advertisement


Cookies. Do you usually "Accept" or "Reject" them?

I've never used any Javascript or cookies on my own webpages, so at least some of the 'net' is free of the cruft.

Fine if you have a low-traffic site and the resources to vanity publish. Everyone can have a blog for peanuts these days. pfm started as a similar blog that existed pretty much just as a learning tool when I was teaching myself HTML. It is a different story once you get to the point where a site has real running costs and is effectively a full-time job to run. At that point one tends to want a full-time wage! Countless amazing sites would be possible if people didn’t use ad-blockers etc to deny the revenue they need to survive.
 
Again I don’t see Facebook as being nearly as bad as those of a more authoritarian bent seem to. It’s an algorithm designed to feed you what you want to see, e.g. you’ll get page after page of bollocks demonising the EU, I get loads of stuff about vintage Tannoys, TD-124s, new jazz records etc. My Facebook stream is almost entirely cleansed of politics, the only stuff I get to see is actively shared by friends as I block anything else. As everything else in life it is just a tool, and a highly configurable one. I fully understand people use it for bad things, but humans use every conceivable invention for bad things. I don’t believe in dumbing-down so I can live with that. Some people are going to be stupid ignorant shitheads in every walk of life. They are what they are, if they break the law go after them, not their communications medium. It’s like blaming a PA system for spreading racial hatred whereas the issue is clearly the racists.

I don't really get any anti/pro EU, or indeed any other political stuff, least of all on fb, where I am only active on photography and guitar related forums, and that very little. But I clear my cookie cache regularly. One of the best barometers for me is the Google stream I get on the -1 page (right swipe on my phone home screen), in which I get football related stuff, and links to local news in Kent. I can neither stand football, nor have anything to do with Kent, so I must be getting something right!
 
One of the best barometers for me is the Google stream I get on the -1 page (right swipe on my phone home screen), in which I get football related stuff, and links to local news in Kent. I can neither stand football, nor have anything to do with Kent, so I must be getting something right!

This is the thing I don’t understand. I accept I’m going to get adverts as I browse online as I’m not a pirate/content thief. I want to support the sites I choose to visit, and if I’m going to be looking at adverts then please make them things of interest to me! I’d far prefer to see adverts for music, hi-fi, musical instruments, bicycle parts etc than bloody football or whatever where I have zero interest. I have on occasion even bought stuff, and whilst I can’t here (I am contractually not allowed to click ads here as it is rather obviously viewed as fraud) I’m delighted when I see the sort of content that interests me and even more so when I see big audio or musical instrument brands I know and really respect advertising here. That means things are working exactly right to my mind.
 
On browser settings, I dislike the fact that Safari only gives you the option to ‘delete all’. I’d prefer to retain cookies for sites I use regularly, and purge the rest fairly regularly.
Go to settings, Safari, advanced , website data and you can delete individually, (on my iPad).
 
Fine if you have a low-traffic site and the resources to vanity publish. Everyone can have a blog for peanuts these days. pfm started as a similar blog that existed pretty much just as a learning tool when I was teaching myself HTML. It is a different story once you get to the point where a site has real running costs and is effectively a full-time job to run. At that point one tends to want a full-time wage! Countless amazing sites would be possible if people didn’t use ad-blockers etc to deny the revenue they need to survive.

I wasn't saying everyone could do as I do. Just given a counter-example showing that not *everyone* has to put ads on their webpages or track users or collect their info.

I don't pay an amount that rises with the number of page accesses.

The problem is that websites run by large companies to sell their items also take for granted they can monetise aiding the tracking and snooping on users by other companies, etc. Often dodging tax as they go.

I can't say that I started writing websites as a 'blog'. My first site was the "Scots Guide" mumble decades ago. Did that because so far as I was concerned the Great British Public was paying my salary. So thought it was a way to give something more general in return than simply eddicating the ones that rocked up at lectures. Since then I wrote about topics simply because I though others might find it interesting. The closest I got to a 'blog' was when I decided some of my 'biog' might interest some people.

But there I chose the title 'Ups and Downs' deliberately. Initially people would think I means up in Concorde, up Volcanoes, etc. But I had in mind alerting people to the apalling way some medics mis-treat their patients. In particular those with Bipolar or other mental illnesses. Because far too many people suffer such mis-treatments under the guise of 'care'.

Call it a 'blog' if you prefer because no one pays me to do it.

BTW not sure what you mean as 'low traffic', but I rarely check the stats so have no idea at present what they are for the various sites I've built. Although I do know from others that 'well known search engines' tend to favour sites that carry their tracking cruft.
 
This is the thing I don’t understand. I accept I’m going to get adverts as I browse online as I’m not a pirate/content thief. I want to support the sites I choose to visit, and if I’m going to be looking at adverts then please make them things of interest to me! I’d far prefer to see adverts for music, hi-fi, musical instruments, bicycle parts etc than bloody football or whatever where I have zero interest. I have on occasion even bought stuff, and whilst I can’t here (I am contractually not allowed to click ads here as it is rather obviously viewed as fraud) I’m delighted when I see the sort of content that interests me and even more so when I see big audio or musical instrument brands I know and really respect advertising here. That means things are working exactly right to my mind.
The operating model for the internet is fundamentally flawed, perhaps even broken. It's understandable that you would defend it, as you derive your income from it, but ethically it is not greatly removed from the early settlers persuading natives to sell them land in return for handfuls of beads and trinkets.
 
The operating model for the internet is fundamentally flawed, perhaps even broken. It's understandable that you would defend it, as you derive your income from it, but ethically it is not greatly removed from the early settlers persuading natives to sell them land in return for handfuls of beads and trinkets.

I don’t see this at all. To my mind it is arguably humanity’s greatest achievement to date aside from art/music and the Hubble Space Telescope! The thing that is so wonderful about it is it exists largely out of reach of petty nationalism and the utter stupidity of local politics. I want the internet to be as unregulated and as open as it can possibly be and nothing pisses me off more than entrenched politics of the hard-right/left trying to grab control of it. I far prefer to see end-user/consumer choices and market forces define it.

I guess I have a certain perspective as being an IT guy I’ve been online before the www even existed, I remember getting the very first version of Mosaic when it was released and the first pfm site followed a few months to a year later once I had learned enough HTML to fling something up. This was Windows 3 and 14.4 baud modem era! I love that it remains a wild west, that *everything* exists online and there is next to bugger-all authoritarian arseholes like Theresa May, Jack Straw, David Blunkett or their current equivalents can really do about it. That makes me intensely happy.

I have no issue with those who have built very successful businesses in this new world no matter how popular and dominant they become. No one is forced to use them. The biggest disappointment is seeing the internet fill up with utterly thick people. At the start it was obviously just IT guys, academics etc. If you weren’t bright enough to use a command line FTP, gopher, archie client or whatever you weren’t bright enough to be online. The thing I resent is the suggestion the whole thing now needs oppressively politically regulating just because it is full of idiots.

When arguing about regulation always start from the perspective of speaking truth to power and work from there. Whilst it is no secret I think Julian Assange is an duplicitous egotistical prick Wikileaks was at one point the absolute definition of what the internet should be. No government of any nation wants to face that degree of truth and they will all attempt to do anything in their power to shut it down. The key priority IMHO is keeping the internet right out of the hands of national authoritarianism and we have to view the whole picture in order to do that. I’m more than happy to allow the likes of Facebook through to QAnon to exist as, like everyone else, I simply don’t have the right to say or do anything otherwise as thankfully it all exists beyond our reach. One either believes in a free open unrestricted internet, or one doesn’t. I am anti-state authoritarianism and will always support the former.

I’ll keep my site moderated exactly how I want it to be and I’ll gain/lose visitors accordingly, but beyond that the internet is just the internet as far as I’m concerned. I’ll pick the bit I want to visit, use the tools I want to use, and ignore the rest.
 
I assume that climate heating denial is also included in the list of potential 'bubbles'. I guess I should assume that left-wing nutjobbery isn't, though?
There’s considerable overlap between the two, eg on anti-vaxxing, anti-semitism. Which isn’t surprising really, nutjobs being nutjobs.
 
Well, I’m getting a “Black Friday” advert on this page for make up. Lip gloss, mascara and fillers. It’s not filler I need, it’s more Jewsons.
Most recent ones for me have been handbags, containers for bulk storage, and life insurance. None of which relate to my personal needs, browsing habits or likely future purchases.
 
I don’t see this at all. To my mind it is arguably humanity’s greatest achievement to date aside from art/music and the Hubble Space Telescope! The thing that is so wonderful about it is it exists largely out of reach of petty nationalism and the utter stupidity of local politics. I want the internet to be as unregulated and as open as it can possibly be and nothing pisses me off more than entrenched politics of the hard-right/left trying to grab control of it. I far prefer to see end-user/consumer choices and market forces define it.

I guess I have a certain perspective as being an IT guy I’ve been online before the www even existed, I remember getting the very first version of Mosaic when it was released and the first pfm site followed a few months to a year later once I had learned enough HTML to fling something up. This was Windows 3 and 14.4 baud modem era! I love that it remains a wild west, that *everything* exists online and there is next to bugger-all authoritarian arseholes like Theresa May, Jack Straw, David Blunkett or their current equivalents can really do about it. That makes me intensely happy.

I have no issue with those who have built very successful businesses in this new world no matter how popular and dominant they become. No one is forced to use them. The biggest disappointment is seeing the internet fill up with utterly thick people. At the start it was obviously just IT guys, academics etc. If you weren’t bright enough to use a command line FTP, gopher, archie client or whatever you weren’t bright enough to be online. The thing I resent is the suggestion the whole thing now needs oppressively politically regulating just because it is full of idiots.

When arguing about regulation always start from the perspective of speaking truth to power and work from there. Whilst it is no secret I think Julian Assange is an duplicitous egotistical prick Wikileaks was at one point the absolute definition of what the internet should be. No government of any nation wants to face that degree of truth and they will all attempt to do anything in their power to shut it down. The key priority IMHO is keeping the internet right out of the hands of national authoritarianism and we have to view the whole picture in order to do that. I’m more than happy to allow the likes of Facebook through to QAnon to exist as, like everyone else, I simply don’t have the right to say or do anything otherwise as thankfully it all exists beyond our reach. One either believes in a free open unrestricted internet, or one doesn’t. I am anti-state authoritarianism and will always support the former.

I’ll keep my site moderated exactly how I want it to be and I’ll gain/lose visitors accordingly, but beyond that the internet is just the internet as far as I’m concerned. I’ll pick the bit I want to visit, use the tools I want to use, and ignore the rest.

I'm having some difficulty with having an understanding of 'command line FTP' 'gopher' and 'archie client' as defining 'bright'. I don't consider myself to be entirely stupid (yes, I know you'd disagree), but I haven't got the faintest idea about what any of those things are, except for a bit silly-sounding!
 
I'm having some difficulty with having an understanding of 'command line FTP' 'gopher' and 'archie client' as defining 'bright'. I don't consider myself to be entirely stupid (yes, I know you'd disagree), but I haven't got the faintest idea about what any of those things are, except for a bit silly-sounding!
The early days of the Internet were for big operations (it was incredibly expensive) and academic institutions to transfer data. It was not envisaged that a none technical person would ever use it until the first browser and hyper-links were invented. I well remember Mosaic and how it changed access to everything via the new WWW. Before then you used different protocols to gain access to different types of data. Even sending a picture via email you had to encode it as alpha numeric characters and then decode the other end - MIME if I remember correctly.

These protocols are still in use but the complexities are now hidden from the user.

How times have changed over 30 odd years........

Cheers,

DV
 
These protocols are still in use but the complexities are now hidden from the user.

MIME isn't really a protocol - it's an agreed standard for encoding data ready for a protocol to xfer - examples include SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) or POP (post office protocol).

In the early days, I used to set a coursework for our students to implement http in C. or even FTP
 
You're aware the internet was invented by the US Department of Defence, right?

Yes, of course. I’ve got a fairly good grasp of computer history as it greatly interests me.

PS WD40 was developed by NASA to stop ice sticking to rocket boosters. It is used for other things too…
 
I don’t see this at all. To my mind it is arguably humanity’s greatest achievement to date aside from art/music and the Hubble Space Telescope! The thing that is so wonderful about it is it exists largely out of reach of petty nationalism and the utter stupidity of local politics.

I think you and Sue are thinking of different aspects of the internet/web.

Like many "great acheievments" it can be - and is - used for bad purposes as well as good ones. And it being out of the reach of democratic control can be a problem just as it can be good. So you can't make a sweeping statement about it *all* being "good" OR "bad".

I get loads of spams promising to "increase my income" AND to "boost the number of hits" on my sites. Most show clearly that the come from bots that have no idea what the sites provide. Their hook is along the lines of "let us put tracking/snooping code on your pages and the big search engine (singular, usually) will put your pages higher up their list of hits when someone does a search for things on your pages.

i.e. pay a big non-UK company if you want that company to stop trying to ignore your content because it makes money from preferring to send people elsewhere. Judged on what the big company can make, not on the quality or relevant of your content to the searcher.

This distorts the entire aim of the web, just as the need to poke ads before eyeballs distorts the anti-social media because 'hate' generally keeps people scrolling and reacting more than useful info does.

This certainly wasn't what the early internet or web was intended to be about. And clearly does harm in terms of promoting exploitable ignorance and delusions.

Not particularly 'wonderful' when it means damaging delusions, etc, have an impact, for example.

But yes, there is a lot of good info on the web, etc. That's good. But not if you can't find it because a search hides it under a pile of, erm, (censored).
 
I get loads of spams promising to "increase my income" AND to "boost the number of hits" on my sites. Most show clearly that the come from bots that have no idea what the sites provide. Their hook is along the lines of "let us put tracking/snooping code on your pages and the big search engine (singular, usually) will put your pages higher up their list of hits when someone does a search for things on your pages.

So do I! FWIW I’ve never once advertised pfm. I’ve never needed to. The site to this day is not well search engine optimised beyond a string of HTML metatags set in the header and crawling is enabled via a robots.txt file. That is the extent of it. I’ve certainly never even remotely considered paying anyone to advertise it, nor would I ever. pfm is as popular as it is because the number of people who have found it on their own seem to like it, no other reason. It is the size it is because that is the size it has grown to. It is an entirely organic thing. I made a very conscious decision never to force growth and that meant living very frugally indeed in the early stages. I have rejected countless offers of buy-outs, partnerships, shows, third-party funding, paid content, paid reviews etc etc as I really do not want to get involved in such things. I get so many I usually can’t even be bothered replying to them, they go straight to the trash.

pfm is exactly what it needs to be, no more, no less. I may have had a head start as the site in its first static form has existed on the web longer than Google, but I don’t think that did much as it was a different (Demon Internet) URL.

This certainly wasn't what the early internet or web was intended to be about. And clearly does harm in terms of promoting exploitable ignorance and delusions.

You likely see the internet through the lens of a university educator and scientist, just as the US military saw Arpanet as a defence tool. The thing is no one person or entity gets to define the internet, your view, my view, or for that matter Mark Zuckerburg’s is no more relevant or irrelevant than anyone else’s. The internet is nothing more than a global space where an infinite number of things can exist. That is enough. It is something to be enjoyed, to be used and utilised. I will happily exist alongside everything from NASA through to bloody 4Chan!
 


advertisement


Back
Top