grrgyle

Hello hello, and welcome to our now 13th (XIIIth) writing club update. My dictionary explains that the meaning of "thirteen" is:

One more than twelve.

Truly words to live by. Shuffling around my books for a more inspirational bit of numerology, I find the chapter in Mervyn Peake's "Titus Groan" book, wherein we're introduced to the outsider "Keda" who is to be a wet-nurse for the titular prince of Gormenghast. I'm not sure how that relates to what we're doing here, but it's a pretty weird, and cool, book.

Speaking of weird and cool...!

• @Clockwork
• @Ellie
• @grrgyle
• @hazeebabee
• @JacobCoffinWrites
• @ManualOverride

As always, all are extremely welcome to participate in the writing club, regardless of whether they're in the list above.

Not actually ads as we, the modern netizens of the internet of 2005+20 know them, but fun little sort of buttons or blinkies used to cross-promote other places on the smol web.

I've seen a few of these around. But most recently I stumbled onto navlink ads and it reminded me of the phenomenon. I know there are others out there, I just can't remember where to find them.

Anyway, I like them. It's like using the tools of advertisers to add a little irreverent fun to our indie spaces.

Hello folks, welcome to the twelfth (12th) writing club update. Just to pick a random book off of my shelf, chapter 12 of Foucault's Pendumul Umberto Eco begins with

Sub umbra alarum taurum

Which apropos of the topic of that book, is the Rosicrucian motto. Something about being under the protection of God's wings--anyway, among other things, they were like a religious puzzle group that loved leaving little hints for fellow obsessives to follow.

Speaking of obsessed brainiacs...!

• @Clockwork
• @Ellie
• @grrgyle
• @hazeebabee
• @JacobCoffinWrites
• @ManualOverride

As always, all are welcome to participate in the writing club, but these are our current roster of regular participants. Those who do battle against the great enemy indolence, by their pens, pencils, or keyboards. I look forward to hearing your updates!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinkus

May this news brighten your day.

Found while reading up on asterism (⁂) as an alternate symbol to describe the fediverse. Anyway, this sounds especially funny in English, because "Dingus" can mean a foolish person.

Description: Meme of wide-eyed innocent Spongebob on left with caption "coffee stains" juxtaposed again muscular and angry Spongebob on the right with the caption "TEA STAINS".

Sorry if memes aren't welcome here. Just have been experiencing this since my partner drinks morning coffee as opposed to my morning tea, but her vessels can basically just be rinsed out. Whereas removing tea stains actually takes some elbow grease.

I'm on an orange pekoe or yorkshire (bagged), followed by ginger-turmeric green tease (loose) kick at the moment.

Hail and well met, and also welcome; welcome to the 11th writing club update. Fun fact about the number 11: it's only the tenth positive palindromic number, and it will be 11 more months before we encounter our next one (22). Wow.

The weather here has been exceptionally rainy lately, and so perfect for weeding, editing, and savouring moments over hot cups of ginger tea.

I hope you are all safe and that your ginger and writing projects remain free of mold.

Speaking of writing, this is a post about writing. And these are our writers:

• @Clockwork
• @Ellie
• @grrgyle
• @hazeebabee
• @JacobCoffinWrites
• @ManualOverride

Brave scrivenauts, out on the shoals of imagination. Wading through the pools of doubt, and mucking about in the mud of enlightenment. Probably talking with the crabs or clams of metaphor or simile or something, too...

As always dear passerby you're welcome to join us for as long or short as you like -- simply share what you're working on and your goal for the next month, and I'll add you to our list of illustrious weirdos.

Hardly needs an introduction, but someone is always experiencing something new on the internet, so if this is you today - congratulations!

You can click many of the images to pop up an archived version of an old Geocities page. Or just scroll and enjoy the soothing theme song (recommend turning sound on (speaker icon in top-right)).

Here's a splainer from the footer of Cameron's World itself:

GeoCities was a web-hosting service that made it possible for people to build their own home pages. During the 90s, users from all over the world created personalized corners of the Internet.

By the time the U.S. service shut down in October 2009, there were over 38 million GeoCities pages. Cameron’s World brings together archived material from thousands and thousands of these sites.

In an age where we interact primarily with branded and marketed web content, Cameron’s World is a tribute to the lost days of unrefined self-expression on the Internet. This project recalls the visual aesthetics from an era when it was expected that personal spaces would always be under construction.

Actually, a little bit of trivia: if you go back to the aughts with the WayBack Machine, you'll find the domain was considerably riskier then. Click around at your own risk, because it gets NSFW pretty quickly. :)

Or how yesterweb begat web revival begat ~smol~ begat {{INSERT_YOUR_GLORIOUS_AND_FREAKY_HOMEPAGE_HERE}}.

I'm still currently reading this piece, but it's already got enough soy on the bean* to be worth sharing. I think it might lean a bit too much into the nostalgia club area of things (which I'll admit is a personal draw), but like I said I'm not done reading it yet. :P

* alt to "meat on the bone" I'm still workshopping lol

EDIT: Okay, I kept reading and my initial reticence was unfounded. It's a great taxonomy of the disparate and overlapping personas that describe many of the netizens who feel like a better internet is possible.

Tag urself, I'm nostalgic corpo hater who wants everyone to get along.

030/100 [███░░░░░░░] : The "90s Web"
060/100 [██████░░░░] : The Anti-Capitalists
040/100 [████░░░░░░] : The Socialites
020/100 [██░░░░░░░░] : The Artists
020/100 [██░░░░░░░░] : The Minimalists

Gloriously researched and delivered with the characteristic Ed Zitron panache. I can't believe this hasn't been shared here yet!

You should just read it, but I knew I had to share it when I got to this part:

Emphasis mine.

Blurb from the web page:

The Smallweb Subway is an experimental project that seeks to connect communities online using webrings.

[...]

The subway system theme is my attempt at making the internet feel more like a place where you can have neighbors. If a webring looks like a subway line, then it's easier to imagine a friend only a few stops away!

I really like this visual, and being able to see different topics on their own "lines." This feels like such an intuitive design, I hope it gets copied or riffed on elsewhere.

This is pretty well known, but I'm sure there are some people out there who haven't thought of it, because I was one of them until just this year.

You can find links to RSS and Atom feeds below the comic.

I love this RSS feed because it even shows the easter egg text when you hover over the comic in your feed agg.

Example of a button: incidentally another fun place on da small web (the button is also a link).

The TL;DR is that it just sort of became the standard because of being an early standard, and then because they are kind of a nice size. Something I don't think the article mentions (I'll admit I started skimming around the end) is that when displayed for fun, web folk often like to stack or grid these together, so it makes sense that if you're making a new button that you'd make it the same size, so that it would fit in with all the rest.