Rewilding the Internet | Hacker News Reader

Rewilding the Internet

protein.xyz

48 pointsthinkingemote31 comments

> scrolls down to read more

> "subscribe" popup interrupts my reading

> ctrl-w

> goes to about page

> "We're a cultural intelligence platform for progressive brands who want to make better decisions, discover new opportunities and stay relevant."

> now this all feels fake .

I do this constantly. I have always assumed I was the only one, because if I were even kinda like other people, it'd be one of the quickest ways to destroy your own website.

"all complex ecosystems have parasites"

Adblock should be mandatory. Just like bug repellent and sunscreen.

“real men do not need protection against sun and bugs”

- my Dad :)

He probably meant “real men do not use protection against sons”.

or perhaps "real men do not use protection hence sons"

real men are protected from sons by buggery

I take your dad is not from the tropics LOL

“real men look at the SUN during eclipse”

- also my Dad commenting on DJT…

a particularly egregious one, wow

> clicks in to read what others thought

> _that_ comment somehow has floated to the top and cannot be closed or hidden with ESC

> ⌘+w

There was a sweet spot somewhere after geocities where we still had web rings. Decentralised (and free) curated feeds of content.

Now everybody wants subscribers as their metric of social worth, so they want a publishing platform that gives them metrics, and pushes subscribers.

On further thought, time for me to rewrite my website on neocities.

I'm on Neocities. I use it as my low-effort gaming website. https://dungeonhack.neocities.org/

What plant software is being shown in the animation at the top of the page? I've been hunting for something to simulate plant growth and that looks interesting!

Looks like Plant Studio:

https://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/summary_plantstudio.html

https://github.com/pdfernhout/PlantStudio

Thank you! The README in the repo was a real joy to read.

Relating it to the OP, github sometimes feels like the original world "wild" web.

Sure, wild in the confines of Microsoft's corporate landscape, but I find it more likely to come across something interesting and useful there than on a random blog. (Plus, no pop-ups, newsletter subscriptions, etc.)

Yeah it really is. A fantastic overview of where the project is, where is could go, and some humanity.

Others have already told you the name of the project, but if you happen to be on Arch, I have a PKGBUILD written for PlantStudio. I haven't published it to the AUR since I don't necessarily want to be the maintainer though. Shoot me an email (in my bio) if you're interested

PlantStudio from 1997-2001

https://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/screens.htm

PlantStudio Botanical Illustration Software is a tool for creating 3D plant models and 2D illustrations. PlantStudio simulates herbaceous (non-woody) plants like wildflowers and cut flowers, vegetables, weeds, grasses, and herbs using a parameter-driven simulation of plant growth and structure.

Very cool! I immediately thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system when I saw the original photo.

Some other links you might find interesting:

https://youtu.be/IU0cJaUqVM8 https://youtu.be/8YOpFsZsR9w

> Another form of digital stewardship is Jacky Zhao’s website, jzhao.xyz – a personal “hypertext garden,” a digital space designed for exploration and playful engagement. The site blends writing, research, and projects in a nonlinear, interconnected layout, inviting visitors to wander through thoughts, experiments, and resources – as if walking through a garden.

Using an LLM really sabotages the post.

It wasn’t written by an LLM. It’s literally just a trimmed-down version of a much longer piece I wrote. I was asked to add references for further reading, so I borrowed some of the conceptual language from my full draft and pointed it toward the people and projects that shaped it - like jzhao.xyz. Soo yes, when you squeeze a meandering, reflective article into a neat little “commercial” package, the wording gets more abstract. That’s not AI, that’s what happens when you try to fit a whole thought process into a carry-on.

hey there, will from protein here. thanks for you comments and appreciate the popup is annoying, but they still work. for what it's worth, we're not "fake" and have been around since 1998 in the UK, which is around the time NTK used to be around. more here if you're interested: https://www.protein.xyz/archive/ (scroll down)

Any relationship to https://protein.monster ?

> As we enter Web4

Sigh.

just to be clear, that was a suggested edit added to the writing and not the original narrative. You can find the full version here: https://substack.com/@thealteration/p-175538961

That is really the cringe bit… If “web3” is “decentralised”, how could “web4” powered by AI which most of the LLM model currently are hosted in a centralised server? It seems contradictory by definition, and that “web4” are just basically Web 2.0 with AI features…

I basically just read that website the post referred to, sounds like AI slop to me: https://www.netguru.com/blog/web-4-0?ref=protein.xyz

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