Waiting Until it's Presentable
Old Internet inspiration
There was something about the old internet that was way more fun. Communities were more siloed, had their own rules and expectations, and there were so many more of them. The internet may have been smaller but it felt way bigger than it does today. Today it feels like there are only a handful of active places and most other small communities outside of those always die off. It seems dangerous to have only a handful of companies controlling the majority of access to speech on the internet; especially considering their decisions are not always fair or reasonable.
A lot of the content also felt more authentic and genuine. When I was a kid and I would search for “Dinosaurs” I’d find sites with pages that were designed and crafted with care by some guy who wasn’t an archeologist but was just really into dinosaurs. Sometimes that’s the guy who I want to hear from when I’m a kid looking up dinosaur facts. Many of these sites before archive.org will never be found again. It’s not really on the internet forever; it just depends if someone cares to save it.
Aidan showed me this site which got me feeling nostalgic about the old internet. I decided I’d like to update my site to have a more retro kind of style (maybe, eventually) after it led me here: dvd3000.ca.
It’s not sleek or fancy or following modern design standards, but it doesn’t need to. I like how chaotic it is, where every page has a different style to it. His site is a hot mess and a rabbit hole, but I’m intrigued by it. It has endless links going in every direction, and I couldn’t keep myself from spending a couple hours exploring it. He is 19 and started his site while he was in grade school, and actually maintained and updated it all this time.
Too many sites are ephemeral these days. It’s nice to find some that feel more unique, hand-crafted, with care put into them. It reminds me of how I felt when I got started making my first sites, when I only did it for the fun of it. After digging around for a while, I ran into this quote, which I may not have posted anything at all if I hadn’t read it:
it’s like word processing in public
like it doesn’t stop
waiting til you have something presentable can literally add months to your web development cycle. Nothing to make you change your pages like some feedback on incomplete work!the sooner you put up your pages, the sooner your friends and family and the like-minded can link to you.
And why not keep track of it on a new quotes page. And for good measure, I might as well keep track of some links too.
Artificial Intelligence Fatigue
I’m starting to get real sick of some of this “AI” business, with everyone plugging everything into ChatGPT. I was excited like everyone else last November when the thing came out but now I’m more interested in finding genuine human authenticity. There is a distinction between handmade and machine-made products because handmade products take more time and skill to create and therefore can be more expensive. The results are not as uniform as machine made products, which makes them more unique. I think the same logic can be applied to digital work. So, from now on, all of my projects will come with a physical Seal of Authenticity, guaranteeing that they were 100% Handcrafted with Genuine Human Hands, possibly with AI assistance, of course.
Making up words
Inventing words is fun. New slang always sucks, and making my own is way better. My new words aren’t even slang, they are official entries in my new dictionary.
- Mazeular: A combination of the words “maze” and “modular.” In this context, “mazeular” could refer to a modular or adaptable maze or a maze composed of interchangeable parts.
And behold, a dictionary.