What was your favorite web page back in the day that you would visit religiously and tell all your friends about but have since lost? Did it shutter permanently or did you lose the bookmark when switching computers never to find it again?

Back in the days of printed web page yellow pages and search engines you had to submit your page to be reviewed before it was listed, I had found a page about movie easter eggs, errors and insider information. It had factoids about nearly 1000 movies ranging from obscure facts, mistakes in editing, anachronisms, funny on-set stories and the like.

It was fun to read that this character was named after the art directors niece, the stunt car is visible losing 8 hubcaps in the main chase, etc. It was amazing to read how different movies would interact (IIRC, Kim Bassinger's gasp/jump reaction to opening the door in "Batman" was real due to them having a xenomoprh from Aliens there instead of Jack Nicholson since they were filming at the same time). It was also cool to read that certain characters made cameos in other movies (most people caught that Randolph and Mortimer Duke from "Trading Places" were in "Coming to America" but there are so many other not as obvious blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos). I never would have noticed the car visible in the background of Johnny Cage vs Scorpion in the orchard fight in "Mortal Kombat" without this page--and now I can never unsee it when I watch it.

I don't know if I lost the bookmark or if the page shut down so I deleted it but any search I've undertaken for this page in the last few decades only seems to return listicles like "21 obvious anachronisms in modern movies!" but not my all comprehensive target.

Honorable mention to Damn Interesting (although I did find that one again after a few years). Although it's underwent some turbulance and changes since I first disovered it, I would often reread the articles and gleefully looked forward to each new article when I was younger. With article names like Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom it was hard not to be intrigued.

To preface, I have accounts on multiple link aggregators, three microblogging platforms, and I have my own (transiently online) blog. I'm a member of more niche Discord servers than I can count, and I'm in a few other nooks where people generally seem to gather and talk. Despite all that, I find that it's incredibly rare that I ever actually participate in any of the discussions that I see taking place, and that's something that I think I'd like to change.

I think part of the problem is that I grew up in the formative years of the "modern" net, and was always taught that you should be careful about what you say online (and, implicitly, that saying nothing is probably even better), lest an axe murderer track you down and explodify your tibia while you sleep.

So, does anyone else, or have stories about, posting anxiety? Anyone gotten over it? Am I just crazy?

Every so often I'll fill out a survey of some sort that asks how tech-savvy I am, and one of the options will be something like early adopter or tech enthusiast: "I'm the first of my friends to have the latest gadgets and they come to me for recommendations/advice." I've finally accepted that I can't delude myself into thinking that still applies to me.

I don't like Android or iOS so my phone is ancient (I've had longstanding issues with both permissions and UI). I still use an mp3 player daily (lots of my favorite music isn't on streaming sites). I'm running Windows 7 and 8 on my two computers (until I take the plunge and switch over to Linux; Windows 10 can eat a fat one). I find that most consumer tech for at least the past decade does stuff I like but I either can't find new products that don't remove some functionality that's perfect for my use-case scenarios or privacy concerns make me shy away.

I'm interested in what applications people use, maybe I can discover some better alternatives.

Music: Spotify for streaming, Dopamine for local music.

Cloud: OneDrive. As a student, I get 1 TB of space for free.

Email: Mailspring, though I'm eyeing eM Client as an alternative right now.

Text Processors: Mostly VS Code with LaTeX, but I do sometimes use good old MS Office.

Code: VS Code again, and also IntelliJ IDEA and CLion for the respective languages. VS Code for anything that isn't C or Java related. I'm also watching the development of Oni Vim 2.

PDF: On my laptop with a touch display, I use Drawboard. On my PC at home I use Nitro PDF.

Browser: Firefox, ever since the quantum update it's nice and snappy. Though maybe I'd switch to Vivaldi when they add Sync at some point.

Something I've noticed about the Fediverse, especially Mastodon, is that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of discussion going on except for meta discussion.

For example, if you go on Mastodon, you'll find lots of people talking about how Mastodon is the future. You'll find lots of people asking how to do certain things on the platform. But you really have to dig to find actual discussion about topics beyond the platform itself.

Even when you do find people not doing meta discussion, there aren't really any people talking with each other. There's people sharing content but not a lot of people interacting with it. Even basic stuff you see on other social media sites like people giving each other compliments just isn't really there. You can see everyone's stuff but it's just shouting into the void.

I think that the Fediverse has a severe problem with holding people's interest, and the most die-hard people who are interested just want to use it to talk about itself.

After trying windows 10 a few years ago and disabling all the marketing stuff and disabling other features that hinder performance, I've been curious why my only other real choice is linux, or reverting back to windows 7.

I tried finding other alternatives to reddit, which is what got me here. I still love the content of the subs that I followed and am not wanting to really step away. I'd like to as a matter of my own principles... but I still want it. So much knowledge has been amassed on that platform.

Do you guys still mess with reddit regularly? If not, how?

I, clearly along with many others, recently left Reddit and have personally decided not to return unless it sees drastic, lasting change. However, this has made it clear just how reliant I was on the site for multiple aspects of my life, ranging from local and world news, to hobby related announcements, to perspective, advice, and memes directly from marginalized communities. In Tildes I've already found some of what I've been missing, and I'm sure I'll find more as the community continues to grow, but Tildes doesn't have the same setup to allow for finding the same niche communities that I once had (nor should Tildes ever need to have that).

With all of that said, what gaps are you currently experiencing? Have you found any good sites or resources that have helped you or might help others in the thread?

What are some of the must-dos, must-installs, must-uninstalls, and must-alters of setting up a new PC? I'm getting my first new PC in 5 years on Sunday and the old one is really showing its age. I would like to avoid that as much as possible in order to keep the PC running smoothly as long as possible. I'd also like to optimize its performance and have useful software tools.

Thank you for any advice,
gbbb

From a non-MAGA’ers perspective;

He took a perfectly fine (albeit starting to decline) social media platform with millions of users and derailed it completely from what it was before to a farce.

Why even buy Twitter if you’re going to change the entire format, including the actual name of the brand? Why not build a competitor from the ground up and call it X?

Unless you’re the melonhead billionaire your guess is better than mine, but I wonder if this bumbling incompetence is pre-orchestrated somehow or if he’s making it up as he goes.

https://postimg.cc/phNYcrTJ

Just deleted my Reddit account. I was a Digg addict, and thereafter way to absorbed in Reddit for my own good.

Wanted to thank Christian for a brilliant app (if he ever was to see this: you poured your soul into that thing. Thank you for all you did). I’ve now deleted the app on all devices and am moving on!

Am looking forward to a fresh change.

I really like the feel of this place. Low key, easy to navigate and not crowded. And the civil conversations just blow my mind!

PS: sincerely appreciate the invite link!

Further questions:

• If you go by both, do you ever mix them or do you keep them totally separate?
• Do you let your real life friends, family and peers know about your online pseudonyms?
• For people building an online presence as a kind of brand, how does this impact your choice?

I'm looking for suggestions. The Internet has become very small over the last 11 years. My go-to for the moments of downtime was RIF. I was able to consume all the little spaces with it since it was an infinite feed - that's a bit harder now. All sorts of apps are welcome, but I'm not looking for things that require high effort or attention span (unless they are worth it). Games are fine, but other apps that fill your time are very good - preferably SFW and audio-off! I use Android, so I prefer those, but our Apple brethren are also welcome to share.

Added the qualifier to the title as web3 understandably earns a lot of eyerolls haha. At the same time, a lot of web3 focused places seem to have a specific mindset about what "should" be done so I wanted to ask here.

I worked in the space at startup (ironically making web2 services to assist in web3 so I’m still an extreme novice). But my time there was a constant push / pull between convention and money and innovation and the unknown. The company I was at would try to appeal to big companies in hopes of finding a product market fit, who looked to us for guidance on what to do in this new space where they hoped to make money. Trend after trend would pass and it would be entertained whether we’d jump on it because product market fit.

The most desirable companies were household names with non-web3 userbases because they meant unprecedented reach. But to make web3 approachable to them, you’d have to define a UX that didn’t exist and would be pulled in a tug of war between two forces. The first mindset optimises for the purest idea of giving the user power— UXs that were obvious about the concepts of transactions and transferrable assets. The other wanted to replicate web2 UXs in web3, to the degree that a user gives temporary control of their wallet to a developer so the developer performs transactions as them.

Then, there is the data and pseudonymity piece. Companies have been taught that data is valuable, and one of the values of a blockchain is an identity that exists outside of any one company. But if all of your assets are on a blockchain— either under your public key or perhaps under a few that might transfer assets only between each other— then your identity can be known (not so private) and also cannot be monopolized and sold (because your data is public).

In the background, as this all happens, is the decentralization argument. At the end of the day, my company used EVM nodes operated by another company (which themselves might be wrappers around something offered by AWS). What is meaningful decentralization alongside specialization of labor? What is decentralization in a world that has billionaires and enormous companies who has the means to buy resources and set up tons of nodes?

Being out of the space now, I do think a decentralized database with immutable scripts, user-managed transferrable assets, and transferrable identity has enormous value. But recently I’ve been wondering how much of that can be accomplished in the private sector. In my time there it felt like the startup needs (enterprise customers, increased ARR) constantly compromised the will for innovation efforts.

I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's TrueNas and Unraid, but as a newbie, what's the best choice?

I'm also just curious what everyone else is using :)

Edit: Thank you for your great responses!