I remember back in the summer of 1996 in Pakistan our household was one of the first few to have to internet.
At that time angelfire.com used to give free webspace. My brother got hold of a pirated version of CorelDraw and setup a fan website of his favorite rock band Junoon, which incidentally is still online: https://www.angelfire.com/pa/JUNOON
And then when my brother met the band at a concert and they actually recognized him due to the website. I guess first time we realized how impactful internet is going to be.
I love your brother's site, so much. It looks like the web counter is still working, and that I'm not the only person from here checking it out, so I hope angelfire is ready for a bit of a "hug".
I wonder is this a sign of the times? I've (nearly ...) quit all social media and re-embraced my personal website. It's also under construction, but it's going to be the main place I update everything (work, personal, photos, updates etc.). I don't care if no one reads it. It's mine.
I think its really nice to have an own "digital garden".
In Germany you unfortunately have to dox yourself with stuff like this, and I really dont want people to know my address.
I know people will argue "thats only for business websites", but that's far from the truth. It's for every website that might(!) has a business aspect. So I couldn't even name products on a personal blog as that could be seen as advertisment that I got paid for...
Granted, I'm not a native German speaker, but that's not my understanding of the "Impressumspflicht" law, if that's what you're referring to.
The law is mostly targeted at media and to some lesser extend businesses. The law is not enforced, and would be hard to enforce for individuals. For individuals, the law contradict multiple privacy laws, possibly the GDPR, and it might also conflict with some past rulings on the article 11th of the European Convention on Human rights. This article guarantees freedom of speech without persecutions, and one way to guarantee that is through anonymity.
My non-lawyer opinion is: people setting up an "Impressum" page on their personal websites in Germany are over-interpretating the law.
This is also the opinion of german lawyers[1]: "Impressumspflicht schön und gut - aber muss wirklich jeder Webseiten-Inhaber ein Impressum auf seiner Website führen? Ganz klar: Nein. Die Verpflichtung ein Impressum auf der eigenen Webseite einzubinden gilt nur bei geschäftsmäßigen Online-Diensten. Im Umkehrschluss brauchen Betreiber von Websites, die ausschließlich persönlichen oder familiären Zwecken dienen kein Impressum auf ihrer Homepage einzubinden."
Regardless of this, if you still want to put an "Impressum" page just to be safe, you can buy a "Postfach" from the deutsche post for ~€20/year and use that as your "Impressum" address, this way you don't have to doxx yourself.
20 years ago in the UK most ISPs gave you a little bit of web space free with your account - and an email box of two. One of the sad changes that happened is that this has gone now.
It used to make it really easy to have a cool little website. I used mine for a simple blog - now gone.
i agree it was very enticing to get started, OTOH having an email address linked to a particular ISP meant people not daring to change it and having to update their email everywhere
I remember an old friend of mine moved to the Orkneys, and used the free webspace to set up a webcam and site so we could keep in touch with him. Back in the late 90s this was kind of mind-blowing!
DMCA (and equivalent legislation in Europe) killed it. It was too risky for ISPs to allow users to have unmoderated, publicly accessible digital lockers that could be used for storing MP3s.
I hope you take this the right way. Seeing your work gives me so much more confidence in my own creativity. I showed someone at the supply store a rough draft I had and they were encouraging, but also said I’ve never seen anything like it. Which is both possibly cool and doubtful.
I 1000% stand behind this. When I was thinking how I was going to make my personal website personal - I really had to think. One of the great charms in "websites of the past" is all of the neat gifs and unconventional formatting. It has really inspired me in making mine (it's still under construction at freesiagaul.com).
Of course I'm not amazing, but frontend should feel like art, because that's what it is.
When I moved into my current apartment I had a difficult task. On one hand, I wanted it to look modern and sleek. On the other, I wanted it to be mine. It's my apartment, nobody else's.
It is still huge work-in-progress and the amount of effort is way above reasonable amounts and it's going to be a problem once I want to sell the apartment, but I'm proud of myself, because I'm at the point where you can slowly see where things are going.
Thanks, I appreciate it! :D I'm planning on making many more, and hoping as I get better I can make little ascii-characters look as if they're interacting with the site
It is! For the latest incarnation of my blog I forwent comments in favor of a simple mailto: link at the bottom of each post which prefills the email subject with the post's title. I've had significantly fewer interactions with readers this way, but they've also been much more meaningful and insightful. There is a performative nature to public forums of any kind--and HN is not immune to this--that stifles any genuine discussion, or drowns it in a sea of attention-seekers.
Yes, I am aware of the hypocritical irony of complaining about online comments in an online comment.
This is a simple and great idea. I do something similar with my website. My newsletter is just a list of emails I have in a .txt file. I email to everyone when I write a blog post and we chat through email exchanges about it. The interactions feel more in-depth, and as you say, less performative as the exchange is just between us. Now I'm thinking of adding an email link at the end of every blog post with the blog title.
It is nowadays, not just because of spam (there's both hosted and 3rd party solutions for that) but non-spam but unwanted / vile comments. Internet anonymity has always brought out the worst in people.
That was a fun read. Love the default theme and ability to swap themes. I recently deleted IG so maybe it’s time for a personal website. The world needs more 5 course meal generators :)
As an erstwhile teenaged Geocities fanatic, all these "old web was good, let's go back to it" posts miss some key factors that block such a way back.
1. Most of the Old Web site experiences were one-and-done. We checked out a website, then checked out the next one on the webring or Geocities neighborhood. Unless the site "looked" like it was updated with news, we generally didn't re-visit the site, or really even remember it. Your old website could feel just as disposable and stale as the average social media post.
2. RSS and algo-free chronological feeds won't return us to a time of civility. I have never stopped using RSS. But the system isn't designed to support a feed where 10% of the sites post 90% of the content. The experience is awful, there is no way to order things so as to see a diversified feed. RSS of course also flattens web pages into a lifeless scroll of text, defeating the purpose of home-made web pages.
3. Webdev is too complicated now compared to a time when your ISP gave you an FTP folder and Notepad was all that was needed to write some HTML and display some images. Modern webdev (code editor, SSL, hosting, mobile-ready CSS) creates an adverse selection problem where the people with the time and skill to make websites, already do so in their work and thus create the most boring websites imaginable....code-heavy tech blogs or wispy 'digital transformation' thought leadership.
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At that time angelfire.com used to give free webspace. My brother got hold of a pirated version of CorelDraw and setup a fan website of his favorite rock band Junoon, which incidentally is still online: https://www.angelfire.com/pa/JUNOON
And then when my brother met the band at a concert and they actually recognized him due to the website. I guess first time we realized how impactful internet is going to be.
In Germany you unfortunately have to dox yourself with stuff like this, and I really dont want people to know my address.
I know people will argue "thats only for business websites", but that's far from the truth. It's for every website that might(!) has a business aspect. So I couldn't even name products on a personal blog as that could be seen as advertisment that I got paid for...
I hate this country so much.
The law is mostly targeted at media and to some lesser extend businesses. The law is not enforced, and would be hard to enforce for individuals. For individuals, the law contradict multiple privacy laws, possibly the GDPR, and it might also conflict with some past rulings on the article 11th of the European Convention on Human rights. This article guarantees freedom of speech without persecutions, and one way to guarantee that is through anonymity.
My non-lawyer opinion is: people setting up an "Impressum" page on their personal websites in Germany are over-interpretating the law.
This is also the opinion of german lawyers[1]: "Impressumspflicht schön und gut - aber muss wirklich jeder Webseiten-Inhaber ein Impressum auf seiner Website führen? Ganz klar: Nein. Die Verpflichtung ein Impressum auf der eigenen Webseite einzubinden gilt nur bei geschäftsmäßigen Online-Diensten. Im Umkehrschluss brauchen Betreiber von Websites, die ausschließlich persönlichen oder familiären Zwecken dienen kein Impressum auf ihrer Homepage einzubinden."
Regardless of this, if you still want to put an "Impressum" page just to be safe, you can buy a "Postfach" from the deutsche post for ~€20/year and use that as your "Impressum" address, this way you don't have to doxx yourself.
[1] https://www.e-recht24.de/impressum/13095-impressum-fuer-die-...
It used to make it really easy to have a cool little website. I used mine for a simple blog - now gone.
I have my email grandfathered in by my ISP (Virginmrdia) but they don’t offer it to new customers.
I use it with my own domain name that redirects to the Virginmedia box, so not tied to them.
Maybe one where comments only show up after I manually approve each one.
Of course I'm not amazing, but frontend should feel like art, because that's what it is.
It is still huge work-in-progress and the amount of effort is way above reasonable amounts and it's going to be a problem once I want to sell the apartment, but I'm proud of myself, because I'm at the point where you can slowly see where things are going.
https://github.com/freesiagaul/site-ascii The code is super bare-bones for now, but it's been a great learning exercise for someone from an EE background
Yes, I am aware of the hypocritical irony of complaining about online comments in an online comment.
1. Most of the Old Web site experiences were one-and-done. We checked out a website, then checked out the next one on the webring or Geocities neighborhood. Unless the site "looked" like it was updated with news, we generally didn't re-visit the site, or really even remember it. Your old website could feel just as disposable and stale as the average social media post.
2. RSS and algo-free chronological feeds won't return us to a time of civility. I have never stopped using RSS. But the system isn't designed to support a feed where 10% of the sites post 90% of the content. The experience is awful, there is no way to order things so as to see a diversified feed. RSS of course also flattens web pages into a lifeless scroll of text, defeating the purpose of home-made web pages.
3. Webdev is too complicated now compared to a time when your ISP gave you an FTP folder and Notepad was all that was needed to write some HTML and display some images. Modern webdev (code editor, SSL, hosting, mobile-ready CSS) creates an adverse selection problem where the people with the time and skill to make websites, already do so in their work and thus create the most boring websites imaginable....code-heavy tech blogs or wispy 'digital transformation' thought leadership.