つづく

The small web

I was recently able to revive an old 2010 macbook with a core2 duo cpu and 2G of ram thanks to this nice linux distro called Antix (https://antixlinux.com/). I installed it on an ssd.

I enjoy using it for small little things like youtube or twitch and i do everything else on my desktop.

I managed to squeeze out a lot of use from it by learning how to do as many things as possible from the terminal and with the use of minimal software.

Here is where that rabbit hole got me:

1MB Club – https://1mb.club/ 512KB Club A showcase of lightweight websites – https://512kb.club/ The 250kb Club – https://250kb.club/ 10 KB Club – https://10kbclub.com/ XHTML Club Extreme HyperText Movement for Luddites – https://xhtml.club/

These are examples of small websites I can browse with my old machine without any issue.

つづく

...

I can't stop thinking about this book. “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari (2011). To say this reading puts your world vision in perspective is selling it short.

This is the mother of putting things in perspective and contextualization in the grand scheme of things. I already got that feeling from Neil deGrasse Tyson in “Cosmos” (2014) and this falls in the same line of thought for me, except more human centric but surprisingly more demystifying of the human place in the cosmos and our role in it.

In Cosmos Neil degrasse tyson claims “We are the universe observing itself”, in sapiens yuval shows us we're also a mean for the world to destroy itself.

It is natural for humans to think we're the good guys of most stories we tell about ourselves. Though it is undeniable we manage to achieve great things and defy odds in many aspects, we are just as equally capable of the worst of atrocities towards each other but also towards other species.

This “speciesism” of sorts. A kind of bigotry we show toward anything not or less human than we are. Animals are often on the receiving end of this treatment as can attest our fellow cows (I love cows! did you know they have BFFs?). This speciesism is our greatest motivator and our worst downfall. We often manage great achievment when all odds are stacked against us mostly because we believe we are exceptional when there is nothing special about us. And our best mechanism for communicating that is through the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Often lies.

The book is far more eloquent about these matters, so I will not try to retell it here...

In short this book tells the human history, the real human history. Not the christian history, not the regional history, this isn't concerned with some major human achievement or a civilization's birth as a starting point. This is human history as I always wanted it to be told, you know, from the actual beginning. From when humans started deviating from their ancestors and forming their own branch on the tree of life by mean of natural selection.

I always enjoy a great display of emotional and intellectual honnesty, and this books has plenty of it. Contrary to general belief, honnesty is not as easy as not telling lies. It requires real hard work of introspection and courage for seeing things we don't like.

Yuvan Noah Harari is a gay, vegan man who does a lot of yoga. Millenial bingo from a 45 year old.

I can't believe I wasted so many years reading Murakami, this is what I should have been reading instead. Althgouh Murakami is not half bad either...

♪ Everyday – The Field

The web used to be early days Burning Man, now it's a mall.

Browsing the internet in the late 90s early 00s, I got the feeling of discovering underground communities with alternate lifestyles. A counterculture of weird, woke and anticonformists.

The wild west nature of that bygone era of the internet was its most interesting feature. Before the internet became a playground for startups, gigantic multinational corporations, targeted advertisements and privacy miners, it was a place where the rare tech avantgardists explored places made by other enthusiasts just for the sheer joy of it.

At the time, writing a blog was like throwing a message in a bottle. I remember coming across (sky)blogs with 0 visits that contained more interesting content than entire instagram feeds. I skimmed through countless pages of sartre fanatics, marxists pseudo revolutionaries and music critics... most of it boring, if not for the new nature of the entire web browsing activity, but occasionally, a gem.

The concept of “reach” and “influence” hasn't been invented yet, but I remain yet to be influenced by something as impactful in today's web 2.0

The unregulated platforms had their obvious shortcomings. Racists, sexists and other bigots were free to express their opinion just as freely. Censorship wasn't going to save the day. You just had to grow a moral compass and move on to more interesting places.

The internet today is a lot different. The apps are preloaded into smartphones, it's all so neat and organized in appearance. It's also very limited and constricted. Instagram is where you get the daily feed from pr managers of celebrities you think are relatable, twitter is where the smallest minorities are the loudest voices, youtube is your free netflix where youtuber pretend one person with a camera and millions behind their keyboards is a two way conversation, and facebook is the new phenomenon your senior family members just discovered recently. I don't even know what tiktok exactly is, so feel free not to tell me.

Yesterday I told my mom to visit a website on her smartphone, she had no idea what i was talking about.

The old web is still alive in some desert corners of the internet if you look hard enough. No it's not reddit.

I'm not giving out links, you're gonna ruin it again.

♪ Time To Breathe – Calibre

I finally managed to switch to linux mint completely on my deskyop! I stumbled across this github issue that helped me install my audio interface driver, playback works fine so far, I'm so happy. I'm still dual booting with windows 10 for gaming purposes.

I'm also using Antix on my old 2010 macbook, the nvidia driver was a pain to get working. I had to revert to the antix19 based on debian 10 and an older linux kernel to get the no longer supported nvidia legacy driver to work properly.

I still don't have a (smart)phone. I'm looking into a grapheneos supported pixel, or maybe something I can install calyxos on...

Still no luck getting svp to work on linux mint. I was excited about it being free for linux users, but I can't seem to get through the installation process.

♪ Call Me Anytime – Erika de Casier