Radical Participation

The Information Superhighway is dying

Now that I've got your attention with that provocative title, I would usually descend into a long rant about that subject, but I've written enough on that for now, and others have written more and better on that. So instead, I'll give my 5 cents on how to use the Internet.

Use the Internet? What?! Yes, this is my opinion on what's right and wrong, and how people could act to make it better for all in the future.

Do not

Do

Yes, this is just going to be a list of stuff I enjoy online..

Have your own website

The Internet is literally just a network of computers connected together, they each have an IP address, and then there's this DNS thing that's like a phonebook.. a list.. of names and which IP address it points to.. We are the Internet, literally your computer being online makes it a part of the greatest information network in the history of mankind, don't let that pass you by. Be present. Make it as quirky or cool or cringe as you want, use it for whatever you want, but take part! Link to other sites you've found that you like.

Use IRC

The Internet is no just the WWW (web sites, like facebook and google), In 1988 a Jarkko Oikarinen created what became the best chat protocol on the planet, and that's still the case. If you don't understand why, just try it out for a few weeks, you'll see. Freenode is a great place to start. Hexchat or WeeChat are good clients.

Be involved

Participate on forums on subjects you care about, it's what keeps them alive. If you've ever discussed anything on a real forum, reddit or facebook won't cut it.

Fight for your right

Demand equal access to the Internet! Every computer should have a publicly routable IP address, nobody should ever be under NAT unless they chose to be so. Everyone should host stuff themselves, and help build this wonderful network of human beings. This is the only thing that prevents the Internet from turnning into a classic syndication network like sattelite TV. Don't rely on some cloud provider to host your stuff, run a server, hell, it could be a raspberry pi, but do it yourself, be a part of this wonderful thing we have, before it's too late.

Use Gopher

Around the same time as HTTP and HTML created what is commonly associated with the World Wide Web, another protocol, in some ways, a simpler, more structured and more elegant protocol, gopher came around. The network of gopher servers is called gopherspace, it's an interesting place, and you actually have access to all of it right now from your computer (or even from smartphones). Elinks is a great gopher client for linux, Windows and DOS. DiggieDog is a great one for Android. This site is mirrored i gopherspace.

Join the super dimensional fortress

There's something very special about a community like the super dimensional fortress, they have a nice BBS too!

How to website 2020 and beyond

The web is one of those few places where using as little of the "new and cool" tecnology is better. The web has become a bloated monster and too many sites are trying to be "applications". Say NO to that. If you need to make an application, make a REAL one, that people can download onto their harddrives and execute on their own computers. And no, electronjs and similar are not real applications, they're even worse than web applications, they bundle the entire browser with them, please never do that. If your executable weighs more than a megabyte, it must do _VERY_ fancy things.