Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#321

Post by renewiltord » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

j4yav wrote: post #314

yumraj wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

old Slashdot had an anti MS and pro Linux bias, but nothing more. It was more free spirited. It was not dominated with startups and VCs and did not go overboard trying to moderate certain kind of discussions. I do love HN, but it is still part of YC and allows some commercial activity and I feel at times goes overboard on flagging certain kind of discussions and comments (I'm not referring to obvious trolling and uns…

What happened to Slashot in the end? I went there a few months back and the topics are still being added but the comments section on all articles was off topic conspiracy theory rant type stuff, with nobody replying to each other.

If you let losers in, eventually you'll only have losers. That's because losers drive out non-losers.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#322

Post by deerpig » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

Yahoo, when it was a single page with a couple of dozen links. I think that was before there was a browser for Windows -- I was using the Omniweb browser on a NeXT Color workstation. I still miss the original Wired and later Wired News.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#323

Post by mech422 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

taborj wrote: post #315

mech422 wrote: post #272

I miss the feeling of 'exploring' I got everytime I found a new .edu gopher server... Tracking down all the nooks and crannies looking for documents related to tech. How awesome it felt went you found some lecture notes/thesis that was just _gold_ and you could curl up and read it ... Stonybrook algorithm repository was a similiar feeling...just going thru and exploring all the different techniques people have come u…

Fun fact: gopher is still alive! It's not the same as back in the early 90s, but the protocol and some servers are alive and kicking.

Yeah? I haven't looked in years... Though I think I've probably lost some of the feeling of wonder exploring those servers 20 years ago engendered. For a young coder, from a small town with basically zero tech resources - they seemed like the library of Alexandria :-)

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#324

Post by milquetoastaf » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

jrossi94 wrote: post #149

proper slashdot, freshmeat, kuro5hin, digg and aicn

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#325

Post by xzel » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #232

what.cd It was truly the Library of Alexandria of music. Cataloging standards were high and you could find even obscure releases in perfect quality in multiple formats (CD rips, multiple vinyl rips). Now I use Spotify and it frustrates me that songs will disappear without notice because their license expired and that I can't find most foreign music I previously listened to. The audio quality isn't comparable, either.

I truly miss what.cd. I spent so many hours listening to music, finding old, new and eclectic music, chatting in the forums and debating on the individual torrent comments. I think I actually shed a tear when I saw it was closed. Thankfully there has been a real attempt to replace what we lost.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#326

Post by haroldp » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #232

what.cd It was truly the Library of Alexandria of music. Cataloging standards were high and you could find even obscure releases in perfect quality in multiple formats (CD rips, multiple vinyl rips). Now I use Spotify and it frustrates me that songs will disappear without notice because their license expired and that I can't find most foreign music I previously listened to. The audio quality isn't comparable, either.

"What" replace "Oink", and "Redacted" replaced What. It's all still out there.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#327

Post by todd3834 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

This site is still online but I have no idea if it is the same. https://www.ca-zeb.com originally called zebulun… It started as a hacking challenge and they created something called CyberArmy with ranks etc… It was a really great time as a kid.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#328

Post by nickysielicki » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

Some of these are still around, but none are in the form I remember them:

NSider Nintendo forums

slashdot

somethingawful

facepunch

freenode

digitalgangster

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#329

Post by hadlock » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:57 AM UTC

Weather Underground.... classic

Up until 2015 Weather Underground was the top weather website, had huge amounts of information density, easy to navigate... fast

I'm not sure what the current incarnation of Weather Underground is, but it is nothing like it's former self. Wunderground was sold off to... IBM? and then later... The Weather Channel? At some point the "classic" website was finally turned off for good. It was a sad day.

Ever since ~2015 there hasn't been a good, "go to" weather website. Dark Sky came out not long after wunderground classic, and it looks like recently Apple bought them. Dark Sky is no Wunderground Classic, but it's a good attempt.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#330

Post by dvtrn » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 5:57 AM UTC

3dfightclub - timed 3D modeling battles where you had short (or sometimes long) periods to make a render of whatever the given prompt was.

Community votes on the winner, winner got to pick the next prompt.

Made some lifelong friends there.

Also the original yourethemannowdog.com