new internet

Beyond that the wider internet just strikes me as a sad place. There is no energy there. The cracks in the wall are beginning to show.

why is this site so barebones? aren't you a designer?

it feels more honest this way.

In the early days of the internet, one of the first search engines, Yahoo!, hired “surfers,” people with particularly niche interests, to record and catalog new websites by hand. In those days, each site was crafted by hand by a person. Each site had a face you could see, and if desired, email.

Back in the 2000s, a lot of blogs were about blogs , about blogging. If that sounds exhaust­ingly meta, well, yes — but it was also SUPER generative. When the thing can describe itself, when it becomes the natural place to discuss and debate itself, I am telling you: some flywheel gets spinning, and powerful things start to happen.

It's interesting to see how many people put "Twitter refugee" or something similar in their Bsky bios. Have people done that before when migrating to new platforms? I don't recall seeing "Friendster refugee" or "MySpace refugee" on newer platforms in the 00s.

About this Class #

There are two meanings of internet:

• the infrastructure that connects computing devices,


• or the ecosystem of applications built on that infrastructure.

When the average person says “internet” they usually refer to the second definition. This class, on the other hand, explores the first.

But you know what? I really like the physical world. I like to feel like

a healthy animal. Too much time in the virtual world makes me feel worse.

I don't like it. And to me there is no question that the qualities of

the physical place where I live are far, far more important than anything

about the Internet, and always will be.