THE SLOW INTERNET

Manifest for the Anthropos – A thesis project on the Anthropocene and the damages humans have inflicted on the earth. Really, really love the acknowledgements section: “The design of this page was inspired by a series of self-help, alternative religion and conspiracy theory websites made in the late 90s/early 2000s. These websites are in no need of excessive design elements or conceptual references to illustrate their believes.” Here’s one of the aforementioned sites.

The Poolsuite – Not sure if this has been established yet, but I clearly have a thing for the old Mac aesthetic. This summer-vibes music experience is designed to look like a vintage Mac desktop. (Also took me a minute to realize the whole thing is spon-con for Vacation sunscreen.) Via Lucy Pham’s Websites That Look Like Desktops.

Abandoned Blogs – A somewhat poignant archive/shrine of old blogs that have been long forgotten by their previous writers. Some of these feel like stepping into a time machine or stumbling on somebody’s old diary in an attic.

Switching.Software – “Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software.” I’ve been thinking more about switching to alternative, open-source applications and this site provides a really nice starting point for that. Via Archive of Daily Digital Disobedience

Symphony in Acid – “an interactive website promoting a track Symphony in Acid from the album Unspoken Words by Max Cooper.” Really cool text animation. Via Fuse

Archive of Daily Digital Disobedience – “The Archive of Daily Disobedience celebrates the disobedient use of technology as a creative survival code of our time.” Tips and hacks for divesting from Big Tech and its culture of surveillance. Via Rozina Aamir

Websites, Done Cheap – Affordable web design by Elijah Beaton. I love the takeout menu design.

Libra.re – A website version of one reader’s personal bookshelf. I love this way of digitizing the act of visiting a friend and poring over their shelves. Via Kristoffer Tjalve’s “Personal Website Libraries” Are.na channel.

Radicals Radicants Epiphytes Parasites – Love the multi-colored masonry style of this site which “documents the ongoing research by Laurie Cluitmans ‘On the necessity of gardening.’” via Arianne on Substack

The Tyranny of Taste – “Taste isn’t innocent. While taste may seem subjective and individual — one person’s trash is another’s treasure — it also reflects existing hierarchies of power. Operating within an increasingly global and connected world, designers are challenging long-established definitions of how design looks and behaves.” Via Fuse

Tooooools – “Free minimalist and lo-fi effects for image and video processing online.” Love the dots and dithering options.

Queering The Map – “A community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space.” Via Taking an Internet Walk

Syllabus – An archive of articles on various subjects, structured as syllabi for extended learning. “Syllabus was born from a conversation about discovery and learning. In discussing the ways that cultural artifacts travel through a society, we imagined how a syllabus could function as a creative tool that allows you to do things like: i. present what you feel is important for others to experience or consume;  ii. group items together in ways that shade and refine their meaning;  iii. apply a conceptual or idiosyncratic approach to the syllabus form; iv. develop rogue pedagogies.” Via Naive Weekly

SDS Server – Obsessed with the whole vibe of this indie web host from Strike Design Studio. “This internet box, hardware, or server and the site(s) stored within are physically hosted in my living room on a Raspberry Pi 4 running Yunohost.” Via Polina Lobanova

Outdoor Index – “A personal archive of completed hikes,” by Donica Ida

How It Is – Sarah Thankam Matthews on authoritarianism, paying attention to the current moment, and the importance of reaching out to your representatives. “Without intervention our institutions will hollow out so that when we turn to them to catch us—in times of economic need, natural disaster, health vulnerability—more and more of us will fall through the cracks and into the depths of the American underclass.”

Dither It! – A web application for creating dithered images, a way to reduce image file sizes that looks ~cool~.

KidPix.app – Vikrum Nijjar created a version of the 1989 drawing application Kid Pix that can be used in a browser window. Bringing back a lot of memories. Via The Verge

Infinite Mac – A website that allows you to run any version of Mac OS from your web browser. Had some fun playing around with Sim City Classic and Claris Works.

Soft Tech – A poem/manifesto by Helena Jaramillo. “what if technology gave you space and time to think slowly, deeply, talk calmly, softly”

An ‘Architectural Dream World’ Filled With Hundreds of Dollhouses — I was so thrilled to see a space in my hometown of Buffalo, NY featured recently in T Magazine. Did not know about Dennis Maher’s work or his home and am so thrilled it exists. Excited to visit Assembly House, a museum/studio/trade workshop, on my next visit home.

How does true reciprocity work? – An interview with Fritz Haeg of Salmon Creek Farm on communal living and gardening as a radical act. From Dark Properties

Everyday Utopia by Kristen R. Ghodsee — Really enjoyed this book on the history and viability of utopian living experiments. Given the our-country-is-collapsing vibe these days, reading it provided a much-needed sense of optimism, and a potential roadmap for carving out a new way of living.

On the importance of friction – “The CorpoWeb is all about taming users’ behaviours in their favour in the name of erasing friction from the web; but on the web, like in life itself, a bit of friction can be a good thing.”

A Silly Slinky Story – A really charming single-serving site that shares the story of a gift slinky. (Must be viewed on desktop.) A product of HTML in The Park

HTML In The Park – A meetup that brings people together to code in a Toronto park. I can’t even begin to describe how much this speaks to me on a spiritual level. Via The HTML Review

The Internet’s Back-to-the-Land Movement — “Moving off the grid in a digital sense might mean opting out of mainstream internet providers to connect through independent mesh networks, or hosting content on local computers distributed across a peer-to-peer web. Though the driving technologies can be complex to understand, it is important to demystify the inner workings of the web so that individuals may regain control of the tools that build it.” Via Handmade Web

The Handmade Web – The beautiful homepage for a web design course taught by Aidan Quinlan at Virginia Commonwealth University. The reading list is fabulous. Via Jack Rieger

Be the algorithm you want to see in the world — “The humble RSS reader—which is what most podcasts apps really are—allows the user to decide how to sift through their feeds. Precious few platforms still have space for this kind of human algorithm.”

Optical Toys – A compendium of optical illusions

The vintage Mac-OS grid design of author Lucy Ives’ personal website is insane and beautiful. Via Bailey Miller

WikiTok – a web app that feeds random Wikipedia articles into a TikTok-like stream. Brilliant and so much fun. Via Kyle

Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism – “In Yanis Varoufakis’ latest book, the former Greek finance minister argues that companies like Apple and Meta have treated their users like modern-day serfs.” From Wired

Velvetyne – “An association and collective dedicated to researching and disseminating typography and typeface creation.” Entirely open-source, because “we believe that not all graphic or typographic creations should be part of a market economy and we stand for the freedom to subvert its rules.”

Digital Divinity: Ancient traditions meet modern technology – “Technology has transformed how we spend, study, live, eat — even how we sleep. And for the 6.75 billion people around the world who consider themselves religious, technology is also changing their faith. How people worship, pray, and commune with the divine is transforming from Seoul to Lagos.” Via Tender Web

Thoughts.page – “A platform for hosting a small webpage for your thoughts. It’s basically like twitter, but nobody can @ you. … Thoughts pages are an attempt at a quieter, slower, more personal internet. A little space on the web, just for you.”

Diagram Website – I’ve spent several hours surfing the sites presented in this beautiful “internet map,” created by Kristoffer Tjalve. A wonderful intro course on how the internet can still be a place for magic.

René Coignard – Another beautiful fully text-based blog from a “political activist, human rights defender, and artist from Russia.” Via minim.blog

minim.blog – A blog about “existential and digital minimalism,” the ethos is in both the content and the underlying design. The purely text-based design (you need to navigate using CMD-F) is really beautiful. Via No CSS Club

Making space for a handmade web – “There’s a resurgence of small, handcrafted sites challenging the current trajectory of the internet. Joining the movement is as simple as making your own.” Via The Internet Used To Be Fun

Naive Weekly – “Naive Weekly aims to expand what the internet is and can be. Every Sunday since 2018, I’ve delivered postcards with links to the quiet, odd and poetic web.” Via The HTML Review

The HTML Review – “An annual journal of literature made to exist on the web.”

Johannes Klingebiel – Love the design of this personal website, especially the Bookstack section. Via Kyle.

The Whole Earth Index – “Here lies a nearly-complete archive of Whole Earth publications.” OMG, yes. Via Rachel

Notes from Amsterdam – “If the motto in New York is ‘survival of the fittest,” he said, then the motto here is “live, and let live.’”

A programming note from Kottke: “I have pivoted to posting almost exclusively about the coup happening in the United States right now.”

mmm.page – “Dead simple, drag & drop websites for anything” feels like an understatement. These sites feel like if KidPix and GeoCities had a baby in the most awesome way. I hope we see more websites like this.

Low-Tech Magazine – An online magazine dedicated to low-tech solutions: “Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices.” Completely obsessed with the brutalist web design and the fact that the entire site is solar-powered (which means it is occasionally offline.)

From Jason – Really enjoyed this self-proclaimed digital garden, especially, perhaps, the site’s dedication: “This site is dedicated to the old web, the weird web, the web that screamed in horror when summoned through a land line.” via Rachel

The Internet Used To Be Fun – Raise your hand if you can relate to this sentiment. Apparently more and more people do. My pal Rachel created this compendium on writing about the un-funning of the internet. “…here’s a collection of articles that to some degree answer the question ‘Why have a personal website?’ with ‘Because it’s fun, and the internet used to be fun.’”

Mail Blog – Cortney Cassidy’s print-and-ink zine “Mail Blog” is a blog distributed through the US Postal Service. You can sign up for free by emailing mailblog@mailbox.org. Receiving this non-electronic newsletter has added some much-needed joy to my winter 2025. More on Mail Blog in Cassidy’s A Soft Manifesto