diff options
Diffstat (limited to '.md/about/whereami.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | .md/about/whereami.md | 71 |
1 files changed, 48 insertions, 23 deletions
diff --git a/.md/about/whereami.md b/.md/about/whereami.md index e00750a..132255c 100644 --- a/.md/about/whereami.md +++ b/.md/about/whereami.md @@ -1,5 +1,17 @@ -Since you are on this page, you're presumably lost. That's ok. I don't really -get all this stuff either. Let's start with some easy stuff. +<center> +But I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in +history, including the Garden of Eden, **everybody just got here**. And, +except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going +on that could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin +with. Some of the crazymaking games going on today are love and hate, +liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf, and +girls' basketball. -- *Kurt Vonnegut, from A man without a country, +emphasis my own* +</center> + +Since you are on this page, you're presumably lost. That's *ok*. I +don't really get all this stuff either. Let's start with some easy +stuff. *You're on the Internet*. Known to some as a [series of tubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes), @@ -40,33 +52,46 @@ Precisely speaking, you are in a chrooted web server running on rented virtual machine in a server farm located roughly in New Jersey browsing the "about" directory on the "whereami.html" page. -Less precisely, all that means is you're looking at some files I left in a directory -at this address, and paid some people to host for me since local ISPs tend to -be ridiculously expensive if you want to do anything besides host some private -servers for you and your friends and family. - -But maybe most importantly, you've reached a webpage owned by another human -being, not a corporation, or a bot, or a government, or work, or a *network*. -All these files were loving crafted by yours truly in vim, in markdown and -converted with pandoc to HTML because of laziness. The Internet I grew up with, -though I didn't really appreciate because I was too young at the -time, used to be filled with places like this. "Homepages" were a thing, or -were just starting to be at least. - -But as soon as it started it all got sucked up social media, everyone got coerced -into profiles, templates, and standards to make us easier for ad companies to -study. It's not even unreasonable to believe you're not even talking to real +Less precisely, all that means is you're looking at some files I left +in a directory at this address, and paid some people to host for me since +local ISPs tend to be ridiculously expensive if you want to do anything +besides host some private servers for you and your friends and family. + +But maybe most importantly, you've reached a webpage owned by another +human being, not a corporation, or a bot, or a government, or work, or +a *network*. All these files were loving crafted by yours truly in vim, +in markdown and converted with pandoc to HTML because of laziness. +The Internet I grew up with, though I didn't really appreciate it at the +time, used to be filled with places like this. "Homepages" were a thing, +or were just starting to be at least. + +But as soon as it started it all got sucked up and commodified into +social media; we somehow got coerced into profiles, templates, and +standards to make us easier for ad companies to study. It's not even +unreasonable to believe you're not even talking to real people on there, because there's a good chance of it now. [Astroturfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing) is not -a secret government conspiracy, it's just business as usual at this point. -You used to be able to tell a human from a chatbot from the way they write. -I don't know if the bots at this point are smarter, or if we've just been made -so cynical and dumb by business as usual that we've given up. +a secret government conspiracy, it's just business as usual at this +point. You used to be able to tell a human from a chatbot from the way +they write. I don't know if the bots at this point are smarter, or if +we've just been made so cynical and dumb by the process that we've +given up. Who would really write all that garbage on Facebook anyway? Don't mistake this for some pity nostalgia piece though. If you look hard -enough--I promise you--that *Internet* of humans is still there. +enough--I promise you--that *Internet* of humans is still there. Here's +a few places I like to poke around: + +https://neocities.org/ + +https://1mb.club/ + +https://goodsites.tech/ + +and old [not-so](https://archive.md/rav1z) faithful: + +https://www.wikipedia.org/ A helpful tip, CRTL+W will close any webpage you don't like. Not that you wouldn't like this page... you did read all the way here through all that |