THIS IS NOT A TEST (1 Viewer)

You can’t even find a decent history of the Internet on the Internet, which should really be a red flag that something is wrong somewhere.

Curious about that. What do you mean, what is missing?
 
Pretty much everything about the early days of the web.

Things came and went and no one kept track of it, probably because it wasn't possible to keep track of it. There's no trace of the company that I first rented web server space from back in 1995, no mention of them anywhere, no mention of the provider that I used to get on the Internet, things like that. Just about every time I've tried to find information about anything related to the mid-90s web, I've hit a brick wall.

The "Way Back Machine" at archive.org is supposed to be the history of the web, but it doesn't go all the way back, and most of the older stuff they have is so broken it's pretty much worthless. Their copies don't support technologies that were commonly used back in the day, like image maps, and many kinds of "active" pages. Consequently it's just weird little fragments.

This guy is the only one to come close to producing a history of the early web (ostensibly he starts that history with Netscape, but in the course of the interviews they often go back further). He's doing a good, thorough job, but he only started his podcast a few years ago. Before that, the things he's talking about - you couldn't find anything about them.
 
I am one of the lucky you refer to in re rain. And your coffee ramblings had me lol-ing on the train to work. Sanka, even the mere mention of the product, makes me immediately think of my grandparents. Great episode again.
 
Ah ok, I see. Interesting that there is a "dark history" of the early web. I assumed, obviously naively, that everything that came before the late 90's is well documented with pictures and screenshots and everything.

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edit: apropos Wayback Machine, who here remembers these humble beginnings? 2006, baby!


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Well, this is how archive.org has immortalized the original home of the Bukowski database on smog.net eight years earlier:

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It's not their fault it's broken. Using imagemaps as navigation was stupid (they require another server-side file to work properly, the 'map' part of the image map). But everyone did it because it was the latest thing.

And while that's the first grab archive.org has of smog, the Bukowski section/database was up for a few years before that.
 
It would have been 1995, but it was probably just a few poems and a short story.

The database started in 1999, when Krumhansl was published. I scanned the entire book and shoehorned the data into a primitive single table database. It stayed primitive until early 2006, and it's been steadily becoming slightly less primitive ever since.
 
Must have been one of the first places on the net ever where you could find Bukowskis work, no?

I think I wrote this before but when I was searching the web in the early 2000s looking for information on this genius author I had recently discovered, smog.net was exciting ... I drank it all in, the article by Linda King, the photos, the interviews, the rare stuff. The FBI Files blew my mind. I was in awe what a rich resource this was for any Bukowski fan.

Much like I'd feel today if I found this place. Only now the resource and well of information has grown 100x since then. It's still the ultimative place for any Bukowski fan online.
 
Must have been one of the first places on the net ever where you could find Bukowskis work, no?
It was. Well, it was one of the first places on the web, period, so we won by default. ;) When it went up in September of 1995 (on the mjptv.com domain), there were fewer than 20,000 web sites in the world.

I don't know when realbeer.com put up their Bukowski page, but it was also very early. That may be the first Bukowski page I recall seeing outside of smog.net or mjptv.com.
 
smog.net, real beer and a site called Anti Hero Art were the only places with significant Bukowski content. It was exciting to find those places. Seems so long ago.
 
Mixed Nuts

https://thisisnotatest.com/mixed-nuts/

Happy new year, here are some mixed nuts. And, since a balanced diet is important, have a little helping of 9/11, Black Lives Matter, trolling the aisles of CVS, the mathematics of grocery shopping, human history, deadly peanut allergies, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Che, Celiac disease, The New England Journal of Medicine, the most kick-ass 70 year old the world has ever seen, unemployment insurance, working at McDonald's, Corrine Burns, and lunatics.


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Nuts raise a lot of questions. You're a nut! Ha! All nuts matter! I'm listening right at this moment in the new year. Who could imagine? Laughing my ass off. P.s. Sounds like you have a cold. Drink more o.j. Or don't. Dude, you just keep on going on & on about nuts...and no mention of deez nutz.
 
You got to keep the Newcastle upon Tyne tea service, the Sharper Image foot bath, and the Pomeranian. I'm not sure what else you want.
 
Who sneezed in my arpeggio?

https://thisisnotatest.com/who-sneezed-in-my-arpeggio/

Let's get right to it, shall we? Or rather, let's not get right to it, let's start this one with a poem. Then let's talk about mixtapes, sliders, memories, smells, silence that isn't really silence, limitations, your mother's shoes, tweens, soccer moms, Young Adult fiction, the Sundance film festival, veal, Hindu gods, Springsteen on Broadway, the working man, Sons Of Anarchy, U100, snow globes, Dr. Seuss, SWAT teams, and insurrection.


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Some Book Reviews and Also the History of the Earth

https://thisisnotatest.com/some-book-reviews-and-also-the-history-of-the-earth/

Let's talk about the earth, humanity, science and yes, maybe also work in 20 book reviews somehow: "Scar Tissue" by Anthony Kiedis, "Hit So Hard" by Patty Schemel, "Gold Dust Woman" by Stephen Davis, "There's No Bones in Ice Cream" by Sylvain Sylvain, "The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince" by Mayte Garcia, "Complicated Fun: The Birth of Minneapolis Punk and Indie Rock, 1974-1984" by Cyn Collins, "The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll" by Ian Port, "Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet" by Claire Evans, "How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone" by Brian McCullough, "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel," by Alexander Chee, "Choose Your Own Disaster" by Dana Schwartz, "A Farewell to Walmart" by Carly J. Hallman, "The First Bad Man" by Miranda July, "Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons" by George Pendle, "Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address" by Stephen Birmingham, "World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made" by Irving Howe, "Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail" by Ben Montgomery, "On Drinking" by Charles Bukowski, "In Pieces" by Sally Field, and "Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy" by Savannah Knoop. Now take a breath.


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Interview with Carol Es: Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley

https://thisisnotatest.com/interview-with-carol-es-shrapnel-in-the-san-fernando-valley/

In this ear-crushing aural assault on the senses, artist and author Carol Es talks to us on the day her debut memoir Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley is published. Okay, it's not really an "ear-crushing aural assault on the senses," it's just an interview, but lend a crushed ear to hear about Carol's adventures in writing and publishing a book, as well as her take on how Scientology ultimately affected her approach to the book (probably not in the way you might think), how her friends and family have reacted (before even reading the book), about her upcoming book launch/art show at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, and how ultimately the truth will always set you free.


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How a Jacket Changed My Life

https://thisisnotatest.com/how-a-jacket-changed-my-life/

This episode starts with a bang and just keeps bangin' 'till the cows come home. LOL! LOL! We will discuss Jah Himself, hippies, Mahtomedi Minnesota, aliens, beaver, curry, secret handshakes, Toughskins, ski jackets, the birth of the puffy jacket and its victims, living in your cousin's basement, the leather store, the perfection of the Schott Perfecto, molesting outerwear, getting the shit kicked out of you, feeling invincible, being invincible, magic, romance, chaos, Sonny Vincent, being twins with your girlfriend, what is cool? osmosis, chaos and upheaval, writing the story that no one else will write.


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You Can't Always Get What You Want

https://thisisnotatest.com/you-cant-always-get-what-you-want/

Hi. I've always been honest with you, except when I'm lying, so I have to say that I recorded this episode and put it on the shelf because I didn't think it was good enough. "Good enough" being a subjective term, of course. But as it happens, I'm packing to move (again), which means there's no time to come up with a replacement. So rather than leave a month-long hole in the schedule, I present you with this not-good-enough episode, where I talk about the death of Google Plus, shortwave radio, and rare books. When I emerge from the move and come up for air, I'll let you know where I am in the world, and I'll hit you with a top-notch, super-interesting, A-1 professional episode. Or just more of the same, that remains to be seen.


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That podcast has been recommended to me in the past, but I can't handle that guy's take on a "radio voice."

Swamp coolers are great, but we have central air conditioning, so we'll be cool. Inside the house, anyway.
 
Life Must Be Somewhere to Be Found

https://thisisnotatest.com/life-must-be-somewhere-to-be-found/

Allow me to regale you with more tales of packing up and moving, the Kingdom of Nye, the end of the road, Los Angeles, the high desert, America's Next Top Model, the 60 freeway, LAX, the Milky Way, leaf blowers, Bedouins, mountain biking, Germans, landlords, cucumber water, and how Instagram is destroying the National Parks. If that's not enough, I don't know what to tell you.


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Congrats on the new place! Pictures of Joshua Tree look interesting for sure.

Landlord situation sounds good too. I was listening to another podcast recently where a woman talked about house-shopping in LA and she told a story about a house owner who demanded that she wrote a letter to the house she wanted to move in, like why she wanted it, why they were the right people for it etc., like a love letter or some shit: "Dear house, I really love the way you stand there and your ceilings ..."
 
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a house owner who demanded that she wrote a letter to the house she wanted to move in...
I don't know how people tolerate being landlords. I mean, if you own an apartment building or something, that's one thing, but we always rent houses, and so far, they've all been houses that were never rentals before, so they haven't been abused.

I don't know how you can take a house you've lived in and put it up for rent. I couldn't do it. I'd always be trying to get my foot into the door to make sure the tenants weren't destroying the place.

But then I guess that's why I'm a broke renter and not a real estate baron.
 

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