3 ms·

The publish or perish nature of blogs is one of the many reasons why I feel they're generally inferior to the personal web pages that were popular during the ea

The publish or perish nature of blogs is one of the many reasons why I feel they're generally inferior to the personal web pages that were popular during the early web. It seems that there has been a general trend towards a constant churning of output in order to keep up the dopamine hits for users. The quality of a lot of online content reflects this.

mr_spothawk 6y ago
> It seems that there has been a general trend towards a constant churning of output in order to keep up the dopamine hits for users. my first thought when reading this was "yeah, that's because users don't know how to RSS". it's not that i know how to RSS that well, but i do have friends who use RSS in the style of masters. my favorite strategy that i have heard of, and what i will try to replicate in a few months, is: rss subscription >> local mail service >> inbound mail folders filled with articles from my RSS feed. i've been practicing my own ability to use "the computer" in a way that makes me feel like a master... and we'll see if i ever get there. surely though, we are all missing out on the oldschool internet that was swallowed by the walled gardens. but it seems that we're headed for a renaissance
cousin_it 6y ago
Yeah. The antithesis of the blog is the evergreen page, where you collect and systematize information about one thing you're interested in, and keep improving it over the years. A great example is Robin Whittle's page about pink noise algorithms: http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ It covers the topic from more angles than any single blogpost. Then at some point your page can become a collection of pages, like Bill Beaty's electricity stuff: http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html I think these are some of the most valuable things on the internet.
- sandspar 6y ago
  I love these types of pages. I know nothing about programming. Can you (or anyone reading this) suggest how I can go about making one? What's the bare minimum I'd need to learn to have essentially a single or a few pages with plain text, links, and photos on it, like the ones you posted? What terms should I search for to learn how to do this?
  - cousin_it 6y ago
    The bare minimum is to learn some HTML tags (the main ones are <a>, <p>, <img>, <h1>...<h6>), create a plain text file in Notepad and sprinkle it with these tags, save it as index.html, test it in a browser, then put it in a zip archive (along with other pages and images if you want) and upload at https://app.netlify.com/drop https://app.netlify.com/drop

mr_spothawk 6y ago

> It seems that there has been a general trend towards a constant churning of output in order to keep up the dopamine hits for users. my first thought when reading this was "yeah, that's because users don't know how to RSS". it's not that i know how to RSS that well, but i do have friends who use RSS in the style of masters. my favorite strategy that i have heard of, and what i will try to replicate in a few months, is: rss subscription >> local mail service >> inbound mail folders filled with articles from my RSS feed. i've been practicing my own ability to use "the computer" in a way that makes me feel like a master... and we'll see if i ever get there. surely though, we are all missing out on the oldschool internet that was swallowed by the walled gardens. but it seems that we're headed for a renaissance

cousin_it 6y ago

Yeah. The antithesis of the blog is the evergreen page, where you collect and systematize information about one thing you're interested in, and keep improving it over the years. A great example is Robin Whittle's page about pink noise algorithms: http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/ It covers the topic from more angles than any single blogpost. Then at some point your page can become a collection of pages, like Bill Beaty's electricity stuff: http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html I think these are some of the most valuable things on the internet.

sandspar 6y ago
I love these types of pages. I know nothing about programming. Can you (or anyone reading this) suggest how I can go about making one? What's the bare minimum I'd need to learn to have essentially a single or a few pages with plain text, links, and photos on it, like the ones you posted? What terms should I search for to learn how to do this?
- cousin_it 6y ago
  The bare minimum is to learn some HTML tags (the main ones are <a>, <p>, <img>, <h1>...<h6>), create a plain text file in Notepad and sprinkle it with these tags, save it as index.html, test it in a browser, then put it in a zip archive (along with other pages and images if you want) and upload at https://app.netlify.com/drop https://app.netlify.com/drop