Poor Man's Web Come Back



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Author	Poor Man's Web Come Back (Read 12889 times)
68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	on: March 04, 2023, 17:14 Good read here. Quote The Small Web. “Smol Internet” or even “The Dork Web”. Many names for the modern phenomena of people getting away from the Big Internet of corporate gatekeepers, where data is money and users don’t own any of it anymore. The Small Web is a reboot of the Internet as we know it. No, it’s not going to replace the Big Internet, but rather to create a niche for enthusiasts where people can freely express themselves, the tech stack is simple and transparent, where publishers have all the freedoms and consumers have a choice what to read. A place where time goes slowly and the content is created just for fun. Isn’t it what we had 20-30 years ago?

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #1 on: March 05, 2023, 07:42 Yes, we're seeing a lot of that. There's also new projects regarding the web 1.1, Smol Web etc. starting out every second monday it seems. I guess we've reached the point where a lot of people are just fed up with what the internet has become and want a better alternative. Us nerds lead the way ...

Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #2 on: March 05, 2023, 12:12 I root for the second coming of Gopher

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #3 on: March 05, 2023, 12:29 Just the other day a Google lookup for a simple SMTP setting landed me on a webpage with a chat window pop up where someone insistingly nagged me with the question: "What can I do for you?" "Well, vanish out of sight - how about that?!" - there was no way to make that popup disappear. "How about I sign you up for something?" "How about I come and burn your house down, if you keep harassing me like this?!" This kind of sheeyit used to happen only on purely commercial websites, but now you can't even google for some profile settings w/o getting redirected to a sale's pitch. I ended up leaving that site before I had even read three lines of text. And then it happened again and again. I think the advance of AI and chat bots is about to make this kind of intrusiveness obligatory on the "mainstream web". To be frank, I am considering to cancel my Facebook account and return back to IRC, ICQ & First Class (albeit the last one was actually new to me). Its this never ending sale's pitch I can't stomach no more. Today I wanted to see a video were Russia's Sergey Lavrov supposedly gets laughed out of the conference room by the (Indian?) audience in New Dehli. And I am sure there were some laughs somewhere, as that dude even has the looks of Boris Karloff in a suit. And then he talks in such lengthy sentences, that War & Peace sounds exciting compared to it. Yet after fewer than 10 minutes I had to give up, as the commercial advertisements (for a War Game - are you kidding me??) kept interrupting my train of thought every other minute. It was unbearable! What kind of a society are we turning into, when its all about "what can we sell you (for) today?"?? If you got no money to spend you are next to worthless in this world. And as much as I am a fan of capitalism, I am also a fanboi of the little guy (and genderspeak-free conversation). The Internet was supposed to be the realm of hyper-charged thought. A medium for the free flow of ideas, concepts and communication. Not a collection of marketplaces and (ever heavier) government regulated "social networks". It all started out with the BBS mimicking the blackboard in the student hall. A place where everyone could pin his piece of paper and hope to get an answer. Be it looking for a flat, a (new) playmate or trying to lure visitors to a happening in the park. You wouldn't hang pictures of your nightly adventures up there and you most certainly didn't (ab)use that public space to promote your sexual habits. If you took the time & effort to pin something, then it was stuff worth telling about. The Internet was supposed to be a blackboard with electronic benefits. But as easier it got to post something as more careless people became about what they posted there. And then the marketeers and politicians got a hold of it - and put the whole thing on a slippery slope towards sleazy town.
Last Edit: March 05, 2023, 12:38 by 68040
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #4 on: March 05, 2023, 14:43 Quote from: 68040 What kind of a society are we turning into, when its all about "what can we sell you (for) today?"?? ... American? turns and runs away

wove 1024 MB Posts: 1363	Reply #5 on: March 05, 2023, 17:12 It was something of a point of pride when I was younger to think that much of the world seemed to really like American stuff. Our clothes, music, dance was widely popular. I was always amazed that everybody liked jeans. But it does seem like we exported way too much crass commercialism. Americans do like their new shiney bobbles. "Oh my, that is three years old, we better get a new one." Stick a yellow new and improved label on anything and sale jump thirty percent. We get all worked up over race and gender. Discuss it endlessly on Facebook and such. It is always too shrill a discussion, but what irritates me the most is that in the midst of a heated discussion, some commercial entity feels that now it right time to try and sell me new tires, boots, socks, pots or whatever.

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #6 on: March 05, 2023, 17:25 During the decades I lived in the States I disovered Three Americas: The Hollywood kind: Glitzy, flashy and always in your face. Never liked that one. The coastal version: Busy, self absorbed and all day long after the almighty $. For far too long I thought that was the one to aspire to. Rural small town America: Narrow minded at times, isolationist to a fault, but always willing to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt. The first two hate this version with a vengeance and deriding it as "flyover country" is putting it politely. Any Hollywood movie ever made depicts that part of America as either populated by naive, gun crazy Bible-thumpers or monsters that go bump in the dark. And not even race or gender will inhibit your business career along the coast as much as an "accent from the heartland". Americans love to romanticize the simple life - and at the same time ostracize anyone trying to live it. Whilst throughout much of western Europe dwelling in a camper or mobile home is considered a valid alternative to a fixed roof over your head, such housing will earn you the nickname "trailer park trash" in the US in no time. And yeah, its meant as bad as it sounds. For me the stretch west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies was the best part of America. But its also the least populated and maybe these two are not entirely unrelated. People there prefer to judge a package by its content, rather than the wrapping it comes with. And yes, their morality is not too flexible, but that goes either way. I found as long as you follow the three basics - "How do you do?", "May I please?" and "Thank You!" - even people who might have a problem with your world view or your cultural heritage will treat you with civility. But that was rural America a decade ago. And from what I've been following in the news, the coastal hedonism has been spreading like a cancer throughout the rest of land since I left.
Last Edit: March 05, 2023, 18:16 by 68040
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #7 on: March 09, 2023, 11:36 Oh yes, but what you described was my experience in South Carolina and Alabama, where I have family. But you could clearly see how that lifestyle was eroding every time we visited them for the past 30+ years. I don't know how it is now. There was something very amiable about those rural people and I started to love hearing that drawl they speak. (who here understands: "Aah have an aah-lash in mah aah"?) :-D As a foreigner, I hated how your "Hollywood kind" and "Coastal Version" @68040 looked down on those people. Redneck, Hillybilly etc. Full of arrogance :-( Darn tootin', 'em rural folks are about to go extinct and it's a shame. Now I'll cut off the light and git some mighty tasty Banana Pudding ...

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #8 on: March 09, 2023, 12:09 I once was myself a root'n toot'n tumbleweed - but then fate deiced against me living out the rest of my days like that. And fate can be a bitch indeed.
Last Edit: March 09, 2023, 12:28 by 68040
Neal_SE30 256 MB Posts: 401 System 7 Newcomer!	Reply #9 on: March 09, 2023, 21:39 I’m all for simpler times. As soon as my dam se/30 is working i’m all over gopher. See if i can make a website on that.

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #10 on: March 10, 2023, 13:10 @Neal_SE30 - Times back then were not that simple at all. But they followed a certain logic that had been tried and proven throughout millennia. Religious wars were a thing of historic record and fantasy novels. People and nations fought over strategic interests or natural resources, not the invisible deity they prayed to. Ideology was something reserved for philosophical pressure chambers and political rallies - not a dish to be served daily at the dinner table. "Common sense" wasn't considered a four letter word, neither were pragmatism or compromise. Nobody considered "moral purity" as a requirement for engaging in mundane tasks such as choosing what's for supper or where to go on vacation. We consumed (a lot) less than the FFF kids of today - which I find amusing, given the accusatory tone of Greta Thunberg & Co. towards us elderly folk. And when we bought stuff - like a new computer system - we stuck with it as long as possible. We invested an amount of time and heart-blood into "making it work" that the "point & click & get satisfaction" kids of today could barely stomach. Many things - like doing research on a topic before the advert of search engines - were a lot more cumbersome than today. But when you went to a library in those days to look for books on damns or public power stations you needn't fear to be put on a terrorist blacklist behind your back. Genderspeak or Identity Politics were not even ripe for Hollywood comedy, much less that they'd creep into anything from spell-checkers to online advertising. In other words things were not "simple". But you didn't need an academic degree in philosophical gobbledigook, to be able to comprehend the daily news. Which by the way brought you facts and opinion pieces nicely separated and clearly marked from each other.
Last Edit: March 10, 2023, 13:23 by 68040
wove 1024 MB Posts: 1363	Reply #11 on: March 10, 2023, 14:16 A very nice thing one has on the internet today, is such a rich source of information. And one of the things that really shook me was realizing that all information is presented with a bias. I try and follow the conflict in the Ukraine. There are Ukrainian sources, Russian sources, Eastern European sources, Western European sources, Middle East sources. They all seem to be telling the same tales, but boy the perspectives on the information is all over the place. The internet certainly shakes the whole parochial view of, "I know what is what." For me anyway it made me realize that my world view can not be static, but needs to be something that is always evolving. Reaching a consensus really entails, accepting a diversity.

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #12 on: March 10, 2023, 18:42 @wove - well, there are no official "Russian sources" within the European Union, as the Internet domains of any news agency associated with Moscow have been banned even from Google searches - w/o comment. So its like they never even existed - which for me is an epiphany of Orwellian reality control. We live in an age were "diversity" is the battle cry throughout the realm - yet it explicitly excludes any diversity of opinion. Social media jet-streams and a 24/7 "news" cycle - that thrives on "moral mind pieces" as much as it does on cold hard facts - make it impossible to voice a different view w/o being immediately ostracized for it. But a Democracy can't work w/o a diversity of views, for it requires a multi-party political system to operate. And having multiple political parties makes no sense, if you have to either agree with the mainstream or be sidelined for being dumb or evil or both. The war in Ukraine is a perfect example for this: The government in Kiev has an official list with "Enemies of Ukraine" - were at one time even the Pope figured prominently. All it takes for you as a public persona to make it onto that list is to talk openly about this war w/o naming Russia as the aggressor and Ukraine as the hapless victim of the conflict. Of course you can have this view, for fact is that Putin's army fired the first shot. Or have they? For the Russians claim the war had been going on in the Donbas for many years before February 2022. Just that nobody in the West cared much for it as long as only Russian villagers ended up in the cross hairs. There is certainly plenty of beef on this bone to warrant many lengthy and heated discussions about it. And far be it from me to call out who is telling the truth and who isn't. For in all likelihood both sides are guilty of trying to murder the truth. But my point is that you can not discuss Good vs. Evil - for who is supposed to argue the side of evil? Who wants to play the devil's advocate? When I as young we knew that flawless justice was reserved for fairy tales and the hereafter. That in this world we needed to compromise on things, ranging from what's for dinner all the way to how to govern the country. That perfection in politics was the enemy of practicability. Yet nowadays moral purity trumps all. Or as one do-gooder once wrote in a news article: "We (as a society) would rather be poor than immoral". In the age of atomic weapons and hypersonic missiles that translates to: "We'd rather be dead than unjust!" But I for one rather be a breathing sinner than a stone cold saint.
Last Edit: March 10, 2023, 22:27 by 68040
68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #13 on: March 10, 2023, 23:26 To the point: I just saw a five minute long TV add from "Reporters without borders" being broadcast on German television. It was from the first second to the last an anti-Putin pro-Ukrainian piece of political advertising. Now don't get me wrong: War is no picnic in the park and I've got all the understanding in the world for people arguing hotblooded the side of the Yellow & Blue. But that does not go for folks whose entire claim to fame lies in their supposed objectivity and impartiality. Journalists are supposed to give us the facts and leave the "taking sides" part to the(ir) audience. At least that's how it used to be, back when I was young and foolish. Be it the climate debate, gender talk, war & peace or any other hot button issue: I once actual heard a reporter state that its insufficient to "just provide the facts" as news people regards us - the readers and viewers who pay their salaries - as incapable of understanding this complex world of ours w/o the guiding hand of these "high priests" of news casting. In a world were everybody has to subscribe to 1 "truth", freedom of opinion becomes intolerable to those in charge of society.
Last Edit: March 10, 2023, 23:31 by 68040
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #14 on: March 11, 2023, 20:51 Quote from: wove The internet certainly shakes the whole parochial view of, "I know what is what." For me anyway it made me realize that my world view can not be static, but needs to be something that is always evolving. Reaching a consensus really entails, accepting a diversity. That's an impressive thought for someone coming from a society that is obsessed about its own exceptionalism, often resulting in a very isolated view of the world in which "we" are the good guys, everybody opposing us automatically the bad guys, and we don't even need to try to understand their point but instead aim to make them more like us. I tip my hat in appreciation.

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