Weeknote #1

Week commencing Monday, 29 March 2021

… and who need a little bit of reminding, in chaotic times, of what it was like to telnet into a blank screen which contained the entire world.

Why Generation X will save the web, Heather Burns

There’s an excellent article by Heather Burns entitled “Why Generation X will save the web” which you should read. It was written in January but I was only pointed to it this week. Back in the glory days of blogging we’d all have been quoting that within a hour of it being published.

Heather’s comparison that “We – the GenXers – think of the internet as the open web” and “Today’s policy facilitators – the millennials – think of the internet as MySpace and Facebook. The closed web” is wonderful insight into the way the web has changed since I built my first sites and since my first blog entry.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the evolution of the web and how it’s not as we foresaw. I think it’s something to do with celebrating a significant birthday last year and an urge to document what I’ve written here on the web over the years. It may also be do do with the fact that I’ve spent more time lately away from social media platforms and more time exploring the web as it used to be. I’ve been discovering how many of the blogs of old are still in existence and how many are being updated.

I still read Phil Gyford. His ‘Half Century Notes‘ is a lovely piece of writing about his version of that significant birthday.

Several of the bloggers I used to read, including Phil, have morphed into the Weeknotes format. So, as there’s a passing bandwagon, I thought’d I jump on it.

Weeknotes

  • the clocks went forward last weekend and we have lighter evenings now. I decided to try Couch-to-5k again and did the first session over 2.43 miles. That’s all I managed this week – but next week can bring another beginning, can’t it?
  • the highlight of the week is the gradual reduction in the lockdown rules. We can now meet outside – which includes the garden. This inspired a B&Q trip and some planting in the pots on Good Friday and visitors on Saturday. Also a visit to a garden on Easter Sunday for a lovely outdoor lunch. It’s cold out of the sun but pleasant while the skies are blue.
  • thinking of this weekly format reminded me of the 10-part newsletter I penned in 2010: Last Week in Digital Advertising. I looked at the first one and discovered about half the links no longer existed. I managed to find alternative sources for some but many will forever 404. That’s inspired me to check all links here for entries in the Internet Archive.
  • new guttering week and, just like every repair to this house, it ends up more because some shoddy previous work is uncovered but, after a brief worry about some missing roof tiles, all seems well.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here.