#from a web forum in 1999

[speakertoyesterday]

Dog in elk

There are apparently halloween pumpkins commemorating the funniest thing on the internet ever.

[empty-movement]

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.

Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.

Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM

You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!

I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D

If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!

** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 

I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)

[blazescompendium]

Blaze's Compendium Entry #9:

Turbo Granny

Warning: Faith and religion are important real life topics, that tackles the culture and way of life of millions of real life people. It is a cultural expression, and must be respected by all means. Here, we use a video-game ( some times) and other media series only to ignite the flame of learning about the matter, using its art when well depicted, but we do this with all due respect to the cultures we talk here, grounded by real life sources, cultures and people. And i mean this with respect. Hope you all enjoy.

Turbo Granny is a somewhat modern Yokai that has been popularized lately by pop culture. In 2024, Turbo Granny has made a resurgence due to the hit anime: Dandadan and her apparition in Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, both happening in the spam of just 4 moths.

But before that she also made cameos in the anime Mob Psycho circa 2018, Hell Teacher in 1997 and was first introduced as a playable monster in Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner Soul Hackers in 1997. She was absent from the franchise for some decades, upon her return in 2022 for Soul Hackers 2, which coincided with her debut in the -at the time- new manga Dandadan.

Despite that, its origins are so obscure, that I was enticed to dig deep into the lore of this monster and understand if it is even a real urban legend. And here is what i found.

First information that we have about her is that she hails from the Hyogo region in Japan. Supposedly. Hyogo is a southern Region of Japan, between Okayama and Kyoto. Capital is Kobe. So i started by researching about the area, to see if anything about the Region itself has any connections to the particular legend, but did not found anything. The biggest news on the region in the timeline we are looking after was a big earthquake in 1995.

Both western and Japanese Wikipedia pages for this region did not include any mention about Turbo Granny. SMT VV compendium mentions the specific location: MT. Rokko, that is located in the metropolitan area of Kobe. Could no find anything about Turbo Granny on this specific location as well, at the western web.

Addendum: I know that blog posts are hardly scientific accepted sources. However, since we are dealing with an urban legend that survived via word of mouth, this kind of data gathering is the most optimal.

However, using the key words: 六甲山 妖怪 (Mount Rokko Yokai) I could find more content than before. This particular blog mentions some variations of the Yokai, like the way she is called 100km/h hag in Hokkaido, for example. However it lacked any sources and seems to have more of a comedic purpose. Other sites specifically mentions the highways around Mt. Rokko and their tunnels as specific apparitions spots for this creature, but then again no source of whatsoever.

Highway and tunnel at Mt. Rokko, supposedly where the Turbo Granny legend began.

Other Japan web content, showed me the Yokai has been discussed in forums lately, like this one that mentions its resurgence in pop culture as of lately.

But it also mentioned something about the legend being from the Edo period, that could run faster than a horse. And the user speculates that the modern take evolved from there, when cars were introduced in Japan. They, however, provides no source for this information. (Hold this information with yourself for now)

A common thread in all discussions online about this particular monster, be it on Japanese forums, or blog posts, are the outcomes the encounter with Turbo Granny can lead to. From what I could gather, those are:

1- Nothing happens, the granny just scares you. 2-if she passes your car, you get a curse 3- if you passes her, your car will break down completely in less than a week. (Terrifying)

They also speculate that this legend could be from 2ch, which brings us to the first myth about this legend, it did not in fact originated on 2ch! Since the SMT game Soul Hackers, from 1997. 2ch was created in 1999.

But if you keep going through the Japanese web enough, you find more blog posts talking about this Yokai. For example, this other one.

That mentioned the Turbo Granny, but divided in categories. The blog mentioned that this guy called Toshiro Yamaguchi described a version called 60km/h hag that could just run at the max speed of 60 km/h. The Turbo Granny we know can reach up to 100 km/h. Other blogs mentions 140 km/h or as fastest as the target.

This also became a common thread in all registers of this Yokai.

Still in Japanese web, I forgot to check Japanese wikipedia. It got some interesting results, as some interesting variations, and some lore. But only contained one source: This book:

口敏太郎 『本当にいる日本の「現代妖怪」図鑑』 笠倉出版社" In a direct traanslation:

''Illustrated catalogue of modern yokai from Japan that really exist'' This book was released in 2007, 10 years after the granny being featured in the Soul Hackers game, so it is not a good original source.

Sadly I could not find this book anywhere on the internet, only the illustration it has about the Turbo Grannny:

The Wikipedia article states a bit of lore from the book. Keep in mind that I have to use machine translation, so feel free to correct me:

''鞠つきをしている最中にひき逃げされた少女の霊が、自動車以上のスピードで道路を疾走する「鞠つきマリちゃん」[1]'' It mentions that it is the ghost of an once a little girl who died after being hit by a car, playing a ball game in the highway or tunnel with friends.

This is an interesting report, but so far is the only place I have found that contains it. It can be just an invention of the author, or just a regional tale. Other sources generally do not touch on the origins of the ghost.

It all gave me the idea to go at Google Books, and check what i could find on the matter.

You see, earlier in the research I was discussing at Discord if this creature could be a SMT OC, which would be huge. That is because the oldest citation about this ghost was from Soul Hackers, in 1997.

But this was ruled out, going by Google Books, found this book mentioning her at the 29th page, from 1996:

'走るお婆さん: 日本の現代伝說' (Direct translates to: Running Granny: Modern Japanese Folklore)

This book seems to tackle a lot of modern Yokai and Urban Legends in Japan at the mid to late 90s. Its descriptions says:

''A four-legged grandmother chases you in a car at 100 km/h? If you remember the phrase "purple mirror" until you're 20, will you die? If you ride the lion statue in a certain department store, will you pass the exam? Among other urban legends about sex, food and more, the third edition of the anthology that collects and deciphers the modern legends of turn-of-the-century Japan.''

At the 29th page:

(No. 5, June 1994, Issue 6), Kayoko Ikeda's discussion on modern legends titled The Secret of the Running Grandma was published. In that, there are mentions of the Turbo Grandma (with a piece of paper on her back that says 'TURBO' as she rushes by) and the Dash Grandma, who runs along the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway…"

It also had a mention in the 103rd page:

… There are many modern yokai, like Turbo Grandma, who chase after motorcycles and cars. Also, there are ghosts that get into vehicles, such as in the story of 'The Vanishing Passenger' (The White Thread of the Earring, page 22). These eerie phenomena often manifest when they are reflected in the rear view mirror, often occurring around 2:00 AM…"

This means that we can go even further back, to 1994 as the oldest report of this Yokai. And this book states that it was recorded by a woman called Kayoko Ikeda. I went by her name through Japan web to find her complete list of works, and sure enough I followed the path to the book:

ピアスの白い糸―日本の現代伝説 The white thread- Modern Japanese Urban Legends

Supposdely, this book should mention Turbo Granny, but i can not find it online, nor check its index clearly. There is however, a chapter dedicated to car related Yokai and legends, which can be what we look for. It seems to fit with the page 22, mentioned in the other book.

Ikeda who is a translator of German to Japanese, was involved into it. But could not find much of her work related to Yokai. But she is in fact, an academic.

By this, we can kind of conclude the book White Thread from 1994 was the first recorded instance of Turbo Granny in a book. At least, I personally could not find anything else older than that. The idea of the White Thread book was to report urban legends that were being told around at the time, so it may be just that this was really the first person to write about that.

Similar case happened to the Saci, from our entry #7 in Brazil, which was a popular word of mouth legend up until it started to be recorded in books.

Another name that was hot in this research was of Toshiro/Yoshitaro Yamaguchi (山口敏太郎.). He is a celebrated occultist and urban legends enthusiast in Japan, have written several books, currently also makes videos for the internet discussing the case, but it seems he was a frequent apparition on television shows, and somewhat of an authority in the matter.

For example, Yamaguchi has mentioned the Turbo Granny several times, like this one, where he compares her to other Yokai. But Yamaguchi has published several books, and I lack the Japanese knowledge to verify every one of them, that is assuming I would find it online. But it is clear that he mentioned the creature more than once online.

The other claim I went to check was if the idea of Turbo Granny having an Edo Period ancestor checked. And it kinda surprised me.

By combining Edo period and Turbo Granny in the Japanese web, i was directed to a blog article that aimed to find this originnal legend:

The article traces a parallel to another Yokai: Yama-Uba.

Yama Uba is a yokai that is a monstrous hag, that acts like a witch and often is a sort of Japanese Baba Yaga, or Boggeyman. The connection is interesting, because Yama-Uba is often reported to attack travelers on their ox-cars at roads, and in at least one tale they ran pretty fast for an old hag. The story is called:

''Three Talisman'' (三枚のお札』だろう)

The story is about a monk that was hunt down by the YamaUba, and used its magical talisman to escape. During most of the tale, the Yama Uba was running after him with supernatural speeds.

The author of the article speculates that the parts of the tales showing the Yama Uba running after the travelers, that tried to escape by foot, horse or ox-cars, stuck in the collective mind, and slowly evolved to the imagery of a hag running after cars nowadays.

Yama Uba is a very well documented Yokai, being popular as a bogeyman. There are several tales and folklore regarding her, but it checks out that she indeed had tales about chasing her prey.

Personal theory

Now it is time for that part of my text where I give my personal theory, which is totally my own and based on what I have read and researched. This can be debated and disregarded, but it was my own conclusion. Feel free to disagree with me. And even better, if you are a Japanese citizen who had contact with this legend, let me know and correct me if necessary.

Urban legends are extremely hard to pinpoint, and we can only presume their origins, specially with a big language barrier. But we often can also use deduction and a bit of ''taxonomy'' to co relate myths and folklore that could have birthed the legend, the time and place.

I like to compare this to when a paleontologist finds an incomplete fossil, and have to rely on the closest sibling specimens to try and understand the biology of that animal.

In this case, my Personal theory is that I agree with the said article, and i really think that Yama Uba, and its associated imagery birthed the idea of a hag chasing after vehicles, and people.

If you take a close look, the oldest mention I could find about the Turbo Granny is from 1994, then 1996 and then it appeared again in 1997 in SMT. The idea is that this legend was already been spoken about before the internet exploded, and just slowly was registered. If I had to guess, Id say this legend could have originated by word of mouth in the mountain highways and tunnels of Kobe, in the late 1980s. Those places are naturally where people speed up the most with their cars, and even some times host car meet ups. Initial D is a good example of this culture.

Imagine the big showdown that those two would put up....

Of course, i am not Japanese and i can be completely wrong on that interpretation, but at least the connection with Yokai, and the start of the registration of Turbo Granny is factual and can be assured. It is weird however, that Shigeru Mizuki never registered this Yokai, because even if it appeared as late as 1994, he would probably get to know it. But the man was not all powerful.

I had ran across Japanese people online theorizing the Yokai is a warning against old people causing traffic accidents, but it was just that one person, really. I do not believe much in this theory.

The legend probably spread around Japan during the 90s, appearing in probably occult magazines such as the ones the SMT dev team had access, and the rest is history. Surprisingly Kaneko's commentary on the hag for SH book, has no mention of his sources.

''The ghost of an old woman appears on the highway and runs at full speed. She only overtakes cars without causing any harm, and is more of a frightening presence than a horrifying one. There is also the "Dash Granny" of the same kind. There is also the "100km Granny" which causes accidents in cars that overtake her. It's an old woman running on all fours. There are all kinds of old people, like the Jumping Old Man or the Dash Old Man. Anyway, when you're driving at night, apparently there's one that passes you at incredible speed. Apparently it has the word "Turbo" written on its back, or a piece of paper with that written on it stuck to its back. What's more, it's written in hiragana. Personally, I wrote "Porsche Turbo" on its kimono. Still, old people play a lot of important roles in yokai.'' -Kazuma Kaneko, Soul Hackers Subete (machine translation)

Turbo Granny strikes back: The resurgence of the legend.

Turbo Granny gathered a recent cult following, due to her appearance in pop culture media. SMT was a pioneer in this regard, followed by the after mentioned Hell Teacher manga.

Mob Psycho 100 also featured the Yokai, but due to unforeseen forces, 2024 has became the Turbo Granny year and she is indeed having a brat summer.

When the Dandadan animation hit Netflix at the start of October, the Yokai was instantly recognizable. It became one of the main antagonists and characters of the work, that also dabbles in other Yokai and spirits.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance not only re added the monster, but also gave her an unique side quest, where you have to hunt down the hag through the pre apocalyptic Tokyo, stop her, and photograph her for an occult magazine.

And finally, my favorite piece of media related to the granny...

In 2017 the Turbo Granny was the star of a Broad Wimax commercial, which is a company that sells internet connection. They commercial was about how their internet speeds were able to be faster than the Turbo Grannyy, and it was starred by a comedian. The whole commercial starts as a documentary, but gets progressively funny.

Conclusion

As any urban legend, Turbo Granny will forever be a mystery in terms of origins and original sources. We can say for sure this was not invented by Dandadan artist nor Shin Megami Tensei devs, since the legend was around for a long time. It seems people in Japan recognize it as popular as the Slit Mouthed Woman, for instance. This makes this Yokai unique because of how modern and popular it is, through pop culture.

Of course, Dandadan mangaka added his own flavor to the monster, but that is part of the fun.

Honestly it is pretty cool to witness that kind of popularity for a specific Yokai, and watch how the legend slowly evolves and change over time. Who knows?

I hope this put your itch to know this hag's history to sleep!

Turbo Granny at the Soul Hackers for 3DS opening.

Special thanks to Eirikr for the help with the Kaneko commentary!

[cecilcastles]

links to websites that might particularly interest you and tickle your fancy

do you like websites cuz I do

histoire3d.siggraph.org | Website dedicated to documenting the history of French 3D graphics/CGI

thomthomthom.com | Radiohead fansite that’s been up since 1999

citizeninsane.eu | Radiohead fansite that’s been up since 2006. Pretty much a definitive source for all things Radiohead and Radiohead related

radiox.ru | Radiohead fansite that’s been up since 2001. primarily geared towards Russian Radiohead fans, but still a good resource of media nonetheless

radiohead1.tripod.com | Radiohead fanpage that has all sorts of graphics from The Bends - Kid A. i’ve had this one laying around for so long I even remember sending it to my favourite web graphic blog lol

livenirvana.com | Nirvana fansite that’s been up since 2000. Dedicated to cataloging as much historical media as possible

streetphotographymagazine.com/dan-ginn | Specific webpage for a interview with a photographer who I enjoy the work of. feel free to explore the entire site though

moonconnection.com | Website all about the moon and its planetary science. Includes a neat widget you can add to your website

mgmtforum.com | Archive of the old MGMT forum all the way from 2009

mysterydisease.co.vu | Older archived cache of my favorite MGMT blog (check out @/mysterydisease)

wipp.energy.gov | 1993 Sandia report that covers nuclear semiotics in depth. it’s 351 pages long but if you’re not into technical nerd shit then skip to page 150 for various illustrations

cari.institute | Website that covers the conception and hallmarks of various aesthetics. Many pictures/examples included

philbrown.bc.ca | Amazingly designed and animated flash website about director Phil Brown. seriously so much to explore here there’s probably hours worth of details and information to scan over

webdesignmuseum.org | Self explanatory

libraryofbabel.info | Infinite library with randomly generated texts in each book. Based off of a story with the same name. You’ll mostly get gibberish but there’s a chance you can something coherent

canvasofbabel.com | Similar to its textual sibling but visual. Website features a 416x640 pixel canvas with each pixel being randomly generated. You’ll mostly get noise but there’s a chance you can get a fully formed image

semiconductorwave.com | hyperlink collecting that leads to even more websites. many of which you probably already know or would like to know

sbnation.com | Cool website about sports. woah.

rest of these websites are ones a good pal of mine sent so say thank you

lecontainer.blogspot.com | “pretty curated pictures and photography” - pal

steve-hemming.co.uk | Smashing Pumpkins dedicated fansite in a similar vein to Citizen Insane

velvetyne.fr | Free selection eclectic fonts! how wonderful

gifcities.org | I know you know this one

allscreencaps.com | Website for loads of film stills of a large variety of movies

fancaps.net | same as above

internet oddities/mysteries if you watch too much nexpo. note that many of these websites have things like flashing lights, sudden/loud sounds and (possibly) disturbing imagery

obsidiansnow.net | Click around to find out (it’s like some sort of strange puzzle thing iirc)

lhohq.info | Website consisting of multiple webpages of pure web design gore. It’s pretty hard to navigate. has themes of mind control and conspiracy theories. contains many leaks from wikileaks like the contact information of many politicians but please don’t contact any of them. site also features nudity so if you don’t like that, be careful

lomando.com | Classic point and click horror adventure game that used to be very popular. your favorite gaming youtubers have probably played it

yyyyyyy.info | Another website that messes with coding, taking web design to an absolute extreme. refresh for a new layout

visiteroda.com | Harry Styles ARG. yeah

forgottenlanguages.org | You won’t be able to understand 99% of this website but what you are able to read is quite fun

www.newmaterialwant.com | Generates a bunch of 3D models within each other at once. refresh for a different set

timecube.com | Absolute beauty of a conspiracy theory

housecreep.com | Dedicated to listing and explaining the history of stigmatized property. Haunted houses, murder houses, and other noteworthy places with rich rich histories

[nesiacha]

Archives of the site dialogus

The site was created in 1999 by Sinclair Dumontais and René Pibroch. It disappeared in 2019. It was a public forum that supposedly allowed visitors to communicate with individuals they wouldn't otherwise be able to contact: deceased historical figures or prominent characters from universal fiction (thanks to Wikipedia for this copy-paste).

In reality, it was run by a large of moderators who tried to take on the personas of these characters and respond to questions as accurately as possible while attempting to embody the figure. However, as you will see, there were instances of anachronisms or unreliable answers, whether intentional or not, such as in the message sent to Robespierre regarding the case of Lucile Desmoulins.

The site covered a wide range of characters, from literary figures (like Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Javert, for instance) to real-life personalities, politicians, stars, musicians, or philosophers from various eras and backgrounds. It also featured some horrific figures from totalitarian regimes, but always with a historical purpose and not to glorify them. There were also profiles of victims of totalitarianism.

While reading, I felt that despite their efforts, some moderators struggled to fully immerse themselves in their characters when answering questions, whereas others responded so well that it genuinely felt like the historical figure was speaking (I’m particularly thinking of the one who portrayed Lenin. Even though I don’t like Lenin as a historical figure, the correspondence was quite good).

Unfortunately, this site has been shut down recently, and the responses can only be found in archives.

However, there are three drawbacks regarding the links I'm sending you. The first one is manageable: you won’t immediately have access to the full correspondence. You need to click on the word "captures" next to the profile (specifically beside the words "Internet Archive Wayback Machine"). You’ll be directed to a sort of calendar where you can click on the link for the most recent snapshot.

Another problem is that it's in French.

The third and more significant issue is that some messages have been deleted. For example, the profile of Archduchess Sophie of Austria now only has one response left out of several. This is unfortunate, as it could have provided balance with that of Elisabeth of Austria, and it unjustly reinforces the image of the wicked mother-in-law. But nothing beats a good biography by a serious historian on any character discussed on Dialogus, and the best one I’ve read about Elisabeth of Austria is by Brigitte Hamann.

Don't forget to have the links that are sent to you analyzed before opening them, it is a security measure that is essential and that includes the link on the post. I did not find any viruses concerning me but maybe on you. Here are the two links (some have included additional characters) https://web.archive.org/web/20031026090322/http://www.dialogus2.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20060615020905/http://www.dialogus2.org/

P.S: For more links to the dialogus go to wikipedia

[kinopioa]

It's fascinating seeing people go "I miss the wild west era of the internet" and then learn they were born in 2003

Like fuck off. By the time you're 6 it was dead. The cutoff is around 06/7, and even that's debateable to have ended earlier

If we're being brutally honest-

1993-1998: True Wild West. Not much could happen due to limited tech, but it was completely unmonitored. I'm honestly surprised to find archives of old chats on Google

1998: The Coppa act is established, further taking effect in 2000. This made people aware that kids can access the internet. Teens barely gave a shit, though it made corporations more aware of them, and how to consider them for a market. It also unfortunately promoted age fraud to access barred login sites

1999-2005/6: User oriented era. This is when a lot of custom sites, blogs, and forums popped up, as well as many image hosting sites that are sadly defunct now. Google being a popular search engine further encouraged discovering these user made sites. Contrary to popular belief, user sites were mostly made and "moderated" by edgy kids and teens, so you WILL see the opinion of a 14yr old. Incidentally, due to domains being expensive, a lot of these teen made forums and personal sites died extremely fast, ignoring raids, doxxing, and flamewars

Video sharing while possible also was really crappy for quality...except for

User created flash games and anims enabled a massive spread of content. Newgrounds was a popular hosting spot. Shame Flash died

Outside that, we least we got bbphp as a solid forum template be popularized after many other ones died. For those less tech savvy, in 2003

We got social media. This was the main goto till smartphones and Twitter got popularized after 2006, and still was going strong until mid 2010s. Despite older netiquette of being encouraged to not post anything indentifiable about yourself, many users expressed themselves with music tastes and eventual personal blogs

2005/6: YouTube is released, as well as Dailymotion. Bootlegged Newgrounds anims popped up for uploads, but also shared tv show clips

Fun thing, before mid 2010s, users can only upload at max 15min of video

Similarly around 2005, Reddit similarly sparked up. More modern image hosting sites spurred around 2007/8

~~~

But regardless, the public internet already changed massively after 2000. Web 2.0 was already a term from 1999 that described the change, with it being redefined for it occuring around 2004. I think one thing not noticed, the development of this tech mostly happened in the UK, due to general smaller population and faster telocommunication services compared to the US at the time. This similar impacted the type of audience that used this

I see people longing for a freer internet, and I agree online corporate control is shitty. But the dretches of humanity has severely stunted user diversity and interest, same with over prioritizing skill over general good collaboration and behavior. The modern tech bro absolutely not giving a shit for the userbase or societal problems and being very selfish can unfortunately be traced here. Same for rsmpant political misinformation being unmoderated, and early 90s fandom woes still having a negative impact on some franchises

I see dumbass self censoring like "unalive" on sites, and it's not even enforced. It's just stupid assumption that advertisors care so much

Which brings the question, why are we trying to heavily get into monetizing expression? I genuinely feel Ytube enabling users to do so is exactly why user content got obnoxious after 2013 when it got popular. Unfortunately it's way too late to undo that. Many rely on the monetizing

Though I find it funny when people ignore just...making their own site to bypass the censorship. bbphp again is open source, and there are many other online web creation tools. I can't even say the rise of tech illiteracy is why, tech illiterate people aren't the ones complaining of sites crapping out

Anyway, if you miss pre algorithm search engines results leading to you finding random shit, try this;

Unfortunately the reducing of child safe sites is another convo

[coolstrawberriesandchocolatebars]

Hunger Games is NOT Battle Royale

This is an essay I wrote in the summer of last year, with the newest Hunger Games novel just releasing, and Battle Royale currently having a new manga release this feels like the right time to drop this. Warning this essay is looong. Slightly over 4,000.This will contain spoilers for both properties, and one very brief mention of assault in the section "Two Players Remain", but isn't in graphic detail as it's a very minor detail added to show the difference between a character from the novel and the film Battle Royale, and a mention of school shootings in relation to how they altered film within the 2000's.

Keep an eye out for all the asterisks, which will link the sources for each section for select statements made. Below is the essay in it's entirety.

Battle Royale was originally a novel published in Japan sometime in April of 1999, written by author/journalist Koushun Takami, the book later getting an English translation in late February of 2003. Battle Royale follows a class of 9th graders (with two transfer students) who are transported to an island to act upon the BR Act, a military program in which the class of forty-two students are forced to kill each other until one remains. The BR Act was brought about to curb any attempts of rebelling from the Japanese public, and to instill fear within them by showing off the power of the government, on top of playing off of the public’s fear of being murdered by a friend. 

Battle Royale was adapted into a movie of the same name in 2000 by the late director Kinji Fukasaku, who was previously known for films about the yakuza/the Japanese mafia; Battle Royale also got adapted into a fifteen volume long manga in the same year that the movie adaptation was released in theaters. The film became the highest-grossing R15+ film at the time, being the highest Japanese language film for the next six weeks*. The film adaptation gained a sequel years later, with the role of director being changed to his son Kenta Fukasaka, who also wrote the screenplay for the first film, in the middle of production when Kinji passed from prostate cancer in very early 2003, with the film being released later in May the same year. 

Outside of a few film festivals, as well as lingering around film forums and piracy sites, Battle Royale was never officially released in the west for up to ten years**; it’s to be assumed that due to the nature of the film being classmates killing one-another with a variety of weapons, including guns, that the film will draw controversy, particularly in a post Columbine Massacre America. In that time, the film grew to become a cult classic within filmbuff circles, bootlegs of the film being spread around with fan-made subtitles for it, with the official release updating the translation to make it fully cohesive and cleancut.

However, now-a-days, when brought up, Battle Royale is brought up when talking about the Young Adult book series by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, especially once the books got adapted to a movie series of the same name. *https://web.archive.org/web/20070305133056/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501030707-461891,00.html

**https://web.archive.org/web/20181002130526/https://www.screen daily.com/toei-continues-strong-sales-on-battle-royale-3d-/5020957.article

How The Allegations Came To Be.

The Hunger Games, at least the first book, follows Katniss Everdeen after she volunteers herself for the games to take the place of her younger sister. The Games are a televised event, showing all twenty-four tributes from the twelve districts within Panem as they fight to the death until one tribute remains. The ages of the tributes range from twelve to eighteen, each tribute is picked by random through a lottery system. Within the games, the tributes have to evade the other or kill them in order to survive. The books had become extremely popular, being the second most selling YA books, right alongside the Harry Potter series*, and later got adapted into a series of movies by Lionsgate throughout the early 2010’s. And in the 2020’s gain a prequel novel and film, with another one on the horizon.

With the very basic summary of both being stories in which school-aged children are spirited away to an isolated location and are forced to fight one-another to the death until one remains, fans of the film Battle Royale were quick to accuse American author Suzanne Collins of plagiarism.

*https://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-ever-teen-novels

Pre-Death Body Count, Weapons, and Publicity.

Now, to start with, let’s go over the differences that exist within both Battle Royale and the first Hunger Games novel/movie, as that’s where the main part of the argument lies.

Now, a very basic comparison to make is the size of the people participating within the death games itself; in Battle Royale the class is forty-two students, however before the games officially started the class got knocked down to forty students. In Hunger Games, they have twenty-four tributes in all, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, meaning that between the two, the number of bodies to drop was chopped in half (no pun intended).

In Hunger Games, in order to get a weapon you'll have to run towards the cornucopia to retrieve whatever one can get their hands on while other tributes are doing the same thing whilst also fighting. Meanwhile in Battle Royale, each student is given a bag, each one containing some food, a bottle of water, a map, a compass, flashlight, and a randomly selected weapon. The student has the chance of getting a weapon like a gun or something like a sickle or they'll receive something random such as a pot lid or a megaphone. Both Hunger Games and Battle Royale have a bit of a luck system when it comes to the weapons that one could attain; however with Battle Royale each of the kids get a bit of a headstart as they leave the classroom where everything is laid out to them due to the fact that they’re listed off and let go one-by-one, as in Hunger Games everyone is let go at the exact same time, free to go in whichever direction they wish. 

In Battle Royale, as mentioned before, there’s a system of luck involved when it comes to what kind of weapon one would get. The most common type of weapon one could receive is a gun, mainly/largely handguns with the exception of an uzi that is snatched up by one of the main antagonistic students, Kiriyama, within the game. Everyone else is left to their own devices and whatever weapons they were given, for an example, Mitsuko is given a sickle, and while playing up a persona of either a friendly girl towards the female players of the game or the persona a flirt towards the male players of the game, she gets their guard down enough for her to quickly slit their throats.

The weapon selection in Hunger Games is more-so handheld, with the only long range weapons (such as a throwing spear and a bow & arrow) being few and far between than what is presented in Battle Royale.

However, unlike in Battle Royale every tribute in Hunger Games is given a chance to train within the days leading up to the main event itself, while the kids in Battle Royale are left to pick up how to use everything through first hand experience. All the weapons are left to one’s own devices, they’ll have to run as fast as they can to the cornucopia, the further within the cornucopia they are, the better the weapon, with the exception of the bag, something that may or may not have a weapon concealed within, each item has a chance to do serious damage to another person if the tribute was to use the appropriate amount of strength required. In Hunger Games, the whole event is televised, shown off to not only members of Panem’s capital, but also dispirited throughout the twelve districts. Viewers, if they have a preferred tribute within the game or want to help someone with their district, by sending them something to help them along, ranging from different types of food like bread and broth/soup to things like medicine to help treat burn wounds. There’s hidden cameras around the arena, capturing everything that’s going on to be projected to the on-going live stream that people are watching.

There’s also a group of overseers who observe everything, and sometimes go in and mess with the games themselves from adding wild, genetically deformed animals to the arena, or throwing fire to keep a tribute from going too far.

Meanwhile, in Battle Royale, there is no such thing occurring. While the public at large is aware of this going on, they do not see anything that’s going on within the arena. This isn’t a thing that’s referenced to in either the movie adaptation or the original novel, the only time that any part of the BR Act being filmed is the outcome, as seen within the first couple of minutes of the film, after the introductory scroll explaining how the BR Act came to be, we as the audience are shown a news report stating that a girl has won the previous game. Same can be said in the book as it is referenced early on that the main character recalls seeing a broadcast showing one of the winners with a distorted face. 

One could say that this is it for whether or not Battle Royale had any aspects of it film, but there is one thing: within the English adaptation of the manga, in the very early chapters, it’s called a government sponsored “reality show”, which is most likely where part of the controversy comes from.

The English adaptation of the manga was penned by American comic writer Keith Giffen, who happened to be a fan of the film. Giffen was given a tight translation script, and he was told to make what changes he felt suited best, and told to make it his own*; with this being the case, Giffen adjusted the manga’s script in a way he felt did the film justice, reworking lines such as “I have to kill you first, because you would kill me otherwise”, which Giffen felt was too on the nose for an American reader, to “Fashion tip, red’s not your color”. However, despite the added in reality show aspect of this version of Battle Royale, that doesn’t exist in any other translation of the same manga, as well as setting it ten years in the future, both of these aspects were left out in later volumes of the series.

*https://web.archive.org/web/20050205111131/http://www.newsarama.com/Battle_Royale.htm

In Story Presentation

To keep this short, the first Hunger Games novel, as well as the others in the original trilogy were kept solely to Katniss’s perspective, meaning that everything that she sees and experiences within the games is what the audience sees, this was tweaked when Hunger Games made the jump to film, showing scenes within District 11, within the Capital, and it shows the inside of the gamemakers’ rooms. 

In all versions of Battle Royale, the story jumps around from each of the students who are lingering around the arena. The audience gets to read about the characters’ backstory, only for that character to get swiftly killed off if they’re not one of the small handful of characters who have more relevance to the plot. You can spend pages reading about a scared student before you reach the next chapter where you might rejoin main characters Shuya and Noriko as they try to survive alongside one of the transfer students, a former survivor of the BR Act. While this may build some confusion if you weren’t paying attention, or you were too busy trying to keep track of all forty-two students, as well as the enforcer of the BR Act, it is a rather quick way to build empathy, especially with the select number of students who have rather tragic pasts.

Two Players Remain

Another common point of comparison is the fact that both stories end with two players of the death game (which happened to be one boy and one girl), being the survivors of the whole event. However, this statement by itself would suggest that the events that had led to two survivors were the same, if not, very similar, when the two situations are far from that aside from the coincidence of the two survivors being a boy and a girl who happen to be close with one-another.

In Hunger Games, Katniss alongside fellow district 12 member Peeta, are tricked into believing a lie announced by the gamemakers that if two members of the same district are still remaining by the end of the game, they would win. This started up once the gamemakers, alongside President Snow, thought it would make the game even more interesting if two people from the same district, whether they be friends, or be lovers like the charade that Katniss and Peeta put on, eventually fight to the death once the rule gets repealed at the last moment. 

Upon the rug being pulled out from under them, Katniss and Peeta take a handful of poisonous berries, almost ingesting them before an announcement came on at what could have been the last second backtracking the repeal of the `one lone victor` rule. The gamemakers, and members within the Capital that work on the death games are airing all of this live, and know how to keep the viewers collective attention. The games have served as a yearly reminder to the public to not rise up and rebel against the Capital, so in fear of a rebelling occurring upon the deaths of all twenty-four tributes, especially with the fake love story that Peeta had made up beforehand during the pre-game interviews, they decided to let the two tributes win in the end.

Meanwhile in Battle Royale, after they defeat Kiriyama, the remaining students Shuya, Noriko, and a survivor from a previous game, Kawada, go out to a part of the island to relax. At first, it seems as if Kawada is going to turn on Shuya and Noriko as he pulls a gun on the two of them, and then the heart rate monitor in the game room of everyone over-seeing the events goes flat for both of them after a gunshot goes off. After everyone else leaves the island, save for the gamemaster who is left to hang around, Kawada shows up, and shortly after so does Shuya and Noriko. It turns out that Kawada disabled the tracker necklaces to fake the deaths of Shuya and Noriko. Then the three of them then take turns shooting the gamemaster until he dies, before escaping the island on a boat, while on the boat Kawada eventually succumbs to his wounds and passes away from blood loss. A news announcement comes on, reporting that both Noriko and Shuya are considered to be terrorists due to their actions on the island, leaving the two on the run from the government.

From the breakdown of both of those endings, the only linking thread that both have is that both of them contain two survivors who happened to be members of the opposite sex. However, as pointed out within both respective paragraphs, the reasoning for the end result being the way they are, is completely different. 

Hunger Games’s ending came about because the gamemakers/the Capital at large wanted to prevent potential rebellion that could come their way if they allowed the death game to not have any winners. So, to prevent that kind of backlash, they backpedaled into reversing the decision they made just moments before, in which, this is another domino falling down to lead to the upcoming rebelling that’ll occur later in the series.  

Battle Royale’s ending, however, came about because throughout the story, there’s elements of wanting to rebel against the game. One group of students that the film/novel cuts back to are planning on overriding the computer systems while they get ready a bomb to set off, as a sort of middle finger to the adults running this. The authority figure, the man running things, within the novel was a disgusting individual, openly antagonizing the students at the beginning, namely Shuya, by mentioning he assaulted the woman running the children’s home Shuya lived at. Select members of the cast have, in some way, suffered due to the fascist regime of this fictional Japan. 

In both the novel and the film, Shuya had lost his father, putting him in the children’s home in the first place. Within the novel, Shuya even has his own way of rebelling, even before the events of the game, he listened to rock and roll music as well as dreaming of becoming a rock star despite the ban of the genre in effect from the government. Kawada in particular has a rage towards the system in place, especially due to his trauma from being forced into the game previously and first-hand witnessing the death of a close-companion, Kawada rejoined the game so he could figure out the meaning of the smile his friend gave him within their final moments, and he also plans to put an end to the whole death game. Unlike in Battle Royale, there was no initial plan in Hunger Games for Katniss to rebel against the Capital in the first place, she solely volunteers herself for the games just to ensure that her sister gets to live, while the rebellion against the government came later, that wasn’t her original plan.

Source Of Inspiration

Koushun Takami, the author of the novel of Battle Royale, came up with the idea for the book/a short story that was submitted to a magazine in 1997 after a dream he had*. Koushun Takami’s own admission, describes the dream he had as such:

He was half awake when the mental image of a teacher from an old TV show he’d watched announced to the class that they would kill each other came to his mind. While the image of the teacher smiling made him, Koushun Takami, laugh, he also felt fear. And from then, he knew he had to write it down. 

He also mixed in elements of pro wrestling events such as the royal rumble. Also, another possible, unsung, bit of inspiration for Battle Royale, could’ve been a rise of youth crime and delinquency in the `90s**, this scared the Japanese public as this was something that they hadn’t experienced before, especially violence from students towards their teachers, something depicted in the film adaptation as the death games’ enforcer gets his leg slashed at by a student in the beginning of the film.

Suzanne Collins, author of Hunger Games, on the other has always stated what her sources of inspiration*** for writing the Hunger Games series were: 

One night, while laying in bed, she flipped through TV channels, and the striking differences between going from a competition show to seeing footage of a real world war stuck with her. Especially so how, as a child, Suzannne Collins’ father was fighting within the Vietnam war, seeing the footage from the war zone terrified her because she knew that her father was there, despite her mother’s efforts to protect her and her siblings. Suzanne Collins felt that even people nowadays would feel the same way with such the disconnect between the reports of a war and on the next channel, one could watch something like a competition. Another influence that Suzanne Collins had for the story was the Greek myth of the minotaur****, in which a punishment for past deeds in Athens was to force seven maidens and seven youths into the labyrinth to get devoured by the monster within those walls.

*https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/26/18636556/battle-royale-games-movie-book-koushun-takami-inspiration

**https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/12/world/japan-s-troubling-trend-rising-teen-age-crime.html

***https://www.slj.com/story/a-killer-story-an-interview-with-suzanne-collins-author-of-the-hunger-games

****https://uinterview.com/news/author-suzanne-collins-reveals-hunger-games-inspiration/

The Impossibility Of It All

For the final section of this, let’s dig into the impossibilities of Suzanne Collins having seen the film of Battle Royale. Now, it is possible that she may’ve read either the novel or the manga adaptation, as both had their English translations published, or started publishing for the case of the manga, in 2003 while Hunger Games was published in 2008, but the main point of this controversy ignores both of these, and only brings up the film, so let's’ focus on that.

To circle back to a point made very early on, the film adaptation of Battle Royale,  wasn’t officially released in the west due to its themes. After a mass shooting like the Columbine Massacre, it affected movies coming out at the time. Even films that had begun part of its production beforehand, such as Scream 3*, had to change its scripts after the shooting had occurred, alongside general criticism of violence within the media to avoid controversy. It seems that the company behind the film, Toei, agreed to this statement and withheld any legal copies to be sold overseas to avoid controversy until distribution company Anchor Bay bought the rights and sold it in a straight to DVD format in 2010**. 

Before that point, one would've had two choices in order to see this cult classic. Piracy, or film festivals. Battle Royale has premiered in multiple film festivals, including one over in Seattle, Washington. Now, it could be possible that Suzanne Collins had seen this film if she had been in Seattle***, much like how film director Quentin Tarantino**** might've seen it as he's gone on record proclaiming his love for the film, even bringing over one of the actress to be in Kill Bill vol 1; but since 1991, Suzanne Collins has been working with Nickelodeon to help write select children's TV shows.***** 

On top of that, Suzanne Collins was also working on another book series, inspired by Alice in Wonderland, called Gregor the Overlander, which started publication in 2003. Gregor the Overlander is a five-book long franchise, meaning it's highly likely that she would've been too busy writing and rewriting not only Gregor the Overlander, but also working for Nickelodeon as while working on Hunger Games, she'd used her job on Wow Wow Wubbzy****** to have some levity between writing breaks for the novel by writing scripts for the show. 

Gregor the Overlander/The Underland Chronicles series of books ran from 2003 to 2007, four years in total with yearly releases according to Google; even if one wants to try and say that Suzanne Collins might’ve pirated it, she’s been a writer on other childrens’ property******* at the time too, such as Clifford’s Puppy Days from 2003 to 2006, Oswald from 2001 to 2003, as well as a TV special called Santa, Baby.  Suzanne Collins would’ve been too busy to pirate a foreign film, and on top of all that, she’s also a mother with two kids who would’ve been around nine and four in 2003.  

In other words, after adding up all of those details, the idea of her having possibly seen this movie becomes less and less likely when one considers the load on Suzanne Collins’ plate at the time in which she could’ve seen this film from before she started writing on Hunger Games. Plus, unlike now-a-days, trying to pirate anything back then would’ve been risky, giving people a fifty-fifty chance of accidentally infecting their computer with a virus; even going to unofficial free movie sites today will bring up dozens upon dozens of pop-ups, so the possibility of her pirating the film online is also unlikely. 

So, hopefully these past several paragraphs helped to show that, not only are the two properties very different, but the possibility that Suzanne Collins might’ve seen this film is improbable when one considers all of the above factors.

*https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3607372/scream-3-may-maligned-sequel-still-fun-scooby-style-slasher-aughta-know/

**https://web.archive.org/web/20181002130526/https://www.screendaily.com/toei-continues-strong-sales-on-battle-royale-3d-/5020957.article

***https://mubi.com/en/films/battle-royale/awards

****https://web.archive.org/web/20120418080044/http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/entertainment-tarantinotop20/2/

*****https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/bio.htm

******https://www.slj.com/story/a-killer-story-an-interview-with-suzanne-collins-author-of-the-hunger-games

*******https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1056741/

[sterek-and-stuff-events]

Mead Moons Event: Prompts 13-15

Is Stiles a villager chosen to make sure viking raider Derek's cup is always full? Or is he a modern home brewer giving expert advice to the novice sourwolf over a web forum?

Does Derek court Stiles with a symbolic gift of honey wine? Or is he transported to another land when accidentally taking a drink of that realm's mead and runs into Creature Stiles?

Is apothecary Stiles making a special metheglin to heal a cursed, always beta-shifted Derek? Or do they enjoy tasting a variety of melomels and bochets on a date at a meadery?

Make up something sweet...or dry!

Is new emissary Stiles matched with Derek's pack in Fairbanks, Alaska? Or are they trying to track down an important artifact in Svalbard, Norway where the sun doesn't set for 4 months?

Is it a futuristic space AU where Derek and Stiles live under the ever-present light of a dome on a hostile planet? Or is some major supernatural bullshit going on to keep night from falling in Beacon Hills?

Is Midnight Sun the name of Derek's new album, which super fan Stiles is determined to get autographed? Or is it what they call the strange place where they can meet up in their shared dreams?

Bring your ideas to light!

Is Stiles a stage actor whose latest performance as Puck is reviewed by theater critic Derek? Or is he an actual fey being who gets a kick out of reading the fantasy series Derek writes that's supposedly based on his people?

Do a jealous Titania and Oberon try to keep happy couple Derek and Stiles apart in the Preserve? Or does a trickster tired of their UST and obliviousness engage in all sorts of mischief until they finally confess their feelings?

Do they have their first kiss while randomly watching the 1999 movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream? Or is that the theme of the college party where they hook up and end up becoming more than a one-night stand?

Share your vision!

Accepting new and unpublished fic, art, and playlists June 3rd - July 3rd. See the pinned post here for more info. 

[moonlight-fox]

I, fundamentally, don't understand why you'd approach hobby writing like this.

So. Back from 2001-2004 I wrote a lot of parody pokemon fanfic. Not the most of people in the writing community I was in that lasted between 1999 and 2004, but a lot. And due to the nature of the format, instead of putting it on... At the time it would have been FF net... we were hosting on free hosts such as GeoCities with our own shitty websites (actually better site design than the average GeoCities site run by a 15 year old which most of these things were - The person running what we had instead of a WebRing would have warned potential readers if our site design was egregious to the point of interfearing with the reading experience (Though this was before standards for colour contrast were widely disseminated, so... The contrasts between foreground and background still weren't great))

And the running joke on basically every site within the community was that we had 2 readers (or listeners. One of the collaborative sites I was involved in did comedy audio dramas). And in the back of our heads I think we all knew that this probably wasn't true - The more popular sites got more than 2 pieces of feedback on the forum for most of their stuff, but we were mostly writing into the void and chatting on a PHP forum and in IRC. And, while I wouldn't make those jokes today - Not only because someone not from our little community archived a bunch of our writing via pointing to where it lies on the internet archive while reviving our weird little format, meaning I know damn well we broke containment because this kid discovered us when we were stopping and never joined our little community around 5 years younger than most of us were, but also because the NeoCities site I did my own revival of what I was doing back then on was seeing around 100 visitors a week at it's peak and it was much harder to find shit on the non corporate parts of the web in 2023 than it was in 2003 - Whenever I write anything I'm still writing to a very specific target audience.

Me. Anything else is gravy.

nothing pisses me off more than when i see a fic on ao3 talking about reach. "this ship isn't here but i added them for reach" "this fandom tag isn't necessary but i'm adding it for reach" "reposting for reach" STOP IT!!!! this is not tiktok this is not twitter this is an ARCHIVE this is not how it works!!!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.12

538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius. 1088 – Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Catholic Church. He is best known for initiating the Crusades. 1158 – German city Munich (München) is first mentioned as forum apud Munichen in the Augsburg arbitration by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I. 1579 – Start of the Siege of Maastricht, part of the Eighty Years' War. 1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus, are canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. 1689 – James II of England landed at Kinsale, starting the Williamite War in Ireland. 1811 – Peninsular War: A day after a successful rearguard action, French Marshal Michel Ney once again successfully delays the pursuing Anglo-Portuguese force at the Battle of Redinha. 1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States. 1913 – The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. 1918 – Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for most of the period since 1713. 1920 – The Kapp Putsch begins when the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt is ordered to march on Berlin. 1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill 431 people. 1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile (320 km) march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India. 1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats". 1938 – Anschluss: German troops occupy and annex Austria. 1940 – Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia. 1940 – The most destructive train accident in Finnish history kills 39 and injures 69 people in Turenki, Janakkala. 1942 – The Battle of Java ends with the surrender of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command to the Japanese Empire in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies. 1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism. 1950 – The Llandow air disaster kills 80 people when the aircraft they are travelling in crashes near Sigingstone, Wales. At the time this was the world's deadliest air disaster. 1967 – Suharto takes power from Sukarno when the People's Consultative Assembly inaugurate him as Acting President of Indonesia. 1968 – Mauritius gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1971 – The 1971 Turkish military memorandum is sent to the Süleyman Demirel government of Turkey and the government resigns. 1989 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web. 1992 – Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 1993 – Several bombs explode in Mumbai, India, killing about 300 people and injuring hundreds more. 1993 – North Korea announces that it will withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites. 1999 – Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO. 2003 – Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade. 2003 – The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). 2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly: the first such impeachment in the nation's history. 2009 – Financier Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to one of the largest frauds in Wall Street's history. 2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. 2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others. 2020 – The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[ijustwantedtobeoneofthestrokesuk]

Y2K Tech

Online

Today our mobile phone is our second brain, we use it for everything except for making phone calls…

We stream tv and music without thinking, we communicate via WhatsApp and DMs, our social media personality is our personality. We are online. In the late ‘90’s/early 2000’s we had to go online, it wasn’t fast, or convenient. It was a different time, unless you didn’t live through it, you didn’t live it.

In 1999 the way we communicated was being redefined as Nokia launched the 3210, the first mobile targetted to teens with snake and coloured covers (easily pleased back then). Over 160 million 3210’s were sold, making it the most popular phone to date. A year later BlackBerry released the first phone that had access to e-mails. BlackBerry were innovative as they brought instant messaging on the go to the market with BBM, their instant messenger service.

We had already been messaging our school friends (and strangers we’d befriended online) with MSN Messenger, on the desktop computer. Messaging strangers online is normal these days but back then you’d be warned out off it, in fear of being groomed but for a generation, it was a new place where friendships could blossom, with people who lived in other countries or people you met at a gig. 

Mobile phones changed language as the 140 character limit on text messages saw the introduction of “text language” to squeeze as much into your 10p text message using “u” for “you”, “4” for “for” etc… but it was MSN Messenger where LOL (laugh out loud) and BRB (be right back) just became modern-day shorthand, even if you weren’t actually laughing... 

How we access content today is unrecognisible to how we did in the 2000’s, but that change started in 1998…

The boom of the CD started in 1984 but it dramatically collapsed in 2000 thanks to 2 tech-obsessed 16-year-olds, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker who met each other online in 1998. They were both highly intelligent, Sean got into coding aged 7, at 14 he discovered ‘hacking’ which opened up a new community to him. Hackers would share information with each other in online forums (we call that world “the dark web” today). 

They both moved to Silicon Valley, the new tech hub in the Bay Area, Calfornia to develop their first project, Napster, leaving school behind. They didn’t think they were doing anything illegal, they were music fans themselves. Napster was revolutionary and has changed the way people consume and value music today but again, their battle was nothing new. The music industry had fought against ‘free’ music before with the introduction of the radio, When the Napster founders had to defend the platform in court, they compared it to photocopy machines and VHS recorders. Napster was a peer-to-peer platform that essentially cut out the middle man, users didn’t need to upload or download MP3 files (songs), they were transferred directly from the user's hard drive.  

The internet has reimagined creative industries including print and film, but it nearly killed the music industry.

Napster started to grow in the fall of 1999 on college campuses where high-speed internet was available. The founders tried to negotiate deals with record labels but they weren’t playing ball and reacted too slow, suddenly it was too late and meetings turned from conversations to legal battles. The ongoing, public legal battles only helped Napster get more popular and more music was shared. Its disruption was unique and investors poured money into the platform but it wasn’t built to make money, it couldn’t be monetized.  

Napster was the first ‘file-sharing’ platform. Before it, having the ability to get music for free was unthinkable, once Napster had gone huge it reached a stage where consumer habits were irreversible, for years.  

It revolutionised how we listen to music. It also birthed the ‘I want it now’ attitude, the ‘on-demand’ culture we live in now started here. We no longer needed to leave the house to buy a CD, come home and listen to it when you could press a couple of buttons, seven minutes later your dial-up connection would download it to your computer. Without Napster and the peer-to-peer generation, we wouldn’t be living in the streaming world. Consumers turn to piracy when they can’t get hold of a product legitimately.  It was morally and legally wrong, users knew that too but it was liberating. It was also an opportunity to discover new music as you could see what else is in the library of the user you’re downloading from. 

While some artists, such as Limp Bizkit supported the platform, seeing it as a gateway for new acts to reach an audience, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, became the most vocal name against it. The band spoke up after hearing one of their songs on radio stations around the world before it was even finished. They were baffled, they didn’t understand how this could have happened, it was traced back to Napster, which they hadn’t heard of. For Metallica, it wasn’t about money, it was about choice, they hadn’t been asked if they would like to be involved, it was out of their hands.  

Lars took the names of 300,000 Napster users who had downloaded Metallica's music to Napster HQ. The platform removed the users but within hours they had created new accounts under new names. Lars was portrayed as the villain but looking back, he was right. 

Napster was hijacking a multi-million-pound creative industry without doing anything however that was never the purpose, it was built with naivety, both Sean and Shawn just thought it was a good idea. It made sense to them.  

For years record labels had been used to making billions of £, suddenly that was taken away. Napster was forced to close down in July 2001 after the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) won the legal battle of copyright infringement but it didn’t solve the problem as users found other platforms. At its peak there were 80 million users on Napster, 20,000 of them were sued by record labels. 

The Birth of Online Music 

In January 2000 Pandora launched in the US, the initial version was an online radio station, an alternative to the already established stations while, 2 months later, in London, Freenet was created, an indestructible file-sharing site, the only way to stop it would be to remove it off every single computer that had used it. 

As Napster was gaining headlines with its very public court cases and legal spats, another peer-to-peer platform launched and this time, it wasn’t limited to sharing MP3 files, which for the user was both good and bad. 

On the 3rd May 2000 Limewire went live and it was responsible for 80% of illegally downloaded content in the US. During its 10-year lifespan, Limewire was downloaded 200 million times, at its most prominent time, it had over 50 million daily users. 

Internet was slow back in the early 2000’s, it could take 2 days to download a film and once downloaded it often didn’t work, it was the wrong film, wrong language, be porn or filled with viruses that would kill your computer. There were numerous court cases linked to videos of minors in porn being shared on Limewire, these were often accidentally downloaded. 

The third major player in peer-to-peer platforms was Kazaa, launched in March 2001 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (who would go on to create Skype). Like Limewire, files of all kinds could be shared and there were plenty of viruses knocking about, including some deliberately created by the RIAA. 

Kazaa’s downfall began in 2003 when the RIAA started to sue its users rather than the platform which saw its user base drop off dramatically and it closed down in 2004.  

Then there was The Pirate Bay from Sweden, created in 2003, the peer-to-peer file-sharing platform with a difference as it used torrent files that were harder to monitor. The platform was shut down several times, only to reappear under new domains. In 2009 The Pirate Bay founders were sentenced to 1 year in prison and fined £2.8 million after being found guilty of copyright infringement. 

To combat illegal downloads Apple launched the iTunes Store in April 2003 where users could pay for MP3s. It was a success story but it came too late, if it had been around when Napster was at its peak it might have had a bigger impact but people knew they could get music for free now. 

Limewire’s presence was much greater than Napster and Kazaa. In 2004 it became the biggest peer-to-peer platform and the second biggest access for digital music, behind the iTunes Store. It gained new users after Napster closed, people discovered it through online forums. Following criticism from the music industry, the developers created a code that would block copyrighted content being shared but users found ways around it. 

The RIAA took Limewire to court in 2006 for copyright infringement while MGM sued Kazaa’s parent company for $100 million. By 2007 the US music industry was losing $12 billion a year from music piracy and in 2010, after a 4-year court battle with the RIAA Limewire was shut down, initially asking for $72 trillion but settled out of court for $105 million. 

For all the bad that illegal downloading brought, it also allowed people to broaden their tastes, musicians had more ways to find influences and create more diverse music. The standard has also had to up its game, an album can no longer get away with a few singles and throw-away fillers.  

NEXT CHAPTER

[blockchainxtech]

What is Web 3.0 and why is it important?

Introduction

Over the last twenty years, the internet has changed dramatically. We have moved from Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to modern social media platforms. From basic digital payments to sophisticated online banking services. We have even experienced completely new internet-based technologies such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain. The Internet has become a vital part of human interactions and connectivity, and continues to evolve. So far, we've seen Web 1.0 and 2.0, but what exactly should we expect from Web 3.0? Let's examine the specifics and discover what lies ahead.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 (also known as Web3) is the next generation of Internet technology that relies heavily on machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technology. The term was created by Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot and co-founder of Ethereum. Although Web 2.0 focuses on user-created content hosted on centralized websites, Web 3.0 will give users greater control over their online data. 

The movement aims to create open, connected and intelligent websites and web applications with improved understanding of machine-based data. Decentralization and digital economies also play an important role in Web 3.0, since they allow us to assign value to content created on the network. It is also important to understand that the concept of Web 3.0 is changing. There is no single definition and its exact meaning may differ from person to person.

How does Web 3.0 work?

Web 3.0 aims to provide personalized and relevant information faster by using AI and advanced machine learning techniques. Smarter search algorithms and developments in big data analytics will mean machines can understand and recommend content intuitively. Web 3.0 development services will also focus on user ownership of content and supporting accessible digital economies.

Today's websites often display static information or user-driven content, such as forums or social networks. While this allows data to be published en masse, it does not meet the specific needs of users. A website should tailor the information it provides to each user, similar to the dynamism of human communication in the real world. With Web 2.0, once this information is online, users lose ownership and control over it.

Another key figure in the Web 3.0 concept is computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. He provided his idea of ​​a future web in 1999:

I have a dream of a Web [in which computers] are able to analyze all the data: the content, the links and the transactions between people and computers. Though it's not yet a given, a "semantic web" will enable everyday processes like bureaucracy, commerce, and daily life to be managed by machines talking to machines.

Berners-Lee's vision has since been combined with Gavin Wood's message. An ocean of decentralized information will be available for websites and applications. That data will be understood and used in a meaningful way with individual users.  Blockchain acts as a solution to manage this online identity, data and property fairly.

A synopsis of the web's development

To better understand Web 3.0, let's look at where we are now and how we have developed. Over two decades, we have seen enormous changes:

Web 1.0

The original Internet provided an experience now known as Web 1.0. Author and web designer Darci DiNucci first used the term in 1999 to describe the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In the early 1990s, websites were created using static HTML pages that could only display information. There was no way for users to change data or upload their own. Social interactions were limited to simple chat messages and forums.

Web 2.0

In the late 1990s, a shift toward a more interactive internet began to take shape. With Web 2.0, users were able to interact with websites through databases, server-side processing, forms, and social media. These tools changed the web experience from static to dynamic. 

With the advent of Web 2.0, user-generated content and interoperability across various websites and apps became more important. Web 2.0 placed greater emphasis on participation than on observation. In the mid-2000s, most websites transitioned to Web 2.0, and large technology companies began creating social networks and cloud-based services.

The future and Web 3.0

The evolution of a semantically intelligent web makes sense when looking at the history of the internet. The data was first presented statically to users. Users could then interact with that data dynamically. Now, the algorithms will use all that data to improve the user experience and make the website more personalized and familiar. You only need to watch YouTube or Netflix to see the power of algorithms and how they have already improved.

Web 3.0, although not fully defined, can take advantage of peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies such as blockchain, open source software, virtual reality, Internet of Things (IoT) , and more. Web 3.0 also aims to make the internet more open and decentralized. In today's environment, users trust cellular and network providers to access their data and personal information. With the advent of distributed ledger technologies, that could soon change and users could regain ownership of their data.

Key features of Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is still far from being fully adopted, but its basic concepts are mostly already defined. The four topics we mention below are commonly mentioned as the most important aspects of the future of Web 3.0.

Semantic margin

Over time, machines have gotten better at understanding the data and content that humans create. However, there is still a long way to go to create a seamless experience where semantics are fully understood. For example, use of the word "cheap" can mean "affordable" or "poor quality," depending on the context. For a machine to understand this can be incredibly difficult. However, with big data and more information to study, AI is starting to better understand what we write on the web and present it intuitively.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies

Data ownership, online economies and decentralization are essential aspects of Gavin-Wood's Web3 future. We'll delve into this later, but blockchain provides a proven system to achieve many of these goals. The power of any person to tokenize assets, put information on chain, and create a digital identity is a significant innovation that lends itself to Web 3.0.

3D visualization and interactive presentation

In short, the appearance of the website will change greatly. We are already noticing a movement towards 3D environments that even incorporate virtual reality. The metaverse is an area that is venturing into these experiences, and we are already familiar with socialization through 3D video games. The areas of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are also working to present information more intuitively to web users.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is key to converting human-created content into machine-readable data. We're already familiar with customer service bots, but this is just the beginning. AI can present data to us and classify it, making it a versatile tool for Web 3.0. Best of all, AI will learn and improve itself, reducing the work needed for human development in the future.

What makes Web 3.0 superior to its predecessors?

In theory, combining the key features of Web 3.0 will generate a variety of benefits. Don't forget that all this will depend on the success of the underlying technology:

1. No central point of control: By taking middlemen out of the picture, they will no longer have any influence over user data. This freedom reduces the risk of censorship by governments or corporations and reduces the effectiveness of distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks .

2. Greater interconnectivity of information: As more products connect to the internet, larger data sets give algorithms more information to analyze. This can help them provide more accurate information that is tailored to the specific needs of the individual user.

3. More efficient navigation: When using search engines, finding the best results can sometimes be a challenge. However, engines have gotten better at finding semantically relevant results based on search context and metadata over the years. This results in a more convenient web browsing experience that can help anyone easily find the exact information they need.

4. Improved Advertising and Marketing: No one likes to be bombarded with online ads. However, if the ads are relevant to your needs, they could be helpful rather than a nuisance. Web 3.0 aims to improve advertising by leveraging smarter AI systems and targeting specific audiences based on consumer data.

5. Better Customer Support: Customer service is essential for a smooth user experience of web sites and applications. However, due to massive costs, many web services that become successful struggle to scale their customer service operations. Through smarter chatbots that can talk to multiple customers at once, users can enjoy a superior experience when dealing with support agents.

How do cryptocurrencies fit into Web 3.0?

In terms of Web 3.0, blockchain and cryptocurrency have enormous potential. Decentralized networks effectively incentivize more conscientious governance, content production, and data ow Some of its most relevant aspects for Web 3.0 include:

1.  Crypto Digital Wallets: Anyone can create a wallet that allows them to make transactions and acts as a digital identity. There is no need to store your data or create an account with a centralized service provider. You have full control over your wallet and often the same wallet can be used on multiple blockchains.

2. Decentralization: Transparent dissemination of information and power among a large number of people is simple with blockchain. This contrasts with Web 2.0, in which big tech companies dominate wide areas of our online lives.

3. Interoperability: DApps and on-chain data are becoming more compatible. Blockchains created with the Ethereum Virtual Machine can easily support DApps , wallets, and tokens. This helps improve the absolute presence necessary for a connected Web 3.0 experience.

Web 3.0 use cases

While Web 3.0 is still in development, we have some examples that are already in use today:

Siri and Alexa virtual assistants

Both Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa offer virtual assistants that meet many of the conditions of Web 3.0. 3. Digital economies: New digital economies are made possible by the capacity to use decentralized transactions and own data on a blockchain. The more people use Siri and Alexa, the more their AI will improve recommendations and interactions. This makes it a perfect example of a semantically intelligent web application that belongs to the Web 3.0 world.

Connected smart homes

The ability to be completely present is one of Web 3.0's main characteristics. This means we can access our online data and services across multiple devices. The systems that control your home's heating, cooling, and other utilities can now do so in a smart, connected way. Your smart home can know when you leave, when you arrive, and what temperature you like your home to be. You can use this information, and more, to create a personalized experience. No matter where you are, you can use your phone or other online devices to access this service.

Conclusions

The evolution of the internet has been a long journey and will surely continue into new iterations. With the Due to the vast increase in data available, websites and applications are moving toward a more engaging online experience. While there is still no concrete definition for Web 3.0, innovations are already underway. It's easy to see the direction we're going in, and of course blockchain appears to be a key part of the future of Web 3.0.

[marketingprofitmedia]

How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step

A provider of web information is Alexa.com. It began as a standalone company in 1996 and was acquired by Amazon.com in 1999. According to the number of visitors, Alexa ranks the most popular websites today.

8.5 million individuals visit the website every month to learn about other websites. This information demonstrates how well-liked alexa.com is. Most individuals, including online marketers, acquire data from Alexa and value it highly. Therefore, you should consider Alexa rank if you plan to monetize your website.

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By using its browser toolbar, Alexa gathers information about visitors. Visitors are only counted if they have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers; otherwise, they are not.

By way of illustration, if your website has 1,000 daily visits, but only 120 of them have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browsers, Alexa will only register 120 visitors to your website.

1. Produce Quality Content

Content is the backbone that holds a website together. Crafting high-quality, informative, and engaging content is paramount to increasing your Alexa Rank. A well-written article or blog post has the potential to attract a larger audience and encourage them to spend more time on your website, ultimately boosting your ranking. So, prioritize creating valuable content that caters to your target audience’s interests and needs.

2. Optimize Your On-Page SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results. To improve your Alexa Rank, focus on optimizing your on-page SEO elements. Start by conducting thorough keyword research to identify the terms your target audience is searching for. Incorporate these keywords strategically into your website’s meta tags, headings, and content to increase organic visibility and attract more traffic.

Conduct keyword research to identify popular search terms

Utilize tools such as Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush

Strategically incorporate keywords into meta tags, headings, and content

Optimize your website’s URL structure

Ensure proper internal linking and anchor text optimization

3. Utilize Social Media Engagement

In today’s digitally connected world, social media platforms have become a driving force in website promotion and brand awareness. To enhance your Alexa Rank, leverage the power of social media engagement. Create compelling and shareable content that resonates with your target audience. Promote your content on various social media channels, interact with your followers, and encourage them to share your posts. Increased social media engagement will result in more website visits and a higher Alexa Rank.

Create compelling and shareable content

Promote your content on various social media channels

Interact with your followers and respond to their comments and messages

Utilize social media analytics to identify trends and optimize your content strategy

4. Build High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are virtual endorsements that demonstrate the credibility and authority of your website. Generating high-quality backlinks from reputable websites can significantly impact your website’s Alexa Rank. Invest time and effort in building relationships with other website owners, guest blogging, and participating in relevant forums or communities. By acquiring authoritative inbound links, you increase your website’s visibility and, subsequently, boost your Alexa Rank.

Build relationships with website owners in your niche

Guest blog on reputable websites within your industry

Participate in relevant forums and communities

Monitor and disavow low-quality or spammy backlinks

5. Improve Website Loading Speed

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, users expect websites to load swiftly and smoothly. A slow-loading website not only discourages visitors but also adversely affects your Alexa Rank. Optimize your website’s loading speed by compressing images, minifying code, and utilizing caching mechanisms. Implementing these performance-enhancing techniques will provide a seamless browsing experience for your audience while positively impacting your website’s Alexa Rank.

Compress images to reduce their file size

Minify JavaScript and CSS code to reduce page load times

Utilize caching mechanisms, such as browser and server caching

Optimize your website’s HTML structure and reduce unnecessary elements

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6. Enhance User Experience

User experience (UX) plays a significant role in determining the success of a website. An excellent user experience not only keeps visitors engaged but also encourages them to explore different areas of your website, ultimately leading to improved Alexa Rank. Focus on creating a visually appealing design, intuitive navigation, and easy-to-use interfaces. Additionally, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, as an increasing number of users browse the internet through their smartphones and tablets.

Invest in a visually appealing and responsive website design

Optimize website navigation for easy exploration

Ensure mobile-friendliness and responsive design

Conduct user testing and gather feedback to continuously improve UX

7. Increase Website Engagement

Engaging your website visitors and encouraging them to spend more time on your platform is crucial for boosting your Alexa Rank. Implement strategies to increase website engagement, such as offering interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or surveys. Additionally, encourage comments, feedback, and social sharing. Engaged visitors are more likely to become loyal followers, organically promoting your website and enhancing your Alexa Rank.

Offer interactive elements, such as polls, quizzes, or surveys

Encourage comments, feedback, and social sharing

Provide valuable and share-worthy content that sparks discussions

Create a sense of community within your website

8. Monitor and Analyze Your Website’s Performance

To effectively improve your Alexa Rank, it’s essential to monitor and analyze your website’s performance regularly. To monitor visitor activity, comprehend traffic trends, and pinpoint areas for development, use analytics tools like Google Analytics. Stay updated with the latest trends and industry best practices. By analyzing data-driven insights, you can make informed decisions and optimize your website accordingly.

Set up Google Analytics or similar analytics tools

Track website traffic and visitor behavior

Identify patterns and trends in user engagement

Continuously optimize your website based on data-driven insights

9. Network and Collaborate with Influencers

Influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful strategy for expanding your reach and improving your Alexa Rank. Find influential people in your sector and get in touch with them to discuss possible partnerships, collaborations, or endorsements. Influencers’ followers are more likely to visit and interact with your content when they mention or link to your website. Networking with influential individuals can significantly elevate your website’s visibility and boost your Alexa Rank.

Identify influencers in your niche

Reach out for potential collaborations or partnerships

Offer value and establish mutually beneficial relationships

Leverage the influence of others to increase your website’s exposure

10. Stay Consistent and Adapt

Improving your Alexa Rank is an ongoing process that requires dedication and adaptability. Stay consistent with your efforts and regularly evaluate your strategies to identify what works best for your website. Keep up with industry advancements, algorithm updates, and emerging trends to ensure you remain at the cutting edge. By continuously adapting and fine-tuning your approach, you’ll maximize your chances of attaining and maintaining a stellar Alexa Rank.

Continuously evaluate and adjust your strategies

Keep up with industry advancements and algorithm updates

Embrace emerging trends and new technologies

Be proactive in enhancing your website’s performance and ranking

Conclusion

You have reached the end of our guide on increasing the Alexa Rank of your website with ten killer strategies. By following these step-by-step methods, you are now equipped with the knowledge and tools to propel your website to new heights of popularity and visibility.

Remember, improving your Alexa Rank takes time, effort, and consistency. It’s essential to stay committed to implementing these strategies and monitoring your progress along the way. Results may not be immediate, but with patience and dedication, you’ll begin to see positive changes in your Alexa Rank.

As you continue on your journey, keep in mind that high-quality content remains the cornerstone of a successful website. Creating engaging, informative, and relevant content will not only attract visitors but also keep them coming back for more. Combine this with effective on-page SEO techniques to optimize your website for search engines and further enhance its visibility.

Don’t underestimate the power of building high-quality backlinks and engaging with your audience on social media. These strategies can help drive more traffic to your website, increase your online authority, and improve your overall Alexa Rank.

Last but not least, use applications like Google Analytics to routinely examine and track the performance of your website. This data will provide valuable insights into your audience’s behavior, allowing you to refine your strategies and make informed decisions to further boost your Alexa Rank.

Now, armed with these killer ways to increase your Alexa Rank, it’s time to put them into action. Embrace the challenge, stay persistent, and watch as your website’s popularity and authority soar. Wishing you success as you pursue your goals!

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Source : How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step

Thanks for reading my article on “How to Increase Alexa Rank of Your Website: 10 Killer Ways Step by Step“, hope it will help!

[mlembug]

because the meme mentions "credit card info in plaintext": internet banks have been using HTTPS since at least mid 00s (this is as far as I am able to remember myself), but very likely since the beginning*. In fact, online banking and e-commerce have been a driving force for creating the HTTPS protocol in the first place (similarly how the original use case for cookies was "internet shopping cart"), and also because of how much internet banks were relying on the tech, they were responsible for teaching users how to spot a HTTPS-secured site in the first place (including teaching stuff like "before typing in your credentials to our bank site, check the near the address bar to see if there's "https://" in front and there is a padlock" in promotional materials and on TV), which was a necessary part to get people to trust and use online banking in the first place.

internet banks also have been using 2FA before most other sites did, in the form of single-use codes (if you were close to running out, the next batch of codes was sent to you by snail mail to your home)

or tokens that generated a time-limited password

I will admit that online shopping has been worse in adopting HTTPS than it should, however, most internet shops however delegated the responsibility of payments to someone else. In particular, processing card numbers is subject to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which explicitly specifies the credit card numbers can't be transmitted through plaintext communication.

As for everyone else, indeed, most sites did not use HTTPS until mid 2010:

1. Wi-Fi was not that popular back then, and intercepting someone's credentials was more difficult - this way of attack was not well known until 2010 with the release of Firesheep, a Firefox extension (also interestingly enough, this is something a VPN could protect from, although with wide adaption of HTTPS this attack surface was eliminated entirely)

2. Before 2016 when Let's Encrypt did it for free, getting HTTPS working for your site required paying money. In order to use HTTPS you needed to acquire a certificate from a trusted certificate authority. Below is a screenshot of an archived (archive.org) 2004 page for one of the certification authorities, DigiCert, which on the section dedicated to "frequently asked questions" has listed a "Why is DigiCert so much less expensive?" question.

It lists the cost as 99 dollars. This is a yearly cost. The site also lists the cost for what the competition asks for the price for it, with VeriSign being listed as $895. Understandably, an internet forum admin or an average website owner would be unlikely to pay this kind of cost, and therefore most sites did not use HTTPS.

* - although if we go to the 90s, we will encounter the problem that cryptographic algorithms were classified as military equipment and therefore its export was restricted by existing US regulations. If you were to go to Netscape's website in 1999 and download a web browser, you will see that it is offered in two versions, one for US and Canadian citizens with "strong encryption" and other one with everyone else with "standard encryption" (woefully inadequate to secure confidentiality of information transfer beyond like, a few days or so)

https was invented in 1994, but as i recall, basically the whole internet used http up until the mid 2010s. and my question, more of a comment really, is... what the fuck?

[ultralaser]

thinking today about all the social media sites i have lost over the years

2018/9 to today - twitter

cause of death - a robber baron having a midlife crisis, or maybe a multi level marketing scheme of authoritarians aligning to take down a protest hub

what we lost - a reliable, expansive feed of traditional Wierd Internet, breaking news, esoteric discourse, and minor celebrities who might actually follow you if you had a good bit of humor or outrage go a bit viral

2010 to 2018? - instagram

cause of death - facebook buyout, the algorithm, monetization

what we lost - started as a nice way to share pictures, then it became very difficult to see your actual friends pictures under all the Content, then they pivoted to video (stories aka snapchats), then they pivoted to video AGAIN (reels aka tiktoks), now they've somehow pivoted to video YET AGAIN and buried your friends reels under an avalanche of reposted tiktok Content, if they havent all been shadowbanned anyways for only posting pictures

2008 to 2018/9 - tumblr

cause of death - yahoo, digital gentrification, a legitimate need to clean out all the csm that went really badly and ended up breaking everyone's trust

what we lost - a full decade of community building of all the quirky independent artisinal discourse this site became known (and then maligned) for, leading to the last three years of twitter users whinging endlessly about tumblr bs while i'm all "why are you booing us, we're right!" bc this is where we were radicalized and twitter is where trump happened

2000? to 2015? - facebook

cause of death - nazi apologia, maga regulatory capture, broken ass algorithm, pivot to video, "it's meta now", etc etc

what we lost - it started as a fun simple way to keep up with your family, and friends from hs and college and old jobs, and to share cat photos and baby photos. it ended up as a radicalization vector for turning your grandparents into far right trolls.

2003ish to 2005ish - my movie critic friend luke's web forum on his personal site

cause of death - actually i don't remember, it might still be there, oops. but probably hosting fees vs just moving to facebook

what we lost - a fun little community of luke, me and some of his other internet friends, some of his irl friends, and his cool irish uncle, plus random angry strangers, just talking mostly positively about movies. it was a good vibe, felt like working at the movie theatre again

1999? to 2002? - killingmachines

cause of death - hosted on a server in my brother's office, which died and killed the archive and also nuked the code, which, will definitely happen to someone's mastodon instance in the next 3-6mos, oops

what we lost - a budding community of us and our friends and also a bunch of early internet randos i never regained contact with but still remember fondly to this day

1999 to 2001ish - the raving toy maniac "toy buzz" forums on toymania dot com

cause of death - hosting fees, the internet changed, my group had already aged out like two message board generations ago as we graduated hs, etc

what we lost - being yelled at for going off-topic unless we were hiding our conversations in replies to old posts way down the board, a community of like minded toy nerds who absolutely believed that scalpers were an organized cartel ruining the hobby for everyone else, the naivete of the late 90s dotcom era, getting to watch week old posts and reply chains slowly disintegrate as they fell off the bottom of the page, getting to append NT for no text to posts where you put your whole short reply in the post title so no one needed to click through to that post on slow-ass dial up connections. but also, the pure anticipation we all felt for the star wars prequels in the summer of 1999 when all we had was a trailer, a promise, and a MOUNTAIN of merch on the way

1995 to 1999 - email

cause of death - too much god damn email

what we lost - a manageable amount of primarily non-spam email. 95% of what email used to be is just what facebook became, and twitter perfected it, becoming what email could have always been but never got to

[vespertinatriangle]

Today, nearly half a billion people qualify as Indigenous. If they were a single country, it would be the world’s third most populous, behind China and India. Exactly who counts as Indigenous, however, is far from clear. A video for the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues begins, “They were always here—the original inhabitants.” Yet many peoples who are now considered Indigenous don’t claim to be aboriginal—the Maasai among them. According to Maasai oral histories, their ancestors arrived in Tanzania several hundred years ago from a homeland they call Kerio, likely situated near South Sudan. Conversely, being first doesn’t seem to make you Indigenous. A handful of Gaelic monks and then the Vikings were the first people to arrive in Iceland (they settled there earlier than the Maori arrived in New Zealand), yet their descendants, the Icelanders, are rarely touted as Indigenous. Farther east, modern-day Scandinavians can trace most of their ancestry to migrations occurring in 4000 and in 2500 B.C., but it’s the Sami reindeer herders, whose Siberian ancestors arrived in Scandinavia closer to 1500 B.C., who get an annual entry in the “Indigenous World” yearbook. In place of firstness, a U.N. fact sheet lists self-identification as the key criterion. This doesn’t quite work, either. It is true that some surprising candidates have gained recognition through activist self-designation, such as the Mincéirs of Ireland. (The Mincéirs, sometimes mistakenly called “Irish gypsies,” may have separated from the settled Irish population only several hundred years ago.) Other such groups have been denied recognition. In 1999, when Basters, mixed-race descendants of Khoi pastoralists and Afrikaners, read a statement at a U.N. forum about Indigenous affairs, hundreds of delegates walked out in protest. At the same time, many people are called Indigenous without their knowledge or consent. If it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the Indigenous to be indigenous, what fills the conceptual space? A natural candidate, worryingly, is primitiveness. As several recent books show, centuries of colonialism have entangled indigeneity with outdated images of simple, timeless peoples unsullied by history. In “Beyond Settler Time,” Mark Rifkin observes that popular representations freeze Indigenous peoples in “a simulacrum of pastness.” In “Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology,” Samuel J. Redman describes how efforts to document dying Indigenous cultures often centered on a search for “an idyllic, heavily romanticized, and apparently already bygone era of uncorrupted primitive societies. Indigeneity is powerful. It can give a platform to the oppressed. It can turn local David-vs.-Goliath struggles into international campaigns. Yet there’s also something troubling about categorizing a wildly diverse array of peoples around the world within a single identity—particularly one born of an ideology of social evolutionism, crafted in white-settler states, and burdened with colonialist baggage. Can the status of “Indigenous” really be globalized without harming the people it is supposed to protect? [...]  A politics built around indigeneity, many organizers fear, can reify ethnic boundaries. It encourages people to justify why their ethnic group, and not another, deserves particular resources and accommodations. It weakens domestic ties, which are otherwise critical for oppressed minorities. But it also contributes to one of the stranger consequences arising from a rhetoric of indigeneity: its co-option by far-right nationalists. As peoples like the Maasai have lost confidence in the rhetoric, ethnic nationalists worldwide have come to embrace it. Writing for a Hindu Right propaganda Web site in 2020, a columnist observed, “In the game of woke, we Hindus actually hold all possible cards. We are people of color. We come from an indigenous culture that is different from the organized religions. . . . How could we not be winning every argument?”

“It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of Indigenous” from New Yorker