The Internet
Hi, This section is for my internet related interests. I came of age at the turn of the millenium (forgive me), and lived online for most of that decade. I was very lucky to avoid the worst of this era, so I mostly remember it fondly, but I understand that it was not without problems.
Neocities & 'Webmastery'
I don't make any of the code or templates for the websites I've made, I just edit stuff that is freely available (with attribution). I aim to keep them simple, easy to read and navigate, and accessible across devices. You should even be able to comfortably view these in lynx! More detail below :)
RainyDisco Live: I came across Neocities in late 2024 from a random video and eventually gained the motivation to actually try it out when adding a friend to a minecraft server I host. He said he didn't use discord anymore, and I had been wanting to create an alternate info source for the server that was toally barrier-less anyway. So I dove in and created rainydisco.neocities.org. The server is personal, and stricly closed to stangers, but feel free to check out the site and take ideas or inspiration. The templates that I used, from Eggramen, were really easy to read and alter for my purposes. I have had a lot of fun making and updating that site! Especially the news page :)
Virbex: Since then I had been working on another neocities site & blog about virtual worlds called 'Virbex'. It has info guides about numerous virtual worlds that are still free to access today, as well as two ongoing blog sections and many resources. We used a Zonelets theme for that site, which I didn't initially realize came with her blogging code. Another template/code that has been easy to read, comprehend, and modify!
DiscoPotato On-Line: After gaining more experience using Marina Kittaka's Zonelets code, I was compelled to make my own blog site here! This site also uses her 'Fingerless Gloves' template which I have modified a little bit. The background image is from Sadgrl's tiled backgrounds resource page. I think it looks like a terminal into a borg/xenomorph-like hive. It's giving "my CPU is a neural-net processor, a learning computer"
I am now making a point of adding a comment to every addition/edit to this site so that the neocities.org/site/discopotato2 page can act as my 'Site Updates'. I figured it was simpler to do this, as it is public facing anyway with no need for a neocities account to view :)
'Alternative' Internet
Recently I have been exploring more 'alternative' or 'independent' internet stuff like fediverse sites, Gemini and Gopher protocols. Data privacy has been a big motivator for that, along with just total disinterest in 'social' sites with people I barely speak to, awful user experience, and unethical work/environmental/social practices. I've also been using alternate front-ends for sites like youtube or music streaming, with some success. This has all been in tandem with my switch to Linux last year, that just further highlighted a lot of issues I already had with modern tech/internet stuff.
Also, check out my new page '32-bit Support Report' for some resources regarding browsers that still provide support for 32-bit/x86 computers and operating systems!