| written by Alex on Aug 14, 2021 15:16 |
 | |  | | ![]()  August 14th, 2021: the last bounce
Boy! I've been off-planet for a couple years and... pandemics, far-right assaults on the Capitol in the States, Afghanistan is hot again... I really should check what happens around more often. Not that I could help in any significant ways, aside donating some bucks to relief organizations. So yeah, why should I even bother looking? When the third world war comes, if it ever does, I'll certainly notice.
Me? I'm fine. Not exactly feeling much alive, but not even dead. I got my double shot of the Pfizer thing, shaked off the resulting low fever, but it's not that I'm getting around crowds anyway, I've been in lockdown since 1997, much ahead of times, I had time to get used to staying home. But just in case you were righteously wondering, even since I deleted myself from Facebook at the end of the last year, I'm still alive and well. Physically, 'cos in terms of mental health, it's always been a totally different thing. Oh poor twisted me, poor mistreated me! Meh...
Down to what brings me here again, aside from checking out that someone's still alive around this "relic" from slightly better times...
It's about to end.
Anynowhere, I mean.
This site is closing.
Don't panic!
I'm gonna move to a new home, a new shore, a new site.
And I'll be pointing old links there so whoever still finds them around can land in the new place.
I've been designing it through the last year, it's... well, it's nothing NORMAL, what'd you expect from me?
It's weird, and very different from here. Brace yourself for impact.
I've been wildly unsure what the heck I was doing while designing it, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
So, for a start, it's umm... retro-looking.
It's actually mimicking a green-screen terminal, but it can do Commodore 64, PC DOS and ZX Spectrum impressions too.
And crisp green/amber/white terminals from the early 80's, except at infinitely high resolution.
Behind all that, is no known software, of course.
I mean, why not take on the burden to code the entire web server, too?
And the relational database engine?
And the caching mechanisms?
And the client-side touch keyboard?
It's all made in me, there.
You know how I work... I'm absurd.
Ok, seriously, though, the operating system isn't something I wrote.
That's just Debian Linux. Phew. We're safe there.
Speaking of what it is... it's a blog host.
It's MISSING COMMENTS, they're on their way but still missing.
There's a sample page that opens to showcase how the user interface looks there.
We'll have per-page discussions (real-time, a la Disqus) and generic hubs to talk about random stuff, by category.
It qualifies itself as a blog host. Among which, mine will be one of several other blogs.
It can host ZIP and .7Z packages so I will bring my stuff from here to there.
It was built also for a specific purpose: hosting a webcomic.
Which I may or may not start publishing, I'm not sure yet.
Over there, my username's Furrball, not Alex.
But "Alex" is disallowed, so nobody takes it, and starts pranking around. ^^
Also, the site's double-face, it has an Italian version, selects which one to show based on the browser's language preference, and so there's an Italian version of my account too: it's called Furbolo, being the old translation of the Warner Bros character name when Tiny Toons aired in Italy. Just so you know, I have two accounts there. And I may need a few sockpuppets too, of which one is Lena. She's a character in the webcomic. Just so you know, that's... still me, essentially. Oh, and finally, I've got an old account I'm keeping for sentimental reasons, because it was the first ever created on that system: it's called just "X". So, to recap:
- Furrball is me, main account, can do anything.
- Furbolo is me again, has regular sysop access rights, but can't do as much as the other one.
- Lena is me again, she's a sysop too because I fear she'd take it bad if I didn't make her one.
- X is me again, has no particular access rights, it's just a regular account, kept inactive.
I'll start a regular thread in Members' Projects so others can say what they think of the whole thing.
Oh, by the way, the address is
https://80.style
Yep, just that: the TLD is .style
Prepare for a character-size-blowing experience.
I know, I know... it's disorienting, probably.
Can't help, that's how it's supposed to look.
It's unlikely I'd ever attempt to bring over the database of forum messages from here to there, in part because it's so different: there's no word wrap in the early 80's, you format messages and blog pages by manually, freely deciding when to start the next line. Also, it's ALL-CAPS. Think about it: we don't have to ponder when it's about time to to strike the shift key! Soooo relaxing!
Apologies, guys and girls.
Did we ever have any girls here, by the way?
Just curious, eh?... probably not.
I remember Kalamazoo, but it was like half an epoc ago.
But anyway, apologies if what you'll find there will feel inadequate, scary, not positive, whatever... if you ask me, I had that idea in mind since a long long time, and figured it was about time to pour it out, so I can't say I don't like it. I made it just because I wanted it, but it's an answer without a question and I'm fully aware of that. And that it can feel really weird. I'll take the fault. But I won't look back, it's already something I'm managing to look at least there, to say it all.
On the other hand, keeping anynowhere up for much longer is a bit uncomfortable: it's an extra monthly fee, it's something I don't really like anymore, and moving everything and every survivor to 80.style will allow concentrating my feeble willpower and cheap pockets in one place. And hey, at least it's relatively comfortable to browser while on tablets and rather large smartphones. I'll agree that it feels awkward on screens below 7 inches, though: it will be a known and persistent issue, but it comes along with the need to maintain text formatting across most screen sizes without having characters look gigantic or essentially unreadable.
What's up next is comments: I have to convince myself to code the comment system there, it's not hard, it can be done in a week or so, but I'm having lots of troubles accepting the IDEA of having people share thoughts about everyone's pages there, because... you know, things changed since 2003 and the inception of Postline. I was happy I could hear people back then, last years have been a sh*tstorm of retrograde thinking, misinformation, divisive propaganda, hate speech... a crapload of anger and rage. Not that I've been an angel in the meantime, I've got my own tunes, complete with that suitcase to the left. And so, yeah, there's a bit of resistance to fight the corner of my mind that keeps wondering "do we really need comments?". I KNOW we need them, but dang it... let's lay down clear rules and hope for the best.
And then I'll start re-creating pages for stuff that's here, on the other side.
In the meantime, feel free to fiddle with writing pages there if you feel like it.
I'm holding a diary, very boring and pointless to read, so far, called "memory store".
Just skin through it if really curious, I wouldn't re-read that myself, go figure...
And in the end, I might go with the webcomic idea.
Though it's weird, scary and something I never tried before.
And it'll probably be a failure.
Oh, some time ago I noticed at least Cryoburner found my take to set up a free online poker site.
It was for play money only, no real gambling, of course, just for the fun of it.
But it went basically unused, it was probably not fun. Or just bad timing. Or whatever.
I'm not so attracted by that game anymore, too.
Actually, I'm not so attracted by anything in particular, which is a problem.
That's why I'm trying to shake myself, but I'll tell you, it won't be easy...
Today I'm feeling A-OK enough to post this thing and start the process.
Tomorrow, I can guarantee nothing. Sorriness all around... | |  | |  |
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└> last changed by Alex on August 14, 2021 at 19:27
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