Rylie Blogs Rarely ／ blog.ryliejamesthomas.net

I’ve had this list of dot-points sitting here, slowing growing, over the past few months. Though I’d wanted to turn it into a little essay, I think I just need to post it all before it rots.

So here are an assortments of thoughts on Internet. Mostly about my ideal Internet and knowledge sharing.

• A website’s markup (the HTML and CSS) should be able to be understood. Far too many pages are completely incomprehensible when you look at their source. I want to learn things, and get an insight into the page’s maker when I right click > view page source.
• Links should be descriptive; link shorteners are awfullllllll.
• Websites should never block downloading images and other elements, but it’s something I see so much now.
• ISPs should always provide free webspace.
• There should be WAY better free tools for site making—every OS and browser should have them built-in.
• Programs that run in your browser are kinda handy (Google Docs/Drive, for example), but most websites should not be these!
• Pop-up messages asking me to subscribe to your newsletter :/ Remind me of the ol’ splash screen days, though I can’t even remember why those were considered annoying anymore.
• Internet is about sharing information, distributing information. This Internet seems to be about hoarding and controlling information :(
• Wikipedia should be much more inclusive.
• We are sticking our toe into an Internet that is just a bunch of corporate intranets battling for your attention and sabotaging you internet usage outside (and inside) their boxes.
• Why are all UIs so awful and tablet focused? Fuck hamburgers. Fuck every UI improvement which seems to hide everything behind more and more clicks.
• I suspect that the Internet I’m all nostalgic for was actually mostly white dudes though.
• Pretty sure if books were invented now, libraries would be illegal.

Only solution I have to this is help people make websites. I’m slowly planning a basic HTML/CSS workshop, which I hope gets people playing with websites and gives them enough basic info to teach themselves further.

Also I’m redo-ing my own site so it’ll be a bit more fun~

I really wish my address was a .net instead of a .com. Maybe I’ll have both~