7 ms·

Tell me about your favorite tree (a slow-web proposal)

91 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

WJW 1y ago
I'd have to say some sort of B-tree. Though many bugs live in mine, I still like it. The amount of leaves it has throughout the seasons may very wildly, but I like it even if it has no leaves at all. I don't think I have ever framed a leaf from it myself, but I have definitely serialized it into binary and sent it off over the network, so it's possible that somewhere along the route it got stuck into an ethernet frame. All in all an A-tier tree and I would definitely get a new one if I lost this version.
uncircle 1y ago
My thoughts lately have been bouncing between "they've finally killed the internet" and "there's no way to create an island for humans online anymore, is there?" and I figured this is a good place as any to see if anybody else has been exploring this question. In an ever-larger Internet with ever-growing bullshit and regurgitated, useless data, social-media-driven madness, commercial interests, the odds of finding islands of naive and purely human interaction shrink by the day. Given the advances of AI, the hope of having a network of "unadulterated" users, however small, are practically nil. Add the fact that most of human affairs are now online - work, leisure, communication, paying taxes, shopping, etc. - there is not even a realistic hope of living without the net. What are we to do? Do we only have the choice to assimilate the AI-driven, algorithmic future or to become complete Luddites living on subsistence farming? Are (open) islands of humans communicating over the internet possible? Can we connect three computers with the full guarantee they are all being operated by homo sapiens? Will "real-life, face-to-face interaction" become the new frontier for outcasts, weirdos and idealists, just like the internet was 30 years ago? This is a serious question and request for comments. I do not particularly care to start a discussion on whether AI is good, the internet is fine and I'm being dramatic; there are plenty of other places to discuss AI optimism. [My favourite tree is the birch. Majestic with its white bark, reminds me of cooler climates. Also pines, with the peculiar smell and the reddish, thick carpet of needles they leave on the forest floor.]
- fsflover 1y ago
  > My thoughts lately have been bouncing between "they've finally killed the internet" and "there's no way to create an island for humans online anymore, is there?" https://wiby.me https://wiby.me
  - cosmicgadget 1y ago
    And if the humans are willing to link the connections: https://avocado.outerweb.org/ https://avocado.outerweb.org/
- bevr1337 1y ago
  > o we only have the choice to assimilate the AI-driven, algorithmic future or to become complete Luddites living on subsistence farming? A few days ago someone posted an article linking luddites to the NASA moon landing program to AI-generated furry porn. The interesting gist is that Luddites were misrepresented then and continue to be misrepresented today. The Luddite movement isn't conservative nor regressive, it is human!
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > The Luddite movement isn't conservative No? To be conservative is to be hesitant of change. I know you say the Luddites have been misrepresented, but if they don't represented at least that much... What do they represent? > it is human! These aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I expect every human is conservative sometimes.
    - bevr1337 1y ago
      The Luddites were not opposed to technology and change. The movement opposed the owning/ruling class's ability to buy and consolidate more labor as technology improved. The Luddite movement would have embraced technology if it benefited labor. It was a workers rights movement.
      - 9rx 1y ago
riebschlager 1y ago
I resonate with this nostalgia for the early internet, I really do. But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet. For example, let's look at "for you page" style algorithms. When I open Reels, I see incredible musicians, mind-blowing visual art and really thoughtful insights from people all over the world. That's exactly what I wanted out of the early internet, and here it is, an ever-evolving system that connects me with all the weird and amazing things that exist out in the world. And those people in the world who make this content now have an agent actively connecting them with their audience. Yes, I realize this is an extremely charitable interpretation of what's happening behind the scenes. But often, the content I see feels very close to what the author is describing: Someone taking the time to describe their favorite tree. If there was ever a "good ol' internet", it's still in there. It's just had tons of freeways and high-rise buildings built up around it. The older I get, the more it seems like you just need to let your eyes adjust a bit to see it. Edited to add: My favorite tree, right now anyway, is a pair of birch trees in a park near my home. When they leaf out and the wind blows, I sit in the grass between them and it sounds almost like I'm at a beach, which is really nice because I'm about as far from an ocean as you can be on this planet.
- moolcool 1y ago
  > But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet. One of the best things about the old internet was Flash Player. It was an extremely low barrier-to-entry way for creators (especially young creators) to make games and animation which could be played in-browser on extremely low-power hardware. To this day, there's nothing which comes close to filling the vacuum.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > what we miss about the old internet. I expect the only thing we actually miss about it is that it opened up a new frontier to explore, with nobody really understanding what it could be, allowing us to geek out on trying all kinds of crazy ideas to see what might stick. Nowadays we more or less have a good understanding of what the internet is. There is no doubt still room for a crazy idea here and there, but it isn't the every idea is crazy feeding frenzy that we found in the early days. We don't really want the old internet back – it never went away. Instead, we are ready for the "next internet", whatever that may be.
croisillon 1y ago
the weeping willow is my favourite tree, first because it literally weeps, the leaves drip honeydew, and also because i associate it with my late grandfather
micromacrofoot 1y ago
the slow internet didn't go away, it's just not the primary internet anymore so it's a lot harder to find through all the crabs in the bucket trying to claw their way to your eyeballs
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  While the buckets profit off that model. Been indexing the slow web, it's very much alive.
neogodless 1y ago
So to go a bit sideways, I'd say that a lot of people want to feel heard, and be around someone that is a good listener. Fewer people care to be a good listener. And not without good reason. It's hard. It's hard to be the listener, because it can drain you. Other people like it, and they like being able to talk to (or at?) you. And "most" people on the internet want to firehose their lives to the world, and then take a break and whip through glimpses of the internet at a million short clips a minute. How much are we absorbing along the way? Who is feeling "seen" and "heard" on the internet? Now when someone sits down and writes an earnest blog post, and someone else takes the time to read it, and then writes a comment which proves they engaged, overall the interaction feels meaningful, and someone maybe gets a little reassurance they have a voice, and others in the world have a moment to listen. But both of those things take time and effort, and most people simply don't see enough value in that. Maybe they are too distracted. Too drained from how life is lived, and then too low energy to do anything but consume distractions. A downward cycle instead of a virtuous cycle. But how many of us are good at putting consistency into doing the healthy things for our body and mind that keep us feeling energized and motivated to slow down and engage?
- munificent 1y ago
  I think we all know that we should avoid junk food snacks and instead eat a few healthy meals that leave us feeling fully nourished and sated. The kind of meal where afterwards you feel done but not gross or weighed down. When I'm disciplined about not buying junk at the store and my kitchen only has relatively unprocessed ingredients, I find myself obligated to make that kind of food. But if the chips are there, it's really hard to not wander into the kitchen and snack on them. I only have finite willpower after all. The modern world is like being completely surrounded by junk food for our attention, 24/7. It's no wonder ADHD diagnoses are spiking, people are anxious, no one seems to have enough willpower anymore, and we're all struggling to do what we know is best for ourselves.
strohwueste 1y ago
If they make decisions based in data, you should be in the data stream. Going blind to the big data is like not voting in my opinion. I also cherish those Islands but I see it as a place in which you put data which shouldn't be in the bug data pool or at least in a different category and not traceable back to you...
Swizec 1y ago
Whenever you pine for the old internet stop and think: Do I just miss the freedom of childhood? For me the answer invariably comes out as Yes. Mom filled the fridge, homework wasn’t that hard, and I could spend hours upon hours just existing on the internet. Find a new friend? GReat! Chat for hours. Find a new idea? Awesome! Deep dive into a wikipedia rabbit hole for hours. Get an idea? Superb! Spend the next week coding every day after school to make it happen. Now I have, like, obligations and stuff. The list of fun new ideas and friends and websites to explore is … very long. Not to mention all the existing fun ideas friends and websites I’ve already accumulated that I also enjoy spending time with. Realistically there is very little room for anything new. So ask yourself: Do you miss the old internet or do you miss being a kid staring at a new-to-you frontier? edit: Whenever I talk about this with people IRL. “the old internet” is always whatever was available when they were in middle/high school. Funny how that works :)
- micheles 1y ago
  I am old. The time of the old Internet corresponds to my Ph.D. years, so I was very much an adult. I still miss it ;-)
- 9rx 1y ago
  Definitely a case of missing new tech, plain and simple. We don't seem to create much anymore. There are glimmers of hope here and there. I'd say LLMs brought the same sort of wonderment as the internet for a short period, but we quickly pushed them to their limits. They're a bit too much of a product, not the basic lego building block that the internet was for them to offer long-lasting effects. Granted, perhaps they are the BBS of our time, with an evolutionary, but game changing, step on the horizon? But in the last 30 years, the smartphone might be the only game changing tech we've gained. And, sure enough, I'd say the early smartphone era was just as fascinating and fun as the early internet era. However, by now it too has grown long in the tooth. We really just pine for another automobile/airplane/space rocket/internet moment; something that changes everything.
- bevr1337 1y ago
  > Whenever you pine for the old internet stop and think: Do I just miss the freedom of childhood? This rings very true for video games. I cut my teeth on MUDs then MMOs and find myself craving pleasant social environments. It's easy to blame Discord or other social tools that gobbled up the gaming I enjoyed, but I'm old and all my peers are old, and the truth is I don't have 4 hours to roleplay about werewolf vampire monks. That said, sometimes things really do change. I do get excited when I find a cool hobby website from a passionate nerd, or something like the MMOndrian game shared here a few days ago. There's more cool stuff than ever, but it does represent less of the general web experience.
udev4096 1y ago
There are still parts of the web which are not capitalistically rotted. Bittorrent, Usenet, Bitcoin, Tor, I2P, etc. You can join them or better yet, support them by running nodes
parpfish 1y ago
Most of the time that people share on the internet via social media, it’s a one-to-hugelymany broadcast. As a reader, I don’t feel the need to be a good listener. I’m one of a huge crowd listening, this message wasn’t meant to specifically engage with me. In fact, it would be weird if I replied because this is meant to be a big message going out to lots of people and I shouldn’t elbow my way into the middle of it. Better to just click +1. If you sent a DM or group chat, I’d know for certain that I’m meant to engage and wouldn’t just superficially skim as a bystander. Just replying with a +1 would feel dismissive. You’re expected to engage and reciprocate. This ability to have broadcasted vs targeted communications is relatively new for folks, and I’ve noticed that not everyone has learned to distinguish these communication styles. Younger generations seem to grok it because they grew up with it, but everyone else needs to learn as they go. If you were blogging back on the old internet and had lots of meaningful targeted communication with your audience, it’s going to be a shock when people start treating your content as broadcasts and stop interacting the way you are used to. The thing I think we’re missing is long-form targeted messaging like an old-school blog. You could send emails, but that is 100% private so there’s no way for a new reader to join in.
jppope 1y ago
Totally understand that the article is romanticizing the old web, which I do miss. But I do want to mention my two favorite trees, one is gone now. My first favorite tree was an American Chestnut that I used to walk past on the way home from elementary school. For a time there was a slate sidewalk underneath the tree and the chestnuts themselves were a constant annoyance, but the tree was big, beautiful and shady, it made my neighbor's yard look really nice. I was shocked to learn later how fortunate I was to experience a real American Chestnut that had survived the blight (reddit even has a sub dedicated to finding survivors: https://www.reddit.com/r/americanchestnut/ https://www.reddit.com/r/americanchestnut/). I went back to try to find pictures of the tree and its since been razed. Presumably it died of blight, and the owners replaced it. My second favorite tree is a somewhat famous Giant Sequoia I found after moving out west. I'm not doing disclose the location or the tree's name because its too easy to figure out where I am. The tree is the largest in town but not by much... it does stand out though. Without knowing its species the tree got me curious. I found out that it was actually a Sequoia! this surprised me because I thought they were relegated to small areas inside of national parks - NOT TRUE! Finding this tree led me to be intensely curious about all the other trees in town- what else was I missing? so I spent 6 months going on morning walks with a tree identification book. I met all sorts of people, and learned a ton about the trees. Tree identification is super hard by the way... I'm still getting my feet underneath me even after all that time. I was able to identify ~30 native species though, which was really cool! I'd love to hear about other people's favorite trees.
- voxleone 1y ago
  The beautiful larch() Come the fall, her crown turns gold, A fire against the coming cold. She sheds her robe as others cling— The only pine to welcome spring. () Never saw one in person and maybe will never see.
- whitehexagon 1y ago
  I found a beautiful giant Giant Sequoia last I was contracting in Luzern, probably as old as the city itself. It's been my (digital) wallpaper ever since. But my favourites have always been the oaks, and I still plant acorns whenever the opportunity arises. I have a few saplings in pots right now waiting for new homes. Maybe 500 years from now, someone will be sat under one of my oaks, reading a history book on the collapse of democracy during the 21st century, and the almost total destruction of global biodiversity. Planting trees feels like pretty much the only positive contribution I can make to this crazy world.
croemer 1y ago
This is my favorite tree - a phylogenetic tree of 4k Pango lineages of SARS-CoV-2: https://nextstrain.org/staging/nextclade/sars-cov-2 https://nextstrain.org/staging/nextclade/sars-cov-2
philipov 1y ago
#1 The Larch
Daisywh 1y ago
I never really noticed it until one day, while I was walking, I suddenly noticed how much denser the leaves on the old tree at the street corner had become. That’s when I realized that the beauty of life often lies in these small details. People tend to rush after big goals and forget to appreciate what’s right in front of them. Just like the article mentions, slow networks are a way to return to the essence of life, allowing us to slow down and truly sense everything around us.
cosmicgadget 1y ago
> I want you to call me Provides no phone number. Smh. Blog posts are hit or miss but a good one is so much more rewarding than anything else on the internet.
motohagiography 1y ago
a romantic idea. I've managed to achieve a kind of Walden / Wonko the Sane way of life in tech, where I work by a picture window looking out on a large field on a farm, and I in fact chop wood and get my water from a well, actually. the way I use tech now is mainly trying to get LLM agents to work to shorten the daydreaming process by giving me the answers I need. the thing is, tech is just for building more tech. it only builds upwards on the stack, and doesn't yield discovery or growth outside it. it doesn't make me a better musician, horseman, hiker, motorcyclist, lifter of heavy things, or friend, etc. these things are only the effect of practice. maybe the response is not so much a kind asceticism where choices of taste in tech or opinion become a proxy for purity, but to ask, what have you physically practiced vs. merely consumed?
FlyingSnake 1y ago
My favourite tree is the Neem tree. It’s scientific name Azadirachta Indica means the “free spirited tree of India” and it comes from the Farsi word “Azaad Dirakht-e-hind”. A gem among trees. I love the slow web and once in a while I try to write something non-technical about things that catch my eye. Each of us has got a unique perspective and it’s refreshing to read about them. My attempt and shameless plug: https://samkhawase.com/blog/an-ode-to-the-tiger/ https://samkhawase.com/blog/an-ode-to-the-tiger/
hsnice16 1y ago
I do something here - https://personal-logs.vercel.app/ https://personal-logs.vercel.app/

91 points by surprisetalk 1y ago

WJW 1y ago

I'd have to say some sort of B-tree. Though many bugs live in mine, I still like it. The amount of leaves it has throughout the seasons may very wildly, but I like it even if it has no leaves at all. I don't think I have ever framed a leaf from it myself, but I have definitely serialized it into binary and sent it off over the network, so it's possible that somewhere along the route it got stuck into an ethernet frame. All in all an A-tier tree and I would definitely get a new one if I lost this version.

uncircle 1y ago

My thoughts lately have been bouncing between "they've finally killed the internet" and "there's no way to create an island for humans online anymore, is there?" and I figured this is a good place as any to see if anybody else has been exploring this question. In an ever-larger Internet with ever-growing bullshit and regurgitated, useless data, social-media-driven madness, commercial interests, the odds of finding islands of naive and purely human interaction shrink by the day. Given the advances of AI, the hope of having a network of "unadulterated" users, however small, are practically nil. Add the fact that most of human affairs are now online - work, leisure, communication, paying taxes, shopping, etc. - there is not even a realistic hope of living without the net. What are we to do? Do we only have the choice to assimilate the AI-driven, algorithmic future or to become complete Luddites living on subsistence farming? Are (open) islands of humans communicating over the internet possible? Can we connect three computers with the full guarantee they are all being operated by homo sapiens? Will "real-life, face-to-face interaction" become the new frontier for outcasts, weirdos and idealists, just like the internet was 30 years ago? This is a serious question and request for comments. I do not particularly care to start a discussion on whether AI is good, the internet is fine and I'm being dramatic; there are plenty of other places to discuss AI optimism. [My favourite tree is the birch. Majestic with its white bark, reminds me of cooler climates. Also pines, with the peculiar smell and the reddish, thick carpet of needles they leave on the forest floor.]

fsflover 1y ago
> My thoughts lately have been bouncing between "they've finally killed the internet" and "there's no way to create an island for humans online anymore, is there?" https://wiby.me https://wiby.me
- cosmicgadget 1y ago
  And if the humans are willing to link the connections: https://avocado.outerweb.org/ https://avocado.outerweb.org/
bevr1337 1y ago
> o we only have the choice to assimilate the AI-driven, algorithmic future or to become complete Luddites living on subsistence farming? A few days ago someone posted an article linking luddites to the NASA moon landing program to AI-generated furry porn. The interesting gist is that Luddites were misrepresented then and continue to be misrepresented today. The Luddite movement isn't conservative nor regressive, it is human!
- 9rx 1y ago
  > The Luddite movement isn't conservative No? To be conservative is to be hesitant of change. I know you say the Luddites have been misrepresented, but if they don't represented at least that much... What do they represent? > it is human! These aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I expect every human is conservative sometimes.
  - bevr1337 1y ago
    The Luddites were not opposed to technology and change. The movement opposed the owning/ruling class's ability to buy and consolidate more labor as technology improved. The Luddite movement would have embraced technology if it benefited labor. It was a workers rights movement.
    - 9rx 1y ago

riebschlager 1y ago

I resonate with this nostalgia for the early internet, I really do. But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet. For example, let's look at "for you page" style algorithms. When I open Reels, I see incredible musicians, mind-blowing visual art and really thoughtful insights from people all over the world. That's exactly what I wanted out of the early internet, and here it is, an ever-evolving system that connects me with all the weird and amazing things that exist out in the world. And those people in the world who make this content now have an agent actively connecting them with their audience. Yes, I realize this is an extremely charitable interpretation of what's happening behind the scenes. But often, the content I see feels very close to what the author is describing: Someone taking the time to describe their favorite tree. If there was ever a "good ol' internet", it's still in there. It's just had tons of freeways and high-rise buildings built up around it. The older I get, the more it seems like you just need to let your eyes adjust a bit to see it. Edited to add: My favorite tree, right now anyway, is a pair of birch trees in a park near my home. When they leaf out and the wind blows, I sit in the grass between them and it sounds almost like I'm at a beach, which is really nice because I'm about as far from an ocean as you can be on this planet.

moolcool 1y ago
> But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet. One of the best things about the old internet was Flash Player. It was an extremely low barrier-to-entry way for creators (especially young creators) to make games and animation which could be played in-browser on extremely low-power hardware. To this day, there's nothing which comes close to filling the vacuum.
9rx 1y ago
> what we miss about the old internet. I expect the only thing we actually miss about it is that it opened up a new frontier to explore, with nobody really understanding what it could be, allowing us to geek out on trying all kinds of crazy ideas to see what might stick. Nowadays we more or less have a good understanding of what the internet is. There is no doubt still room for a crazy idea here and there, but it isn't the every idea is crazy feeding frenzy that we found in the early days. We don't really want the old internet back – it never went away. Instead, we are ready for the "next internet", whatever that may be.

croisillon 1y ago

the weeping willow is my favourite tree, first because it literally weeps, the leaves drip honeydew, and also because i associate it with my late grandfather

micromacrofoot 1y ago

the slow internet didn't go away, it's just not the primary internet anymore so it's a lot harder to find through all the crabs in the bucket trying to claw their way to your eyeballs

cosmicgadget 1y ago
While the buckets profit off that model. Been indexing the slow web, it's very much alive.

neogodless 1y ago

So to go a bit sideways, I'd say that a lot of people want to feel heard, and be around someone that is a good listener. Fewer people care to be a good listener. And not without good reason. It's hard. It's hard to be the listener, because it can drain you. Other people like it, and they like being able to talk to (or at?) you. And "most" people on the internet want to firehose their lives to the world, and then take a break and whip through glimpses of the internet at a million short clips a minute. How much are we absorbing along the way? Who is feeling "seen" and "heard" on the internet? Now when someone sits down and writes an earnest blog post, and someone else takes the time to read it, and then writes a comment which proves they engaged, overall the interaction feels meaningful, and someone maybe gets a little reassurance they have a voice, and others in the world have a moment to listen. But both of those things take time and effort, and most people simply don't see enough value in that. Maybe they are too distracted. Too drained from how life is lived, and then too low energy to do anything but consume distractions. A downward cycle instead of a virtuous cycle. But how many of us are good at putting consistency into doing the healthy things for our body and mind that keep us feeling energized and motivated to slow down and engage?

munificent 1y ago
I think we all know that we should avoid junk food snacks and instead eat a few healthy meals that leave us feeling fully nourished and sated. The kind of meal where afterwards you feel done but not gross or weighed down. When I'm disciplined about not buying junk at the store and my kitchen only has relatively unprocessed ingredients, I find myself obligated to make that kind of food. But if the chips are there, it's really hard to not wander into the kitchen and snack on them. I only have finite willpower after all. The modern world is like being completely surrounded by junk food for our attention, 24/7. It's no wonder ADHD diagnoses are spiking, people are anxious, no one seems to have enough willpower anymore, and we're all struggling to do what we know is best for ourselves.

strohwueste 1y ago

If they make decisions based in data, you should be in the data stream. Going blind to the big data is like not voting in my opinion. I also cherish those Islands but I see it as a place in which you put data which shouldn't be in the bug data pool or at least in a different category and not traceable back to you...

Swizec 1y ago

Whenever you pine for the old internet stop and think: Do I just miss the freedom of childhood? For me the answer invariably comes out as Yes. Mom filled the fridge, homework wasn’t that hard, and I could spend hours upon hours just existing on the internet. Find a new friend? GReat! Chat for hours. Find a new idea? Awesome! Deep dive into a wikipedia rabbit hole for hours. Get an idea? Superb! Spend the next week coding every day after school to make it happen. Now I have, like, obligations and stuff. The list of fun new ideas and friends and websites to explore is … very long. Not to mention all the existing fun ideas friends and websites I’ve already accumulated that I also enjoy spending time with. Realistically there is very little room for anything new. So ask yourself: Do you miss the old internet or do you miss being a kid staring at a new-to-you frontier? edit: Whenever I talk about this with people IRL. “the old internet” is always whatever was available when they were in middle/high school. Funny how that works :)

micheles 1y ago
I am old. The time of the old Internet corresponds to my Ph.D. years, so I was very much an adult. I still miss it ;-)
9rx 1y ago
Definitely a case of missing new tech, plain and simple. We don't seem to create much anymore. There are glimmers of hope here and there. I'd say LLMs brought the same sort of wonderment as the internet for a short period, but we quickly pushed them to their limits. They're a bit too much of a product, not the basic lego building block that the internet was for them to offer long-lasting effects. Granted, perhaps they are the BBS of our time, with an evolutionary, but game changing, step on the horizon? But in the last 30 years, the smartphone might be the only game changing tech we've gained. And, sure enough, I'd say the early smartphone era was just as fascinating and fun as the early internet era. However, by now it too has grown long in the tooth. We really just pine for another automobile/airplane/space rocket/internet moment; something that changes everything.
bevr1337 1y ago
> Whenever you pine for the old internet stop and think: Do I just miss the freedom of childhood? This rings very true for video games. I cut my teeth on MUDs then MMOs and find myself craving pleasant social environments. It's easy to blame Discord or other social tools that gobbled up the gaming I enjoyed, but I'm old and all my peers are old, and the truth is I don't have 4 hours to roleplay about werewolf vampire monks. That said, sometimes things really do change. I do get excited when I find a cool hobby website from a passionate nerd, or something like the MMOndrian game shared here a few days ago. There's more cool stuff than ever, but it does represent less of the general web experience.

udev4096 1y ago

There are still parts of the web which are not capitalistically rotted. Bittorrent, Usenet, Bitcoin, Tor, I2P, etc. You can join them or better yet, support them by running nodes

parpfish 1y ago

Most of the time that people share on the internet via social media, it’s a one-to-hugelymany broadcast. As a reader, I don’t feel the need to be a good listener. I’m one of a huge crowd listening, this message wasn’t meant to specifically engage with me. In fact, it would be weird if I replied because this is meant to be a big message going out to lots of people and I shouldn’t elbow my way into the middle of it. Better to just click +1. If you sent a DM or group chat, I’d know for certain that I’m meant to engage and wouldn’t just superficially skim as a bystander. Just replying with a +1 would feel dismissive. You’re expected to engage and reciprocate. This ability to have broadcasted vs targeted communications is relatively new for folks, and I’ve noticed that not everyone has learned to distinguish these communication styles. Younger generations seem to grok it because they grew up with it, but everyone else needs to learn as they go. If you were blogging back on the old internet and had lots of meaningful targeted communication with your audience, it’s going to be a shock when people start treating your content as broadcasts and stop interacting the way you are used to. The thing I think we’re missing is long-form targeted messaging like an old-school blog. You could send emails, but that is 100% private so there’s no way for a new reader to join in.

jppope 1y ago

Totally understand that the article is romanticizing the old web, which I do miss. But I do want to mention my two favorite trees, one is gone now. My first favorite tree was an American Chestnut that I used to walk past on the way home from elementary school. For a time there was a slate sidewalk underneath the tree and the chestnuts themselves were a constant annoyance, but the tree was big, beautiful and shady, it made my neighbor's yard look really nice. I was shocked to learn later how fortunate I was to experience a real American Chestnut that had survived the blight (reddit even has a sub dedicated to finding survivors: https://www.reddit.com/r/americanchestnut/ https://www.reddit.com/r/americanchestnut/). I went back to try to find pictures of the tree and its since been razed. Presumably it died of blight, and the owners replaced it. My second favorite tree is a somewhat famous Giant Sequoia I found after moving out west. I'm not doing disclose the location or the tree's name because its too easy to figure out where I am. The tree is the largest in town but not by much... it does stand out though. Without knowing its species the tree got me curious. I found out that it was actually a Sequoia! this surprised me because I thought they were relegated to small areas inside of national parks - NOT TRUE! Finding this tree led me to be intensely curious about all the other trees in town- what else was I missing? so I spent 6 months going on morning walks with a tree identification book. I met all sorts of people, and learned a ton about the trees. Tree identification is super hard by the way... I'm still getting my feet underneath me even after all that time. I was able to identify ~30 native species though, which was really cool! I'd love to hear about other people's favorite trees.

voxleone 1y ago
The beautiful larch() Come the fall, her crown turns gold, A fire against the coming cold. She sheds her robe as others cling— The only pine to welcome spring. () Never saw one in person and maybe will never see.
whitehexagon 1y ago
I found a beautiful giant Giant Sequoia last I was contracting in Luzern, probably as old as the city itself. It's been my (digital) wallpaper ever since. But my favourites have always been the oaks, and I still plant acorns whenever the opportunity arises. I have a few saplings in pots right now waiting for new homes. Maybe 500 years from now, someone will be sat under one of my oaks, reading a history book on the collapse of democracy during the 21st century, and the almost total destruction of global biodiversity. Planting trees feels like pretty much the only positive contribution I can make to this crazy world.

croemer 1y ago

This is my favorite tree - a phylogenetic tree of 4k Pango lineages of SARS-CoV-2: https://nextstrain.org/staging/nextclade/sars-cov-2 https://nextstrain.org/staging/nextclade/sars-cov-2

philipov 1y ago

#1 The Larch

Daisywh 1y ago

I never really noticed it until one day, while I was walking, I suddenly noticed how much denser the leaves on the old tree at the street corner had become. That’s when I realized that the beauty of life often lies in these small details. People tend to rush after big goals and forget to appreciate what’s right in front of them. Just like the article mentions, slow networks are a way to return to the essence of life, allowing us to slow down and truly sense everything around us.

cosmicgadget 1y ago

> I want you to call me Provides no phone number. Smh. Blog posts are hit or miss but a good one is so much more rewarding than anything else on the internet.

motohagiography 1y ago

a romantic idea. I've managed to achieve a kind of Walden / Wonko the Sane way of life in tech, where I work by a picture window looking out on a large field on a farm, and I in fact chop wood and get my water from a well, actually. the way I use tech now is mainly trying to get LLM agents to work to shorten the daydreaming process by giving me the answers I need. the thing is, tech is just for building more tech. it only builds upwards on the stack, and doesn't yield discovery or growth outside it. it doesn't make me a better musician, horseman, hiker, motorcyclist, lifter of heavy things, or friend, etc. these things are only the effect of practice. maybe the response is not so much a kind asceticism where choices of taste in tech or opinion become a proxy for purity, but to ask, what have you physically practiced vs. merely consumed?

FlyingSnake 1y ago

My favourite tree is the Neem tree. It’s scientific name Azadirachta Indica means the “free spirited tree of India” and it comes from the Farsi word “Azaad Dirakht-e-hind”. A gem among trees. I love the slow web and once in a while I try to write something non-technical about things that catch my eye. Each of us has got a unique perspective and it’s refreshing to read about them. My attempt and shameless plug: https://samkhawase.com/blog/an-ode-to-the-tiger/ https://samkhawase.com/blog/an-ode-to-the-tiger/

hsnice16 1y ago

I do something here - https://personal-logs.vercel.app/ https://personal-logs.vercel.app/