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My Personal Blog

You took a pleasantly tasting melatonin gummy... surprised by how nicely it tasted you comfortably sat on the couch and waited for it to start working. It's warm and cozy... yet nothing seems to be happening... still waiting. You boot up your computer, (slightly buzzed from the sleep-inducing gummy) you surf the web to stumble upon an interesting reading, craving to find something you haven't yet known. Immersed in sound of quiet whirring you end up here

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Welcome to my blog – rants, secrets, and movie reviews.

I remember seeing this slogan plastered across many different blogs back in the day. It's an invitingly sounding phrase—especially the secrets part, for some reason, draws me in, tempting me to stick around and explore. That said, this slogan is more of a vibe-setter for this blog – it’s not all that I’m going to talk about.

This is my tiny digital corner of the internet that I’ve decided to carve out for myself. I love the idea that I can sit at my desk on a quiet evening and share my thoughts with you. This blog is about everything and anything I care about. So, get comfortable and come along as I dive into deep investigations of niche topics, explore the web or tell the bizarre things that have happened to me recently.

I might talk about movies, music, books, web culture, Python and Java programming, my online projects, and other random stuff I like: retro tech, iPod modding, analog photography, urban exploration, forgotten Flash games, well… gardening, hiking and environmentalism... Ultimately, that is the point of a personal blog, isn’t it? You share what’s on your mind with others.

I hope you enjoy reading it, and maybe even find something useful along the way (since occasionally I discuss about practical things). I’ll just let this blog sit here, online. Thanks for stumbling upon it!

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I always get this strangely nostalgic, almost mouthwatering feeling, when I accidentally visit a website that somehow escaped from the net of the SEO-optimized, sterile, “sleekly” designed webpages that pervasively clutter the top results on any search engine. Scrolling past the overgrowth of the dullwebverse one might rediscover their relationship with the internet.

It is heartwarming to plunge into a quirky and eclectic online space. Online, I crave for the esoteric and unusual, I want to lurk in cozy forums where people passionately discuss the things they like. Forums, where people talk about their interests and ask questions—no matter how obscure, there’ll always be someone out there who knows the answer.

I miss that vibrant, personal and at times mysterious internet. I miss online forums. I miss gas station hot dogs and journeys with a playlist being shuffled on an iPod Classic. So here’s something I hope you find refreshing, here's my personal blog.

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I don't like flat design

Has this "modern" flat design ever made you feel anything? I would say yes – frustration. At some point, it seems, people on the internet have collectively decided that everything needs to conform to this dull, soulless aesthetic. It is bland and tasteless, and it is not meant to be welcoming or visually appealing. It is used by businesses to minimize their web maintenance costs and be as neutral [and lame] as possible.

And let’s be real: flat design does not necessarily improve accessibility – it is just a cost-cutting measure. Accessible ≠ flat and unremarkable. While sometimes forgivable for businesses, this should not be acceptable for any other use on the internet IMHO.

I am not a Luddite: I believe that good-old and modern can harmoniously complement each other. But ‘modern’ shouldn’t automatically mean ‘flat design’ – they are not synonymous. The internet is supposed to be full of beautiful, barely legible fonts, gifs, blinkies and useless features (vandalize this page).

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Admittedly, this webpage is a tiny part of the broader Web Revival movement. Though, to be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the term – ‘webrevival’. There are also plenty of other ways to describe this longing for the old-school internet aesthetics and culture—but none of them feel quite right to me.

Don’t get me wrong—I love the webrevival community. My issue is with its terminology and fixation on the past. A lot of the webrevival lore is based on nostalgia. I myself like to reminisce on the sunny days of the early 2000s web, and I do feel very nostalgic indeed. But I don’t think it’s healthy to dwell on the past for too long. If Web Revival becomes just a massive LARP of the ‘90s and early 2000s, it risks missing the point entirely. Which is – the modern web is still alive and full of creative people and lively forums.

The ‘webrevival’ term inevitably invokes this haunting feeling that the internet age is over, that it has been smothered and monopolized by massive data-hungry, design-wise cold, cruel and unwelcoming media companies. Webrevival will remain a constant attempt to reanimate the web culture, which actually hasn’t gone anywhere in the past years – it’s just been hidden away behind the walls of the internet monopolies.

Maybe it’s time for a new term? Truenet? Livenet? Or maybe coreweb, or the interlink (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)? IDK, the possibilities are limitless, let’s explore, let’s push the dullweb into the periphery of the WWW. Let’s rediscover the internet.

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I like podcasts...

I get that podcasts in general have gained a pretty bad reputation recently. Such a shame, because podcasts have existed for quite a while now, and I always loved them. There are plenty of good podcasts out there. I always listen to them when I need someone talking in the background: when I am cleaning, cooking or coding.

Since there is practically no well-oiled algorithm force-feeding recommendations, podcasts still rely on curation from other people. Here are some of my favorites:

• Radiolab
• Darknet Diaries
• Hyperfixed
• Underunderstood

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ There are also plenty of investigative journalism podcasts that are amazing. If you want some recommendations, feel free to drop me a line on proton.

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Enjoy, also feel free to explore links to other websites that I add to my page.

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