Links.net: Justin Hall's personal site growing & breaking down since 1994

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Each time I speak, I leave my mind open to that event. I mull over my speech in the weeks before, and then I come up with something particular in the days before, and then I revise it after I've arrived and seen the surroundings.

I usually end up with an outline.

In the case of reboot 99, I tried writing a few essays expressing my sentiments on life and the internet. I thought I might make an outline from them. I ended up largely leaving them behind, but I thought I'd leave them behind here because they reflect my technology thots circa April 1999.

gardening.txt was probably closest

otherwise incomplete and off the cuff:

accesswalk.txt

i do wish for internet on the airline. i do wish that every apartment had ethernet access, so i could be online chatting with friends i have in another continent instead of having to feel alone where i am.

i will accept that i am in the pre-cranial wiring age, and i will take a walk because my mom would kill me if i spent my whole time in copenhagen checking my email.

yoots.txt

young men play games

and young women chat

listen to young folks -
they drive technology

and feel responsible to them
make things you'd want them to have

idiocy.txt

a friend of mine, you'll hear from him later,
he works for a compnay,
their slogan is something to do with "legendary"

so i want to steal that from him, he'll probably be editing out that slide over lunch,
i want to ask you what you folks are doing for the web. instead of just accusing you of doing nothing, because i have no way to know, and besides you are scandinavian and you do more with your tax money than i do volunteer year after year. instead of all this i will share my own failure with you and from the ashes of that depressing subject will emerge the vision of the internet future that you should all listen closely to, because it could be the ecommerce solution of the millenium.

bascially, i found in the web a fantastic way to share. i found that the depths of my soul could be translated into glowing sheets of shit for people i would never meet in faraway places to feel their own personal lives matched in idiocy by my own. from this sharing i found that people would respond, and i found myself unable to share with them personally - i am ready mostly to get attention, the sort that comes from the disembodied sharing of texts and stories, but less from the what you mean to me kind of talk.

so after some time of agonizing over all this, i started a site called bud.com where i could finally harnass the immense power of lonely people to make web content.

lastyear.txt

last year i spoke of what personal publishers have to teach fledgling business. and now i see that most business people are little different than the personal publishers - they are people with skills and trades that want to be independent and sustain their lifestyle in the company of their peers.

so the only lesson i have is to do it. just do it. some combination of nike and lao tzu.

let me tell you what i just do
and how it works out for me
and maybe you will feel inspired
and it won't really matter that we are here to talk about the internet, but you will feel again like your life has purpose, like it did when you were busy chasing that pretty girl around the playground because what could possibly beat a kiss on the cheek from her? and then when you got it and you realized that girl has problems of her own and actually perhaps her own agenda and then what do you have left to seek after?

there is money, and i must say that i have watched my internet become consumed with a persuit of forging value. people want to mine every vein for information ore - they will establish every market bulkhead and ensure that if there is pie, they will taste some.

and i think to myself, i have been fortunate in breeding and provision to avoid an absolute mad scramble for sustinence, and i have enjoyed the outcome of this search for efficiency

mostly what i am interested in these days, i am wanting to see the ways in which the internet can reinforce the best angels of our nature. there is doubtlessly some dire times ahead - the shooting in an american school is only the latest sign in the series of adjustments necessary to accomodate the size and scope of our society.

reboot 99 | speakin's | life

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