The WayBackMachine

One of the strangest experiences on the Net thus far. Try hitting http://www.archive.org/index.php where you will find an archive project that raises all sorts of questions about the Net. What are we doing in cyberspace? How are we evolving? Is meaning shifting or are we moving? Notions of time and space for the mentally challenged who seem to have sunk into candy-floss narratives about teenage lovers.

As somebody who was there when it all began, I can really say this kind of thing is a shock. What have we lost? Where are some of the best pages of digital code? Gone? Go way back in time to the very first web page and see for yourself.
Way Back Machine

2 comments
  1. I’d say “what have we gained?”

    We haven’t lost anything, we have gained a huge amount. The way back machine is really nothing more than nostalgia for something that has only been around for little over a decade – the world wide web.

    If anything, we have merely scratched the surface of the potential of the web. We live in an exciting era for the growth of the web as it should be. The sharing of ideas and media has reached countless millions.

    What started out as a handful of plain drab web pages has evolved into an information powerhouse.

    We no longer need to reach for the encyclopedia to find out an obscure fact, we can google it. What’s more, we are free to add our own knowledge into the mix.

    The way back machine to me shows how far we have come, it has nothing to do with anything being “lost”
    The concept of the web is evolution. The idea of adding to something, letting it evolve, rather than having static media.

    The early pages of “digital code” were really rather sad and primitive. What we have today is far more exciting, yet the roots of those early pages are still in use today. In a way, web coding, the underlying HTML, has come full circle. It’s what lies behind the scenes which counts – server side technology has advanced as much as browser technology and web design.

  2. Ah well, you know what they say:

    If the boot fits…
    Wear the goddamn thing!

    (Or throw it at someone… HARD!)

    *she tests the weight of the ‘candy-floss pink’ boot, mimes throwing it hard at the blinking computer screen and then sighs as she carefully slips it on to her waiting foot*

    Cassie

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