'The Plain-Text Internet is Coming' (protocol.com) 180
Protocol reports:
The web is overrun with junk. This is so obvious, I almost don't need to say it. But I will: Between the pop-ups, the autoplaying videos, the cookie banners, the incessant calls for sign-ups, the coupon offers, the "Don't forget to subscribe!" reminders on top of the other "Don't forget to subscribe!" reminders, the in-line ads slowing the page down, the slew of trackers also slowing the page down ... you get the idea. For lots of reasons, some good and some bad, much of the internet has become totally unusable.
Plain Text Sports is nothing like any of those sites. The site, created by developer Paul Julius Martinez (who you might know as CodeIsTheEnd all over the internet), is more like something out of the 1970s, a wall of monospaced plain text with ASCII-art boxes surrounding real-time scores for all the professional sports games happening right now. It has no images, no pop-ups, no trackers. It loads practically instantly, even on a bad connection. I've been refreshing it obsessively the last few weeks, through the end of the NBA seasons and the beginning of March Madness. Not only is it a useful site for sports fans, but it feels like a harbinger of things to come....
He loves that Plain Text Sports is simple. "There's no cookie banner, there's no GDPR banner, there's no asking-you-to-donate banner...." Plain Text Sports manages to be that simple on the front end with a surprising amount of complexity on the back end, making sure the whole sports world is represented in real time on that page.
In general, we're starting to see developers and designers rebel against the general overwhelm of the internet, as sites and apps ditch their cruft and complications for things that load faster and work more intuitively. Social networks are bringing back chronological feeds; reading modes are now everywhere in browsers. Even apps like Obsidian, a favorite among productivity obsessives, are based primarily on plain text.
They don't look like much, but that's kind of the point.
Plain Text Sports is nothing like any of those sites. The site, created by developer Paul Julius Martinez (who you might know as CodeIsTheEnd all over the internet), is more like something out of the 1970s, a wall of monospaced plain text with ASCII-art boxes surrounding real-time scores for all the professional sports games happening right now. It has no images, no pop-ups, no trackers. It loads practically instantly, even on a bad connection. I've been refreshing it obsessively the last few weeks, through the end of the NBA seasons and the beginning of March Madness. Not only is it a useful site for sports fans, but it feels like a harbinger of things to come....
He loves that Plain Text Sports is simple. "There's no cookie banner, there's no GDPR banner, there's no asking-you-to-donate banner...." Plain Text Sports manages to be that simple on the front end with a surprising amount of complexity on the back end, making sure the whole sports world is represented in real time on that page.
In general, we're starting to see developers and designers rebel against the general overwhelm of the internet, as sites and apps ditch their cruft and complications for things that load faster and work more intuitively. Social networks are bringing back chronological feeds; reading modes are now everywhere in browsers. Even apps like Obsidian, a favorite among productivity obsessives, are based primarily on plain text.
They don't look like much, but that's kind of the point.
Gemini (Score:2)
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interesting.
to dumb ass graphics flashing up in my grill.
i am listening
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Some of my go-to capsules in Gemini space. And no. Slashdot does not handle href="gemini://..." properly.
gemini://station.martinrue.com/ Station, which is a place to post quick thoughts.
gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/ Antenna, an aggregator of different capsules.
gemini://midnight.pub/ Midnight pub, a place to write gempages and read gempages from others.
gemini://rawtext.club/~sloum/spacewalk.gmi Spacewalk. Another aggregator.
gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/chilly.cgi Gemini weather. Still a bit beta, but gets
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Between the pop-ups, the autoplaying videos, the cookie banners, the incessant calls for sign-ups, the coupon offers, the "Don't forget to subscribe!" reminders on top of the other "Don't forget to subscribe!" reminders, the in-line ads slowing the page down, the slew of trackers also slowing the page down
If you are having these problems then you are too stupid to be using a computer. There are several programs out there that will clean up the mess, seamlessly, behind the scenes. I like uBlock Origin but there are others that are also good. A good 'hosts' file helps too (where's that APK guy when you need him?). I block anything and everything that I find annoying and my web-browsing experience is just fine.
While this is true for the desktop side of things, this isn't as easily doable on mobile, particularly iOS devices (ie. you can't run uBlock Origin).
Sure, there are several 'content-blocker' extensions available on iOS, but they're no replacement for uBO due to 1. most are paid (most you can't even 'try out for free' first) and 2. Safari's anemic feature set for these extensions (nowhere near the functionality uBO provides)
For browsing on a mobile device, I now use an Android tablet since the iOS experience
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But, browsing the internet on mobile is fucking stupid to begin with. So ... there's that.
Why is it "stupid"? A tablet (which are about just as good as current computers for this task) works just fine. Phones are less useful, but still adequate.
Re: Gemini (Score:2)
This is not user error. Are you old enough to remember when Win 98 would always become unusable due to zombie malware processes that installed themselves and used all compute resources? Solutions were slow expensive party anti virus and periodic reinstalls. Then iOS and Android were designed to compute resources followed user focus and intention, and it all went away on mobiles.
The site experience today is similar. Main stream news sites consume my screen with paywalls so I canâ(TM)t press back, my com
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If you are having these problems then you are too stupid to be using a computer.
Participating in an arms race of ever-increasing needless complexity is stupid or masochistic.
And it's bullshit... (Score:2)
... the internet is now youtube (aka tv), the average computer user is a moron who's given absolute control of his operating system, applications and games to corporate america over the last 23+ years.
With the most towards trusted computing it's over, they will be able to force feed us ads and all sorts of other nonsense as our PC's are being turned into locked down devices like mobile devices.
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja1... [cam.ac.uk]
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... the internet is now youtube (aka tv), the average computer user is a moron who's given absolute control of his operating system, applications and games to corporate america over the last 23+ years.
Pretty much, yes. Just look at TV (have stopped watching about 20 years ago now, but the small samples I occasionally see indicate it is still "moving pictures for morons").
With the most towards trusted computing it's over, they will be able to force feed us ads and all sorts of other nonsense as our PC's are being turned into locked down devices like mobile devices.
For many people, yes. For a select elite, no. Trusted computing will never be mandatory on all devices. Hardware that allows you to switch it off may eventually be a bit more expensive and it will be marked as "experts only", but that is it. I do agree that the masses may very well get a totally horrible "TV-like" experience of the Inter
Massive Waste of Screen Space (Score:3)
The front page of the linked web site has all its content squished into a column in the middle 20% of the screen with borders on both sides, each twice as wide as the content.
So not all the ills of modern web sites were addressed.
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It's not that hard to get text to show up fine across devices if you just follow the original idea behind html that you specify semantic formatting in html (link, headings, paragraphs, quotations, emphasis, occasional images if absolutely necessary, etc.), and leave the actual layout (margins, font choice, spacing, etc.) to the browser (and to the user who can modify it).
Tables (which are important for sports scores) are potentially a bit more problematic.
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But if the tables are actually just monospaced text fields (which I thought was the point), then it's not such a problem.
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Actually (I checked) if you just use the html table tags, and no styling, the browser should resize the tables just fine for a variety of window sizes, wrapping text inside fields as needed. Monospace won't do that.
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That's because you can't use more than 80 chars per row if you want your site to render nicely on lynx.
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That's because you can't use more than 80 chars per row if you want your site to render nicely on lynx.
That makes some sense. But there is a problem.
It doesn't render correctly in lynx. Or links.
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It doesn't render correctly in lynx. Or links.
Or elinks or w3m.
I'm going to conclude that it was just supposed to be quick and simple.
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80 columns.
amazing.
it comes from the computer punch card length
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don't fix what ain't broke.
I usually printed at 72 columns for readability. Plenty of room in the margins to accept comments.
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Or perhaps many typewriters were 80 column, or teletypewriters when they moved away from tape were often 80 column.
Looking quickly it is hard to actually find anything about the width of early machines, many do look like they might have been about 80 columns and it makes sense the 80 column thing was carried over to punch cards.
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I was just joking but now I tried it and yeah it doesn't render properly. Looking at the source it seems that it uses CSS based layout, so it won't work on command line browsers.
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I was just joking but now I tried it and yeah it doesn't render properly. Looking at the source it seems that it uses CSS based layout, so it won't work on command line browsers.
And it's actually kind of funny that they wrote a text web site that doesn't seem to work on any of the text browsers.
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That's because you can't use more than 80 chars per row if you want your site to render nicely on lynx.
I counted the text as being 48 character wide at the widest point. Much of it is narrower.
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could be your friend?
But I don't like the font he picked. (And yes, the page source says he picked it.)
On the ad-blocker solution, I personally feel that violates the implicit "free lunch" agreement, even though I believe TANSTAAFL, too.
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Preview could have been my friend.
The first line should have looked like this:
<Ctrl><+> could be your friend?
Waste of scree unlike Apple's website (Score:2)
This is the type of design that is a total waste of screen, not the linked site. And regretfully the internet gravitates towards Apple like designs rather than to simple text designs.
Apple is not the onl
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That is why I accused it of sharing the "ills of modern web sites"
30 years ago I was writing code on an Apple2 that did
IF 80_column screen print is this way.
else print it that way because it's 40 column screen
Why?? (Score:2)
I fail to see the point of this site. It is more difficult to read, uses gazillion divs, bloated metatags etc. Why not just make HTML3.2 site, with simple tables and could even use javascript if dynamic updating is required. Much faster to develop, looks more readable, works with screen readers, and much smaller page sizes etc. Or if you want plain-text, the just return plain/text page with everything rendered as you want.
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The site *does* use copious javascriipt and CSS - so the visually-simple text boxes are just a design choice. This isn't an "old school" page by any stretch of the imagination.
BUT... it loads fast, and displays the information clearly.
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BUT... it loads fast, and displays the information clearly.
I'd argue about the second assumption.
I found it hard tom read, heavy on the eye, and a UI/UX nightmare.
You don't know when an underlying URL starts or ends.
White on black background is a big no-no.
Monospaced font is a bad choice.
The website is a "political" statement, rather than a genuine attempt at readability.
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The website is a "political" statement, rather than a genuine attempt at readability.
I completely agree with you on this point!
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You don't know when an underlying URL starts or ends. White on black background is a big no-no. Monospaced font is a bad choice.
I can agree on the first of these three points but the others are subjective preferences. Personally I do like the look of white text on black background (i.e. darkmode, I wish more websites and apps had a dark mode) and monospaced font is a perfectly acceptable choice aesthetically.
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Really? With Firefox I got a blank, white page with no information at all.
That's why I'm still on Slashdot (Score:2)
Because it lets me turn off ads voluntarily, AND it's basically mostly just text, and fills whatever monitor I'm using at the moment with text only information, just like I like it, no fuzz, no ads, just talk and news.
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and fills whatever monitor I'm using at the moment with text only information
Except for the right hand side of a discussion, which is wasted for slashboxes even if you disable all of them. But maybe you're using a user script to fix that.
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Same here. Also I read most web pages outside of the trusted few in NoScript, which kind of renders it text only; very rarely if something doesn't show content there do I paste the link into the browser in a VM.
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Nah, you are on Slashdot because you are old like the rest of us. The cool kids are on Instagram.
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The cool kids moved from Instagram to TikTok a couple of years ago and are probably now on something that we haven't even heard of.
This is ... yeah, it's ok'ish ... (Score:3)
For what it purports to do, sure, loads quick.
But a few things:
1. It's terribly bloated for what it displays
2. It has virtually NO semantic markup - almost entirely non-semantic, apart from the date tag, for some odd reason
3. Because of point 2, it hasn't got a hope in hell of being accessible - a screen reader will just choke on this
Heck, just build it in old-school HTML, with no CSS and sprinkle just a bit of semantic markup - section and header tags will do.
The page would be 1/3rd of the size and probably load twice as fast.
What happened to the skill of optimisation on the modern web?
Drives me mad, with the insane resurgence of the GIF over the last decade, we're seeing GIFS topping 3mb of data.
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Drives me mad, with the insane resurgence of the GIF over the last decade, we're seeing GIFS topping 3mb of data.
Aren't those usually webm videos (or similar) calling themselves GIFs though? That's what I noticed a couple years back anyway.
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I can't believe the irony, here. Back in the day, people riled against the use of tables for layout, insisting it should be used only for tabulated data. Now, the Plain Text Sports page from the summary contains tabulated data, but instead uses CSS to render plain text.
The world really has gone bonkers. I quit being a web developer because I couldn't take this nonsense anymore.
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The ideal way to do this would be to create an API for the data. Then the user can choose how to display it. There would be a bunch of different presets provides, including a plain text one, or the user could supply their own.
Nice attempt... but perhaps something modern? (Score:2)
I do think it is a good attempt, but a site like that wouldn't really go well these days, just because of the different devices viewing it, be it smartphones, tablets, desktops with large screens, laptops, or smartwatches. I'd see about something HTML based, just because HTML is designed to handle different devices, as well as screen readers and other equipment.
I'd probably say the best example of something to look at emulating might be Wikipedia.
Improving the plaintext (Score:2)
Drudge Report (Score:2)
Drudge pioneered the plan text newspaper look back in the 90s. Format still holds up today, though it has an annoying auto-reload script that runs every minute or so.
The trouble is how do you pay for it? (Score:2)
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The trouble is how do you pay for it?
I agree that any useful resource should be able to sustain itself - but I think what's happened over time is that it's become an abusive relationship, where one side (most usually websites) takes way more than it should/deserves, without consent (ie. shoves invasive ads/malware/etc. in peoples' machines, without even offering a paid alternative). I think this is where the retaliation of using adblockers mostly comes from (not to mention the security of malware some ads will inject, etc.) Basically sites see
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Most of the bad reaction from average users is they don’t want to be subjected to shitty ads. They are very annoying and take up lots of bandwidth and incentivize tracking and information hoarding. Also, most users aren’t utilizing their device computationally and don’t think much of the costs in power or wear on components from running hot. Requiring an opt in to support the site through coin mining or transaction verification while viewing content would be one possible model. A smart coin mining system could balance utilization and user expectations across different devices, would require minimal bandwidth if a standard service was say a browser extension that many sites could share, and would remove incentives for tracking and database building at the same time as ads would no longer be needed. If mining crypto isn’t the model, it seems like there are many ways to monetize some processing power for modest profit per user.
But it’s like you said, many sites will just do anything to get as much as possible and that behavior kinda ruins it for everyone.
Re: The trouble is how do you pay for it? (Score:2)
Why the 'professional' qualifier? All jobs since the '70s have required 50, 60 hours or more per week in my experience. (Northern Wasteland, UK)
Javascript is the problem (Score:2)
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HTML+CSS+JS isn't OS-specific (Score:2)
Some web applications can be reduced to navigation and form submission. Others cannot. One example is an IRC front end that would need to check for new messages by reloading the page instead of opening a WebSocket. Another is a collaborative whiteboard where drawing a line would become an exercise in click, wait, click, wait, click. Would you prefer to replace these with native applications specific to one brand of operating system? That would lead to a lot of disappointment.
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Most web pages now are using React, Angular - etc. but they really are static content. It kind of has ruined the web, which was supposed to be for non-programmers.
Your argument doesn't make any sense. The web can be used in two primary ways, to publish information, or to consume information. Those who are consuming the information don't care if they can modify it. Those who are publishing the information are using a technology they can manage. The fact that it's possible to publish information in ways that non-programmers can't is irrelevant to whether the web can be used by non-programmers.
And pages in which things jump around, and the Back button doesn't work right, and slow page loads - it is terrible now.
Yes, all of that is terrible. But it's not inherent to use of Javascript. And
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JavaScript and single page app frameworks have destroyed the web.
They clearly haven't, though they have added a lot of crap to it. But the web is more popular than ever.
Used judiciously, how most people don't use it, Javascript is valuable. I just don't go back to sites that I discover are crap.
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The web was supposed to be for non-programmers to share content.
The goal of the web was to be a framework through which people and machines could communicate. And that's what it is.
Now you have to be a programmer to modify a Web page because it uses a Javascript framework.
No, that is extremely false. To achieve some modifications you do, but you've never had to be less of a programmer than you do today to modify a web page given the proliferation of content management systems. Once upon a time you at least had to know HTML; today, you can use a WYSIWYG editor to create content, you can rearrange elements using a simple interface, etc.
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"The goal of the web was to be a framework through which people and machines could communicate. And that's what it is."
No - that was the goal of the Internet. The Web (HTTP+HTML) was for humans to share data.
"proliferation of content management systems..." - I am talking about Web pages created using frameworks like React. Non-programmers cannot update those.
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I am talking about Web pages created using frameworks like React. Non-programmers cannot update those.
If non-programmers can't update them, non-programmers aren't creating them, either. If that were the only way to make a webpage you'd have a point there, but since it isn't, you don't. That there are webpages that non-programmers can't update is an irrelevancy. There are lots of webpages they can't update that aren't made with frameworks, either. They don't have permission.
Re: Javascript is the problem (Score:2)
I think advertising and greed have "destroyed the web", not JavaScript. It so happens that JavaScript has been a useful tool for greedy advertisers. But it also is something fantastic: a programming language that runs on every device. I have used it for a few small hobby projects and while I don't really like the language, it is really nice to be able to run your program on anyone's computer or smartphone.
Hipster Web (Score:2)
yeah this is so much better than graphics. i can't wait for them to port Cyberpunk 2077 to ascii.
Nothing new under the sun⦠(Score:2)
I remember when some browsers, Opera in particular, had an easy option to disable graphics for ease of browsing using low bandwidth connections (or to reduce annoying ads). Perhaps today, someone could use the accessibility coding which is now in many websites to generate a browser which would display plain text.
Terminology correction (Score:2)
will Usenet and Geocities make a comeback? (Score:2)
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Usenet already has, for what you'd expect.
CSS Zen Garden (Score:2)
Stop ranting about the GDPR banner (Score:2)
The banner is only necessary if webmasters use tracking cookies. Technical cookies for the website domain are allowed by GDPR without the need to hassle the user with a consent button. Don't blame the cookie banner. Blame the websites that use a gazillion trackers.
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The medium isn't the problem (Score:2)
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Nope. (Score:2)
Despite the proclaimed desire for simplicity, the site itself is composed on the client-side using JavaScript. If they really cared about simplicity then it wouldn't be some JavaScript hellscape.
This is solving the wrong problem first. (Score:2)
Wrong order of priorities. IMHO this is the way we should do a new network:
1.) completely decoupled DNS redo based on blockchain - like namecoin or so- inluding anonymous holder Auth/Auth/ID. ... This, btw., would be the only real useful use of blockchain that I can think of.
2.) mandatory ID/Auth/Auth, &Signature services based on DNS for any transaction (anonymous ID's of course)
3.) IP6 mandatory
4.) encryption and sig by default
5.) true built-in offline capability from the get-go - one of the huge dow
Now bring back Weather Underground telnet (Score:2)
And we will call it... (Score:3)
Gopher!
Misleading (Score:2)
Still encrypted. (Score:2)
The site has an unfortunate name. Plain text is a term that generally refers to unencrypted data. The site still uses SSL/TLS, which is a good thing.
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I would consider the technical term to be plaintext (one word), leaving "plain text" to take its plain meaning. As evidence, I submit that it contrasts with ciphertext as opposed to ciphered text.
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You are right, the technical term is plaintext. TFA refers to "plain-text". But the web site domain name TFA is about is "plaintextsports.com", without a hyphen in it, or any other separator. The domain name is what led to my comment. And of course, spaces are not allowed in DNS names, so that one couldn't have "plain text" as part of one, but "plain-text" would be legal.
It has been here a long time (Score:2)
If you want to read the New York Times or other pay-walled sites, just use Reader Mode and Refresh, like in most cases, the famous 'paywall' disappears and the idiotic jumping crap with it.
Needs font options and it'd be perfect (Score:2)
That sports link. I find myself wanting only a font option. It's a cramped canyon on my PC, and I wouldn't want to change font settings for one site. Perhaps there's a workaround; but on modern sites the fonts generally don't bother me.
This ad for Plain Text Sports (Score:2)
FFS people.. gopher (Score:2)
Dutch teletext is older... (Score:2)
Animated ascii art porn (Score:2)
HTML 5 Overlays Worse Than Frames (Score:2)
Now if only it was plain text (Score:2)
Epguides (Score:2)
epguides.com has remained basically the same since it started in 1995.Text only episode guides for various television and radio shows.
Bring back Gopher! (Score:2)
Bring back LYNX (Score:2)
For several years I used the lynx browser quite happily. Then it went away and the flashing pop-ups began. I would be very happy to read the news without any HTML and without all the glitzy, irritating eye candy,
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Then it went away
It didn't go away. It's still here [invisible-island.net].
Hold my beer, I'll create you a text banner (Score:2)
and I think it will fit nicely among your search results.
*Muwhahahah
Personally ... (Score:2)
Wiki / markdown is more readable (Score:2)
If the goal is to create web pages that are text-based, but are also readable, then Wiki already offers this. Wikipedia is a great example, not overloaded with pictures, (mostly) good text enough formatting to make the pages accessible. I'd much rather go to a Wiki site than this purely plain-text site. I'll bet a lot of other people would too.
Let's go back to the HTML4/1995-1999 era (Score:2)
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This IS a joke, right? (Score:2)
Drudge does this (Score:2)