This is a personal website.
If anything seems not to be working as intended, please feel free to send me a message on my blog or neocities page.
Sources for images I use may be in the alt text.
This website has been a work in progress for a couple of years now. The words, pictures, and general things you see were all made at different times, so sometimes they don't really seem like they fit together (maybe it's just me who notices). In any case, that's just because I'm a person and people change over time.
If you're on a neocities website, I think chances are you've been thinking more than usual about how the internet works. In any case, I was reading this book-- a real actual physical book-- and came upon an interesting quote I'd like to share with you:
"... in the early notions of digital network architecture... whenever anyone connected to anyone else, it would be noted. In other words, links went both ways. You couldn't just point to something, or copy something. Instead you'd always leave a calling card. The usual term in the trade is 'two-way linking.' If you link to someone or something, they are automatically linked to you...
"Over the next half-century, the original idea of the two-way internet was gradually repudiated, so that the internet we have today is based on one-way links. What that means is that if you link to something, whoever maintains that thing doesn't know you are doing so. If you copy something, there is no record...
"If the internet had been born with two-way links, it would be easy to look up how many sites are looking at a site, so you could go to the site being looked at the most if you wanted to. But in a 'net with one-way links it's a lot of work to figure something like that out. Google has to read the whole web every night to calculate the back links that should be there anyway, just in order to come up with its search rank. Google's towering fortune was built on filling an artificial hole...
"Similarly, if the 'net had two-way links, you'd be able to meet people who were interested in what you were up to, because the back link would be a calling card. Instead that hole has been filled by Facebook."
That's from Jaron Lanier's essay "Why is the City Square Square?" as published in The Future of Public Space in 2017. I think this idea of two-way links is fascinating. I've decided to make a point to have every page within my control that I link to also link back. Something I've noticed on Neocities that frequently serves the purpose of a calling card, though it certainly predates Neocities itself, is the Guestbook. It's not an automatic two-way link, like "following" someone on Neocities or elsewhere. To leave your calling card, you have to make the distinct decision to do so.
I think it is a wonderful thing when people do make that decison. I am considering adding a guestbook to my website so that people can leave notes for me in a convenient way. I'll get to it eventually.
Finally, I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay. Safe travels, web surfer!