5 ms·

Hey!!!!! That is my website! To be fair, the hard part is hard to keep a personal website regularly updated without making people think it's abandoned. I don't

Hey!!!!! That is my website! To be fair, the hard part is hard to keep a personal website regularly updated without making people think it's abandoned. I don't have a regular post cadence. So it looks like I don't touch the website at all for months. But I regularly update my posts and other sections event if there isn't any new posts. I also wrote something similar to OP - https://www.unsungnovelty.org/posts/10/2024/life-of-a-blog-blogging-in-2024-and-beyond/ https://www.unsungnovelty.org/posts/10/2024/life-of-a-blog-b... And I'd like to also mention https://marginalia-search.com/ https://marginalia-search.com/ which is a small OSS search engine I have been using more and more theese days. I find it great to find IndieWeb / Small Web content.

mikestorrent 7mo ago
Now this is what makes me feel the Small Web... creators randomly showing up like this on HN. I feel like I used to see this kind of thing more.
Noumenon72 7mo ago
They barely mentioned your website (fourth in five urls, mainly talking about indieblog.com and kagi.com/smallweb), so "That is my website!" is confusing and makes it seem like you're autoresponding to a keyword.
- unsungNovelty 7mo ago
  Why should I auto-respond to a keyword? Just curious seeing it here buddy. Breathe easy.
  - speefers 7mo ago
    [flagged]
  - jibal 7mo ago
    Yeah, it didn't confuse sensible people who are capable of putting themselves in someone else's shoes. I did a Small Web search at Marginalia and was immediately pointed to sites that claim that I and everyone in my political party are literally the spawn of Satan--I really don't think it's my thing. I helped develop the ARPANET back in 1969-1970 while working for the UCLA Comp Sci dept, got a brief mention in RFC 57, hold several network patents, and was on usenet before the usenix conference where we voted to call it that ... I'm bemused by all the people who claim that boomers are technologically inept (I think they have us mixed up with our parents). Anyway it's been a heck of a wild ride and didn't end up quite how JCR Licklider envisioned it.
    - mikestorrent 7mo ago
      You sound like someone with stories.... got any I can read?
      - jibal 7mo ago
        Nothing offhand that I can share. But take a look at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay_Up_Late https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Sta...
        mikestorrent 7mo ago
        Thanks!
        jibal 7mo ago
        I wrote this in response to one of the reviews, so I'll share it with you since you asked. :-) I worked on an ARPA-funded speech understanding project in the 1970's at SDC--it was definitely driven by military interests. One time some of us techies were in our soundproof lab drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers when our manager brought to the big picture window an Iranian general bristling with medals--they both looked extremely unhappy. I also worked on ARPANET development at UCLA from 1969-1971, and there was none of that. The driving motivation was ARPA-funded researchers at universities being able to readily share their work. Is ARPA funding researchers at universities an issue that can be written about? Of course, but it has nothing to do with the ARPANET per se and isn't part of the story that this book is about. Oops--I left out a critical part of the SDC story--we were in the lab because it had an incredible sound system featuring a pair of high end AR-3 speakers. I don't recall what we were playing but I'm sure it sounded wonderful. We also did real work in that lab of course ... mostly recording things like "What is the surfaced displacement of the Lafayette?", which our primitive system running on (pathetically slow by today's standards) Raytheon 704 and PDP-11 computers would attempt to parse and answer. The text of course was selected for the sake of obtaining a grant from the USN. This early work, funded by the military, laid the basis for today's ubiquitous speech understanding systems. Are there issues with fundamental research being funded by the military or, say, big pharma, rather than as part of a direct planned effort by society to achieve social goals? Sure, and much can and should be written about that, but it's not the subject matter of this book.
  - Noumenon72 7mo ago
    Auto-responding when Google Alerts spots your keyword on a new site would help promote your website. I missed that "That" meant "the site that matches my username" so I had gone through a process of "how is this guy claiming to own https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb" and "did he mean indieblog.page/random" and "why is he also saying he wrote something at unsungNovelty.org which doesn't match either of those". I never did figure it out, I opened all the links to check the author and finally got it. Sorry I was dumb. But antecedents are important.
    - unsungNovelty 7mo ago
      No worries. But If I am behind numbers, my website will be completely different with post cadence far more regular. Not saying regular posts are bad. In fact, I am currently working on finishing my writing backlogs. But still, not everyone is behind numbers. Especially like SEO/google kind of numbers.
- mikestorrent 7mo ago
  Get over yourself
sylware 7mo ago
Sadely this search engine is now javascript only. So the "small" web...
- unsungNovelty 7mo ago
  Couple of things. 1. No. It's not javascript only. https://old-search.marginalia.nu/ https://old-search.marginalia.nu/ is still available. It is also mentioned in https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/redesign/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/redesign/ as gonna be there for a very long time. 2. I don't think just because it uses javascript make it bad. It's a very nice site now. I prefer it better than old version. My website doesn't use JS for any functionality yet. But I've never said never either. The reason hasn't arised that I need to use JS. The day it does, I will use it. But I understand the sentiment though. I used to be a no js guy before. But I've been softened by the need to use it professionally only to think --- hmmm, not bad.
  - sylware 7mo ago
    I do 100% disagree. web apps are gated by the abominations of whatng cartel web engines, with even worse SDKs, mechanically certainly not 'small' and assurely a definitive nono. And the 'old' interface, you bet I tried to use it... which is actually gated with javascript... so...
    - marginalia_nu 7mo ago
      I assume you're blocked by the new bot blocker? I've tested it in both w3m and dillo, should work fine as long as your browser renders noscript tags. It's very much designed from the ground up to handle browsers like that. Just requires you to manually wait a few seconds and then press the link. One configuration that might break is if you're running something like chrome or firefox, and rigging it to not run JS. But it's really hard to support those types of configurations. If it works in w3m, it's no longer a "site requires JS" issue...
      - sylware 7mo ago
thesuitonym 7mo ago
For my part, if I come across a personal site that hasn't been updated in a few months, I don't assume it's abandoned, just that the person hasn't had anything to say for a while. I'd rather see a site with updates every few months, or even once or twice a year, than one with an update every other week saying "Sorry I haven't updated."
SyneRyder 7mo ago
Not sure if this will be considered helpful, but if you include: <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.unsungnovelty.org/index.xml https://www.unsungnovelty.org/index.xml" /> in the HEAD of the pages on your website, it makes autodiscovery of the RSS feed a bit easier - not just for crawlers, but also for people with RSS plugins in their browser. It will make the RSS icon appear in their browser's URL field for easy subscription. Took me a while to find the RSS link at the bottom of your pages!
- unsungNovelty 7mo ago
  Thanks. Lemme look into that and will take the necessary actions.

mikestorrent 7mo ago

Now this is what makes me feel the Small Web... creators randomly showing up like this on HN. I feel like I used to see this kind of thing more.

Noumenon72 7mo ago

They barely mentioned your website (fourth in five urls, mainly talking about indieblog.com and kagi.com/smallweb), so "That is my website!" is confusing and makes it seem like you're autoresponding to a keyword.

unsungNovelty 7mo ago
Why should I auto-respond to a keyword? Just curious seeing it here buddy. Breathe easy.
- speefers 7mo ago
  [flagged]
- jibal 7mo ago
  Yeah, it didn't confuse sensible people who are capable of putting themselves in someone else's shoes. I did a Small Web search at Marginalia and was immediately pointed to sites that claim that I and everyone in my political party are literally the spawn of Satan--I really don't think it's my thing. I helped develop the ARPANET back in 1969-1970 while working for the UCLA Comp Sci dept, got a brief mention in RFC 57, hold several network patents, and was on usenet before the usenix conference where we voted to call it that ... I'm bemused by all the people who claim that boomers are technologically inept (I think they have us mixed up with our parents). Anyway it's been a heck of a wild ride and didn't end up quite how JCR Licklider envisioned it.
  - mikestorrent 7mo ago
    You sound like someone with stories.... got any I can read?
    - jibal 7mo ago
      Nothing offhand that I can share. But take a look at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay_Up_Late https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Sta...
      - mikestorrent 7mo ago
        Thanks!
        jibal 7mo ago
        I wrote this in response to one of the reviews, so I'll share it with you since you asked. :-) I worked on an ARPA-funded speech understanding project in the 1970's at SDC--it was definitely driven by military interests. One time some of us techies were in our soundproof lab drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers when our manager brought to the big picture window an Iranian general bristling with medals--they both looked extremely unhappy. I also worked on ARPANET development at UCLA from 1969-1971, and there was none of that. The driving motivation was ARPA-funded researchers at universities being able to readily share their work. Is ARPA funding researchers at universities an issue that can be written about? Of course, but it has nothing to do with the ARPANET per se and isn't part of the story that this book is about. Oops--I left out a critical part of the SDC story--we were in the lab because it had an incredible sound system featuring a pair of high end AR-3 speakers. I don't recall what we were playing but I'm sure it sounded wonderful. We also did real work in that lab of course ... mostly recording things like "What is the surfaced displacement of the Lafayette?", which our primitive system running on (pathetically slow by today's standards) Raytheon 704 and PDP-11 computers would attempt to parse and answer. The text of course was selected for the sake of obtaining a grant from the USN. This early work, funded by the military, laid the basis for today's ubiquitous speech understanding systems. Are there issues with fundamental research being funded by the military or, say, big pharma, rather than as part of a direct planned effort by society to achieve social goals? Sure, and much can and should be written about that, but it's not the subject matter of this book.
- Noumenon72 7mo ago
  Auto-responding when Google Alerts spots your keyword on a new site would help promote your website. I missed that "That" meant "the site that matches my username" so I had gone through a process of "how is this guy claiming to own https://kagi.com/smallweb https://kagi.com/smallweb" and "did he mean indieblog.page/random" and "why is he also saying he wrote something at unsungNovelty.org which doesn't match either of those". I never did figure it out, I opened all the links to check the author and finally got it. Sorry I was dumb. But antecedents are important.
  - unsungNovelty 7mo ago
    No worries. But If I am behind numbers, my website will be completely different with post cadence far more regular. Not saying regular posts are bad. In fact, I am currently working on finishing my writing backlogs. But still, not everyone is behind numbers. Especially like SEO/google kind of numbers.
mikestorrent 7mo ago
Get over yourself

sylware 7mo ago

Sadely this search engine is now javascript only. So the "small" web...

unsungNovelty 7mo ago
Couple of things. 1. No. It's not javascript only. https://old-search.marginalia.nu/ https://old-search.marginalia.nu/ is still available. It is also mentioned in https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/redesign/ https://about.marginalia-search.com/article/redesign/ as gonna be there for a very long time. 2. I don't think just because it uses javascript make it bad. It's a very nice site now. I prefer it better than old version. My website doesn't use JS for any functionality yet. But I've never said never either. The reason hasn't arised that I need to use JS. The day it does, I will use it. But I understand the sentiment though. I used to be a no js guy before. But I've been softened by the need to use it professionally only to think --- hmmm, not bad.
- sylware 7mo ago
  I do 100% disagree. web apps are gated by the abominations of whatng cartel web engines, with even worse SDKs, mechanically certainly not 'small' and assurely a definitive nono. And the 'old' interface, you bet I tried to use it... which is actually gated with javascript... so...
  - marginalia_nu 7mo ago
    I assume you're blocked by the new bot blocker? I've tested it in both w3m and dillo, should work fine as long as your browser renders noscript tags. It's very much designed from the ground up to handle browsers like that. Just requires you to manually wait a few seconds and then press the link. One configuration that might break is if you're running something like chrome or firefox, and rigging it to not run JS. But it's really hard to support those types of configurations. If it works in w3m, it's no longer a "site requires JS" issue...
    - sylware 7mo ago

thesuitonym 7mo ago

For my part, if I come across a personal site that hasn't been updated in a few months, I don't assume it's abandoned, just that the person hasn't had anything to say for a while. I'd rather see a site with updates every few months, or even once or twice a year, than one with an update every other week saying "Sorry I haven't updated."

SyneRyder 7mo ago

Not sure if this will be considered helpful, but if you include: <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://www.unsungnovelty.org/index.xml https://www.unsungnovelty.org/index.xml" /> in the HEAD of the pages on your website, it makes autodiscovery of the RSS feed a bit easier - not just for crawlers, but also for people with RSS plugins in their browser. It will make the RSS icon appear in their browser's URL field for easy subscription. Took me a while to find the RSS link at the bottom of your pages!

unsungNovelty 7mo ago
Thanks. Lemme look into that and will take the necessary actions.