less_ about page load time, even on dialup, because they were happening in other windows. I could happily tolerate a 2-minute load time as long as the first page took more than 2 minutes to read.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#129

Post by myself248 »

icedchai wrote: post #55
vunderba wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! We were one of the first families on the block to have a 33.6 kbps modem, and were the envy of every filthy peasant who still had a 28.8 back in the day.

My first dialup modem was 1200 baud, back in 1987! I remember it taking an hour to download a game from a local warez BBS. My first modem to establish an Internet connection (SLIP) was 9600, sometime around 1993! Time flies...

And if the sysop had upgraded to 28.8 while you were still on 2400, you were probably persona non grata for tying up the line for so long!

Some of the most popular boards had minimum connect speeds; if you couldn't connect at at least 9600 or 14.4k, it would immediately hang up on you, for this reason.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#130

Post by myself248 »

deadbabe wrote: post #34

I think it’s time to give up on the old web. What made the old web cool, is that it was the first time we can communicate with so many random people in far away places digitally and share information through cool web pages. That novelty has mostly died now. Communicating with people in distant lands is mundane now. And there is little new things to share that we haven’t already seen or heard before. So what’s the poi…

And we were just getting a breath of fresh-air after being restricted to local phone calls (or paying ghastly long-distance phone bills). Finally we could communicate anywhere for one price!

Without that context, it all falls flat, I agree.

I've considered trying to make a speed-of-light-ping-limited BBS that can _only_ be connected to by actual-locals, but reality is harder. (And the moment it got popular, nefarious actors would just rent or compromise a box in-radius.)

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