ernestosoo

Team Background

• Many team members have a background in web subculture: Soulseek, Guitar Tabs, IRC, RateYourMusic, Last.fm, Obscure Music Blogs, and hacking/homebrew communities.

• Many team members feel that the web is not as magical in 2017 as it was in 2009. We all believe that the web has many possibilities that have not been realized: we are working together to realize those possibilities.

That is pretty cool. Do you have any websites that make you feel nostalgic for the past? Any interesting websites in 1990's and early 2000's as well?

Yeah! But there is no aesthetics here at all! There is no sense of wonder and magic whatsoever!

This is a cool website here!

www.davidrumsey.com

This is so funny! You must know the internet!!! Do you know any of these?

Obscure Music Blogspots, IRC chats, usenet, ASCII art, Slsk, DC++, penpals in Finland, Botwana, Iceland, and Uruguay, grainy and idiosyncratic university-websites, Tunak Tunak Tun, Albino Black Sheep, Zombo.com

Have you seen these websites before? If you know any subculture internet user in 1990's or early 2000's, you should ask them what they think of the internet now! Unless you have the experience, otherwise you can't tell the difference.

http://www.deviantart.com/ http://rateyourmusic.com/list/novocaine69/the_great_obscure_... http://www.novaexpresscafe.com/main.html

Today, my Uber driver was a DJ and he mentioned how stink the internet is. He is still using Usenet now. This is how pathetic internet nowadays.

And Silicon Valley is the least creative place I've lived. It is quite pathetic. It is "creative" through "newspaper" only. You can't argue against their success.

Nothing is more successful than success. You can't argue against success.

The Facebook technically kills the whole internet. (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/facebo...). It tries to copy other startups, so people can stay on its platform and watch more "ads". Instead of surfing idiosyncratic webpages, flaneur now surfs facebook. It is like going to Paris and one only sees McDonald and Starbucks. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-o...)

In addition, nowadays, people do not create webpage for fun. They want to commercialize their online presence. Everything, including oneself, is a brand now (http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/50-tips-to-brand-yoursel...). This leads to the totalitarianism of minimalism (https://www.sitepoint.com/less-minimalist-websites-still-rul...) where they want to people to "see" their webpages "efficiently". People are wearing a mask in and out. There is no authenticity and honesty.

The internet was the place for playfulness and wonder. DeviantArts, Rate Your Music, Geocities were really fun.

Now, the internet is full of BS. Startups are full of BS ("This is a site that spits out whole websites of fake bullshit web companies. Hit "get started" to refresh. http://tiffzhang.com/startup/?s=243648772317). Reddit is a rare phenomenon because it was founded by Aaron Schwartz and he never got any credit. And I am pretty sure Aaron Schwartz would never go to “Hackathon”, “Entrepreneurial leadership at Stanford”. They are full of BS. No one has a deep passion for truly improving people’s lives. Everything is for efficiency.

Palo Alto becomes a dead place now. There is only one bookstore in Palo Alto area and no students ever visit. Stanford students do not love to learn at all. They are “excellent sheep”.

The dark net is okay and it becomes boring after a while.

CK Dexter • 10 months ago Oh for crying out loud. If you want to interpret the meaning, READ THE WHOLE DAMN PASSAGE. Not one mention of the surrounding txt, not a single quote of Beckett's actual words beyond the familiar soundbite.

If you read the whole piece, or even just the whole paragraph, it's clear THERE ARE NO MORALES TO BE DRAWN, it is not normative but descriptive, it tells us not what we ought to do but what the entire natural order does and will do: fail, get sick, throw up, and die once and for all, never to rise again.

It's about the absolute and final fact of mortality, the ontological unreality of progress of any kind. The total cosmic triviality of change, not its celebration.

But hey, that's just one interpretation. It might be wrong, but AT LEAST I READ THE DAMN THING.

Here's the original context of the quote:

"Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still....

Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all...

All of old. Nothing else ever. But never so failed. Worse failed. With care never worse failed."

You are missing the main point, man. I am sure you never experience the internet in the 1990's or early 2000's. You must live in a very parochial place! You don't know anything about arts, films, music.

This website is one example. I like this website because there is something that is "HIS". He owns his individuality.

http://www.novaexpresscafe.com/main.html

It is not just about information. It is about aesthetics! The fun of flaneuring! Surfing the internet for spontaneity!