That image up there is my very old pencil drawing of a quaint little house, it would be a good enough illustration to the topic, if I bother to color it. Maybe I'll do it someday or just replace it.
In December I have a bit more time to wonder around the Internet, so I have opportunity to check out what other websites on Neocities are all about, and it's really fun experience. There is so much creativity going on on so many websites, some of them have super funky graphics, or impressive layouts, often inspired by desktop environments and once in a while I'm finding blogs that are so full of quality articles and at the same time don't have that corporate, polished feel, but rather friendly and funky style.
One of a cool blog like that is Wiggle Monster by Wii Chicken and it's stunning how many post they've written, how the flow of the writing is natural and how alive that website looks. On of their recent article link's here was about the milestone of 200 000 hits on website... and trolls that comes with it.
Few days ago before that I've visited some funky pink website with the entire custom pink desktop layout with the chat hidden in one of the windows, not sure, I'll link if I find it again. And scrolling up the messages right after I wrote some nice stuff, and next to other usual encouraging comments, a bunch of gibberish appeared with texts like "Trump won yeah" or just some spam words.
This and n-words in Wii Chicken's guestbook got me thinking about what makes people spam like this. And I think it seems that the websites that are virtually invisible outside of Neocities sphere will never experience that as the people that want to run their little plot of cyberland are not interested in spamming and trolling (at least I've never seen that, maybe I'm too new here). The entry barrier of bothering with html to be seen by anyone quickly discourage people that just want a burst of attention and rage. The social media are almost perfectly designed for that, the potential audience is huge and the algorithms look favourably at posts that can instantly engage viewer. The explicit n-words might not get a pass by word filters, but anything close might do. Inside Neocities sites the webmasters can do whatever they want and just delete spam posts in their chats, and within neocities social activity tab you won't get any large traction unless you've made an excellent website with tons of followers, which take time and effort.
In a way Neocities are not cities where the traffic is large and everything can get very impactful, the websites are usually like that image from above: a tiny house with a garden, often with no mass appeal to draw crowds, stands just out of nostalgia and are located far away from city drama. Who willingly drive so far away to make a graffiti with the n-word on a greenhouse or shout some nonsense around the house when almost no one hears them.
Those two examples of spam on neocities sites are probably caused by folks from some city, the house in the village became so visible on the google maps, and had so many visitors that some idiot finally showed up and tested the patience of the webmaster. Maybe in a way, that's the compliment to the owner, but I bet it will get annoying very quickly if the spam keeps flowing up, but that's exactly why we're here. To be far away enough that few people will bother.
So don't worry about some random city folks dear webmasters, if anybody spray some bullshit on your driveway, just hose it down. And take care of your garden, weeds will grow somewhere eventually if the soil is good 🌼
This 'map' was generated by free Bing AI Image Generator, the prompt was: roadmap of a rural county with the city in the center from the atlas of great britain, 90's style
. I got to say that the colors and style are quite compelling, but the structure of those cities are all over the place, especially visible in how nonsensical bridges are placed. Not to mention, other 3 generated images are not even flat maps, just isometric images. The results clearly shows that there are not that many data (vide artistic images of maps on the internet) to teach consumer-grade AI how to draw maps. That's the proof that all my 'art' is mine. I can't draw such colorful images but AI can't make sensible road network. And even if, it's better in a long run to learn how to make nice illustrations or at least on stock stuff made by artists, than rely on AI slop.
The point I want to make here however is that AI could help me in some way. Not even heavily advertized AI, just a good ol' procedural generating algorithms. Someday I would like to have a generator that is able to generate customizable and sensible height map and then based on it, generate again the easiest path network passable by humans and livestock, dotted with settlements in the most advantagous places. With that pre-generated map I could create some nice cities and countries truly based on the context of nature, that is, completely random, but following the physic's laws land unchangable and given by the singularity more almighty than any mortal being... I mean where was I, sometimes it's just easier when there is a context in which a new city is planned, drawing on the desert is not that convincing.
What a jumbled mess of a text, it's 4AM.
This museum opened on 25 October 2024, was built above metro line which balooned the cost of construction to 163 million euros. In person it looks like the construction crew removed hiding fences and left their barracks grouped together in a shape of a giant container with holes in it. Yes, this building really exist, without the sepia effect, it's all white. Make a guess what this meme is referencing 🇨🇦🥃👓🏁.
Every time I have a bit more time to sit on my laptop, I have to open at least 30 new tabs, for whatever reason. This includes 10 youtube videos, 10 coding explanations and 10 or more personal neocities/nekoweb/independent websites and webrings. I can't focus on anything and my baby daughter just accelerates my confusion as she's roaming like a drunked rabbit - phrase used often by my in-laws family.
Anyway, I have some more time, I have a constant conversation about various topics in my head, trying to be tapped out on keyboard, but that little vortex next to me can't let that happen, but even without her I could never just do a one thing at a time. I'm keeping up the pace.
I've spent unhealthy amount of my limited free time on following left-leaning news about this very recent elections in the US. I regularly watch youtube for content about various controversies and politics of USA and for about 3 months I did it daily. I was flabbergasted to no end why people like Donald Trump and want him one more time to say all those weird stuff all the day, for four more years. It was so exhausted but I couldn't look away. Even writing about this topic is exhausting as everything was said a million times, but nothing changes.
To be continued, sad part one and fun part two will be expanded... maybe not in this year but I always remember (edited 10-12-2024)
That's my first poorly written article here, gotta step up my writing game and excercise!
There are about 200 countries in the world. That's the most accurate number possible as any exact number depends on political point of view. Regardless, I remember every single one of them by the name, capital city, location (mostly, I still mess up Oceania and small Caribbean islands sometimes) and at least one trivia, so the country name is not just an empty word to memorize.
I think that in order to somewhat understand what's going on in the world, this knowledge is as essential in a way the knowledge about all the bones in human body is important for medical workers. The number of countries and bones are kinda the same too! You can live without that knowledge your whole life (like I have no clue about anathomy) but if you want to claim that you are well informed, you gotta learn it, and more importantly, understand the place and role of each bone, or country for that matter.
I used to think that memorizing all the countries was an impressive on it's own, but now I know that most people just never bother and the knowledge is not that useful. You don't make more money knowing that as an adult sadly. It also doesn't make your opinions about anything politics related more valid, it just adds some context that politically vocal people usually don't have. That's a bummer, but we all gotta stay humble as there is always someone that knows more or better.
The points on that map are kinda funny, but the fact that people asked "should Iran be nuked?" agree more often when they can't place Iran on the map is terrifying.
The dots are all the cities in Magreb and the Middle East (and Bulgarian coast because why not) that I can name in the geography quiz at CityQuiz.io. Tataouine, Nabeul and Djerba doesn't work in Tunisia for some reason.
I lost my point a bit but in my humble opinion, when people know more about any country, at least some culture or other fun stuff, the less likely will let politicians warmongering. And I don't like revolutional islamic leaders of Iran, as well as the military industrial complex of USA, I like both countries, even though they make terrible political decisions, either their people or governments itself.
Everything will be changed on this page, go check out all the other ones as they have plenty of content.