To me, the Internet as we know it is dead. I’m trying to build a new, better “internet”. Don’t know how, yet, but I have a concept of a plan.

My kids are getting old enough to get their own computers. I got them two mini-PC’s, put Mint on them, and for now a few DOS games. They are at the age where they still sound out everything they read or write, but it won’t take long before they’d like to go online. For now, though, they are happy with some of the games I used to play. Right now it’s Duck Tales, Dynablaster and Grand Prix Circuit, but I hope to introduce them to Sierra and Lucasarts adventures later, and Microprose strategies even later.

But I digress. I don’t want to let them onto the Internet, even if I disable access to some sites (they’re bound to find a way around). Instead, I’d like to self-host my own Internet. It would be largely static, with entire downloaded Web sites, and I’m currently compiling a list of what I’d give them. I’m also thinking of curating a selection of news articles, which I’d grab and present to them via my own server. As time goes by, I’d slowly immerse them in more, but my goal is to grow them to be discerning young adults, who’d know better what to believe and what to share than my generation did.

Other parents in my kids’ school have the same concerns. I was talking to some about my idea, and they’d like to join. Some of them are far more knowledgeable than me in the technical aspects of this undertaking (I’m still using a LAMP stack for all my needs). At the end, we may end up with a local “internet”, with its own dedicated message board, perhaps some social pages, and relatively harmless content. If we had this idea, you can bet that thousands of other communities already had a similar idea. I fully expect the human internet to eventually fragment into tiny local internets, and the traditional internet becoming a giant circle-jerk of AI’s in circular conversation.

Tiger Woods golf was the shit! I miss a good golf game on the Switch…

Trump is a pedophile

Pedonald

In addition to “normal” uses, my kids got into the habit of leaving me messages on the camera when I’m in the office and they are leaving for school. I grew to love these messages.

Using Eufy with local storage. Don’t know whether anything gets stored to the cloud, but I guess data still passes through Eufy servers when I view the videos.

I may not be representative of a larger sample, but I used medium format for landscapes, and always shallow depth of field. For sharper images, I used longer lenses on a 35mm camera. So, a diffraction issue wouldn’t be bothering me on a medium format camera, if I ever even found the money to get one.

Still doing Vivaldi on a daily basic. But I think I’m a very specific use case: an old user who hates to change his ways, and is obsessed with keeping the page tabs on the bottom of the screen.

Here I am, happy with my 10 yo desktop, playing games from my backlog, and teaching my kids to play Duck Tales and Dynablaster. Can’t wait for to introduce them to The Secret of Monkey Island and Sam and Max Hit the Road. From what I hear, most parents in my neighbourhood are doing something similar, so there’s little peer pressure to get the latest hardware to play the latest games.

When I was your age, we called them Micro$oft. Too bad there were no extensions in Netscape Navigator.

My first thought was to flush the toilet whenever you needed warmer water. I used to rent an apartment where I had to turn on cold water in the sink to get hot enough water in the shower.

Brave. Not sure about the version number, but it’s been working fine.

Web browser. I only have two other social media accounts, on Reddit and LinkedIn, and I use a browser for these as well. Even if a dedicated app worked in my OS, my phone doesn’t have enough memory to install it.

Have school-aged kids. Getting up early will become the best part of the day. The silent first coffee before all hell breaks loose.

I’m still running Jelly Bean. I know that I could get a more modern OS with Lineage OS, but for my very limited purposes the old Android is good enough.

In August it will be 15 years since I purchased the phone I’m typing this reply on, Samsung Galaxy S2. All I do is calling, basic browsing, and checking the weather, so I don’t really feel like I need a new phone. Battery is replacable, so until the screen is broken, this phone will serve its purpose.

Cassidy from The Preacher would like to have a word…

I installed Office 97 from 49 floppies on a bunch of office computers. We didn’t have CD-rom drives, so we requested the floppies from Microsoft (this was a free of charge service). Took me a week. Got into graphic novels, as I was waiting for each floppy to load.

I’ve been in the US two months ago, in a very Democratic city, socialising with only very anti-Trump people. Not a single one cared what happened outside US borders. They were upset about the inflation, cost of living, loss of privacy and civil liberties, etc. There may be some who do care about the US foreign policy, but unless thousands of Americans start returning in body bags, there won’t be enough critical mass to stage any revolt or even protests worthy of Trump’s attention.

My company (130,000 employees) sticks to 24H2. IT wouldn’t approve the 25H2. Don’t know whether the refusal to upgrade hurts Microsoft in any way, but if it does, I think we’re big enough to be on their radar, and perhaps they talk to our IT about concerns and complaints we may have.

Cape Town set itself back with how they mishandled this year’s cancellation. I also don’t think there’s any chance of a new women record. The rest looks like pretty safe predictions.

I was recently thinking that if I died and went to hell, the greatest torture that could be inflicted on me would be to show me how much productive time I wasted pulling the meat.