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-rw-r--r--.md/about/faq.md29
-rw-r--r--.md/about/whereami.md38
-rw-r--r--.md/about/whoami.md6
3 files changed, 38 insertions, 35 deletions
diff --git a/.md/about/faq.md b/.md/about/faq.md
index 18b4c37..21b2c73 100644
--- a/.md/about/faq.md
+++ b/.md/about/faq.md
@@ -80,21 +80,20 @@ code and I agree that there are many cases where *that* is the preferred
option. But it doesn't make sense for me; at least not for a homepage
like this. I'm not sure about other people, but most of my ideas are not
my own; they come from reading a history book or doing a textbook
-exercise or an off-color joke. So without getting on a soapbox, I guess
-you can say the idea of "intellectual property" never made too much
-sense to me in general.
-
-I get that people have to get paid. I get that people are afraid of
-someone else taking credit for their work. But for this site at least,
-I guess I just don't really care. If someone really finds some way to
-profit of some random guy's Linux tutorials and unqualified thoughts
-on the world I honestly think *they* deserve the credit not me. I have
-no idea how I'd do that; I'm not sure I'd even want to waste my time
-with all the marketing nonsense of the modern web. And on the second
-point, if someone "steals" my work it's not exactly hard to figure out
-it was published here first--a Google search will prove that. But even
-if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't mind. I'd be glad that this
-stuff is useful at all. That would be a nice surprise.
+exercise or an off-color joke.
+
+So for this site at least, I guess I just don't really care.
+If someone really finds some way to profit of some random guy's
+Linux tutorials and unqualified thoughts on the world, I honestly
+think *they* deserve the credit not me. I have no idea how I'd do that;
+I'm not sure I'd even want to waste my time with all the marketing
+nonsense of the modern web.
+
+And on the second point, if someone "steals" my work it's not exactly
+hard to figure out it was published here first--a Google search will
+prove that. But even if that weren't the case, I still wouldn't mind.
+I'd be glad that this stuff is useful at all. That would be a nice
+surprise.
*Not* everything that is *linked* to on this site falls under the same
guidelines, so be sure to respect that author's copyright; I tend to
diff --git a/.md/about/whereami.md b/.md/about/whereami.md
index 9cf4129..1c88696 100644
--- a/.md/about/whereami.md
+++ b/.md/about/whereami.md
@@ -22,8 +22,8 @@ computer called mine, and mine answered with directory full of pages.
The way you get here is through a device you have at home called a router,
which literally does what the name implies--it routes signals to where they
need to go to make things go beep. In the 60s and
-70s, routers tended to be people-based and would spend their time plugging
-cables into and out of ports so calls could connect.
+70s, routers tended to be people-based and would require workers spend
+their time plugging cables into and out of ports so calls could connect.
<img src="/static/human_router.jpg" />
@@ -34,19 +34,20 @@ contributors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jersey_Telecom_switchboard_and_
Fortunately, we figured out that was dumb and made robots do the job for us.
Internet companies, governments, and anyone else with enough money and
influence bought huge routers and hooked them all up to talk to each other.
-Then they convinced us all to go out and buy a router from our ISP of "choice"
+Then they convinced us all to go out and buy a router from our ISP of choice
so we could all send cat pictures to each other seamlessly. We got rid of
phones, replaced our phone with our IP address and email, just to ironically
end up back at phones again. All of our devices serve, or at least can serve,
-as a router in some way, and all these little robots talking to each other
+as a router in some way. And all these little robots talking to each other
makes it so you can get lost on some person's home page.
In a way, you could say you've made it to a place my router took you to.
-Not my home router of course--that one sucks.
+But not my home router of course--that one sucks.
-I'm mooching of someone else's, also known as a Virtual Private Server.
-These companies run whole bunch of servers, hook them up on a bulk connection
-and rent them out for people to run blogs about cats and porn sites.
+I'm mooching off someone else's, also known as a Virtual Private Server.
+These companies run a whole bunch of servers, hook them up on a bulk connection
+and rent them out for people to run fake media companies, blogs about cats,
+and porn sites.
I'm getting lost on your question though, so where are we exactly?
@@ -60,18 +61,22 @@ 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.
+human being. Well mostly... I don't own the hardware. But the place is
+mine; not a corporation's, or a bot's, or a government's.
+All these files were loving crafted by yours truly in markdown, using
+vim, 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.
+standards to make us easier for ad companies to study. And even I really
+liked it for a while, but over time, it got fake. I got fake.
+
+And speaking of fake, 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
@@ -79,7 +84,8 @@ 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?
+In a way it's a reassuring: would real people 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. Here's
@@ -89,8 +95,6 @@ https://neocities.org/
https://1mb.club/
-https://goodsites.tech/
-
and old [not-so](https://archive.md/rav1z) faithful:
https://www.wikipedia.org/
diff --git a/.md/about/whoami.md b/.md/about/whoami.md
index 20d8149..55c9cc2 100644
--- a/.md/about/whoami.md
+++ b/.md/about/whoami.md
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
<center>
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
--- [*apparently no one*](https://archive.md/7AC79)
+-- [*I thought Oscar Wilde, but apparently no one*](https://archive.md/7AC79)
</center>
*TL;DR Above everything, I'm a lurker. And I mean that in the traditional
@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@ Internet or the paginated newsfeeds written by faceless names or in
the rambling profiles that start with birth and forget where they're
going around college. It seems to come easy to a lot of us.
-Now, I'm not so sure I've earned the right yet.
+But lately, I'm not so sure I've earned the right yet.
I'd rather just let my work (and my play) stand for itself, for whatever
it's worth. You'll get it as you go I'm sure. That said, there are some
things that probably help for context's sake:
- I'm born, raised, and hosted on the US East Coast. By most countries'
- standards, that means I have no sense of the world outside of my own
+ standards: that means I have no sense of the world outside of my own
country, which despite my best efforts, is probably true
- I'm raised and hosted (not born) on free software (unless you count