So here we are again: September.
It’s been nine months since I last wrote something specifically for this blog. That’s basically the same amount of time it takes for a human to be conceived and born.
Oh, make no mistake, it’s been a very busy year so far, furiously hammering words into a keyboard as part of multiple projects, tasks, experiments, and courses — with the main difference being that my thoughts and instructions are responded to by large language models and agentic bots. Yeah, I’m fascinated by this whole AI thing, so much so that my fingers are bleeding. My brain hurts.
It’s difficult to stay abreast of the latest developments, mishaps, and possibilities.
SEO has been joined by the need for AEO and GEO, and there are suggestions that a file named llms.txt sit alongside the established robots.txt — something I’ve implemented on the South African BBS memorial site which finally got a few overdue updates.
Now that that’s done, the irony is that few human readers would have noticed.
According to reports, over half of internet traffic today is (bad) AI bots.
Speaking of rogue agents, earlier this year I also entered every movie I know to have seen into Letterboxd, and I managed to check off an item on my bucket list after finally getting to watch all James Bond movies — in order. This demands a separate blog post because the final ranking turned out to be quite a revelation (spoiler: Goldfinger sucks).
But what I am primarily writing about is not the creation of something new but rather… “abortion”. I’ve been pruning the tree of branches that bore no fruit again.
In these times where people don’t use blue-link search engines, barely read original content or chain-forward funnies to one another via email anymore but would rather spend their time consuming ephemeral, vertical, disposable, and instantly forgettable short-form video content (much of which, ironically, is AI-generated), the idea of microsites seems quaint and outmoded.
One forthcoming project I’m therefore ditching is my stash of “Photos of celebrities when they were young (or before they were famous)“. The oldest files in the collection date back as far as August 2005. The idea was cute at the time but honestly, I just don’t have the time to create another burden that requires upkeep. Let Bored Panda, Pinterest or Reddit entertain the masses with that kind of stuff, so here’s a grid of the 49 more famous ones from my stash of before I delete the lot.
You ought to recognise most of these public personas.
In retrospect, it’s quite amazing how people adopt the facial features that become their trademarks throughout their careers early in life. Some of them have since passed on — as indeed have some of the people who sent me these pictures in the first place. Time flies.
And while we’re on the topic of recognisable celebrities, here’s a grid based on an even larger stash of AI-generated (and somewhat sexualised) caricatures that I created via a now-gone utility in early 2024. Even some of these have since died.
There’s no need to hold onto those either. The novelty has worn off, the joke’s gone stale. Blessed be the pruned fruit.
Finally, I’m also going to lay to rest a web site that I designed in late 2004.
Even back then I had trouble finding a suitable (free) host for it because its subject matter was of a (too) risqué nature. The old BBS days were far more permissive, it seems.
Erotext contains over 600 individual text files or stories; gathered, collected, amassed and uploaded in the era when most of us used operating systems with a text-based GUI and analog modems. Err not, for text files were rather popular in those days, and even today remain the staple of several alt.* newsgroups and websites. They are presented here in the same manner as they were listed on the BBS, complete with the original descriptions – where available (a great many of these were kindly provided by Deon Maartens and Janet Blair, of Mon Ami BBS and our then-partner, SHE BBS, respectively). If some of the descriptions appear to be no more exciting than their corresponding file names, then that’s courtesy of the old 8.3 DOS conventions!
If I remember correctly, the page was online until 2006 when after yet another host closed down. Although I was proud of its design and layout, I won’t be archiving it here either — original material be damned! Let Literotica handle that kind of stuff.
And so we jettison more ballast and close another loop.
Up next: Discogs!
All images via the hmvh.net archives and/or AI unless specified otherwise.
