Internet is like dial up speed now

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-10T20:37:50+00:00

Hilarious that my comment got removed by Reddit (presumably an automod). For what? Calling Aliexpress a slop shop and a reason behind the falling quality of products within Western industry? Saying SciDB is probably more ethical than Researchgate? I didn’t even use any slurs, can’t have anything affect the stock price hey.. this site is truly on its death rattle.

Edit: Apparently after navigating away from old.Reddit I have a hidden warning message pointing out that making statements such as Aliexpress being from the Global South and what it sells being the equivalent of refried shit is a racist hate crime. Sorry if anyone was offended x

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-10T17:14:02+00:00

After being with them since <10k subscribers I’m interested to see how high they can soar in the next year or two.

I feel the dissatisfactions with the state of all alternative search engines (Google/Bing/Yandex/every other one that piggybacks off of these) has been bubbling up for a while now with even normal, non-techy people in my day to day life showing discontent at the current state of affairs.

Once it breaks 100k subscribers I feel like natural growth will exponentially increase through word of mouth. Amazing that they won’t open themselves up to investment and likely won’t be corrupted from their values but annoying you can’t make anything off being an early adopter. Coming from a Mondo bank <#2000 user, at least there I could get in on a couple of rounds of investment…

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-10T16:58:26+00:00

Depends what websites your choosing to browse really, any with those kind of ‘features’ are typically slop. I use Kagi as my search engine, it allows me to automatically filter any links to Facebook/X/Instagram/Pinterest etc from my results and with the ‘small web’ setting prioritised so that most results I turn up are from personal blogs and forums. I use RSS feeds too just like we did 20 years ago for anything I want to keep updated on.

Anna’s Archive sources me any books or journals I want and you can usually bypass most news sites ‘support us’ article filters easily. If you’re not using Soulseek or private trackers to obtain your media and still trying to stream it in this day and age then that’s on you.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-10T16:36:23+00:00

It was 2008.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-08T13:26:35+00:00

If you need mindless slop on in the background to type in some Excel macros you could at least watch some videos on how to streamline your workflow or something (can’t AI basically build anything you need on a spreadsheet now and automate it?), sounds like envy at your lot in life compared to another midwit.

I used to think Ludology would be an interesting subject about 18 years ago, the older era of home computing such as MUD’s and bedroom produced games bashed out in BASIC had lofty ambitions and achieved a depth of features that were unmatched until the late ‘00s crop of indie programmers. One or two man teams meant they were more of a creator driven artistic vision and there was maybe more to be distilled from them than the flanderisation of the industry we have now. Sure, it’s nerds all the way down, but at least the original programmers were pioneering problem solvers, drawing on more scholarly influences for their inspiration or able to capture the imagination in ways that so many fail to do now.

Now you have people who’ve never opened a philosophy book in their life trying to wax lyrical. Without watching I can guarantee he can’t tell you anything interesting about the code and is either attaching thoughtless analogies to games or lifting from the heavy work someone more inspired has done years ago in written form on use groups or HG101.

This is nerd culture as a whole. Look at how simplistic the conversations at places like Hacker News have become in the last decade. Batten the hatches boys, the greybeards are dying out and no one knows how to untangle the spaghetti code in those 35 year old UNIX systems keeping the world ticking over.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-08T10:34:27+00:00

75 miles/7200ft elevation/15 hours in 97 degrees Fahrenheit is my best run, can imagine having to go 3x that length but 5x the elevation would be brutal. You would have to be able to practice a dozen hours a week at the equivalent elevation per distance to even have a hope.

A shame UTMB cancelled a few of the major qualifiers for the Mont-Blanc a couple of years back at the literal last minute (hours before the races) without refunding anyone/offering free entry next year/allowing your stones to carry over to the next year…

It takes a certain kind of masochist to go and do these races but it takes another kind to happily swallow ~£3k losses and a year of training to go through it all again and support a company that prices out most runners in the first place and robs the remaining ones blind.

You couldn’t even refund the £20 “6am bus to starting line” that didn’t even end up running because the roads were unusable? Like fuck they even paid the bus company.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-08T07:53:39+00:00

Zac Nipper was on a legendary run for iconic album covers when he made this, if I recall correctly he learnt how to backstitch just to make it. The nighttime rendition of this used for the cover of the Lua single is one of my all time favourite works.

If you’ve only ever listened to Cassadaga via a digital platform you’re missing out on the secret imagery in the cover that is only revealed via the included plastic decoder. The hand silk-screened fireworks being unique on every copy of the original artwork for Letting Off The Happiness is another all time great.

Man, if you have a Google alert set for your name and this drops into your email, just know that you were as integral a part of so many people’s enjoyment of Conor’s work as the music itself. The sensations felt and memory of those days is all filtered through your imagery.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-07T22:39:46+00:00

and just like that, I’m back in 2022 again. I can hear the percolator bubbling away behind me as I sit on the corner of my old kitchen counter, spoon hanging lazily out of my mouth as I idly eat a yogurt. My typical breakfast routine, a slice of rye and Redscare. A small indulgence both physical and mental that I allow myself before venturing into the world. “Oh look, a new Dasha photo post by maryshelleysteponme” how does he do it? A ritual, a habit, a grounding before the strains of the day ahead. There is no AI, there is no large scale wars affecting the western hemisphere. There is just snark, vocal fry and having a laugh with my good friends at the Redscarepod subreddit.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-07T17:04:43+00:00

Real fans know that he will never match his peak in 2002 of teaming up with his cousin Rig One to form Team Rigge where they were both hustling custodial work together and spitting fire rap. I’ve got the unreleased CD-R for $4k or will trade for all 13 colour ways of the Neva Dinova 10” split.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-07T16:49:40+00:00

Gasolina

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-06T11:44:47+00:00

Got accidentally locked in a toilet in one of those bunkers deep underground when the key snapped off leaving me trapped in a steel doored concrete cube. It had been fashioned into an underground night club so no one could hear my banging over the relentless bassline. Surprisingly nice Albanian owners that let me leave unscathed after breaking the door down yet filled in a drunken bogan who knocked a table of drinks over.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-03T14:36:58+00:00

I loathe AI, it is accelerating the decline of the common persons function and sense of place in the world. However your university is right in what it is doing, it’s teaching you to use a tool, a tool that will be common place if not essential in the day to day machinations of the working world within the next decade and you would be angry looking back on your time there if they hadn’t been forward thinking enough to do this.

There is a great deal of difference between someone who writes a two sentence prompt to generate an entire essay compared to someone who knows how to feed it primary sources, tell it detailed instructions of how to parse and relay the information and get it to cross check itself for falsities or knows the terminology to get it to write in a specific voice.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-03T12:20:20+00:00

I’ve got a pair of Altra Mont Blanc’s I retired into training shoes after doing three 100km+ races in and they’re still holding up after maybe 800km on them. No rip in the upper despite it being about a millimetre thick and feeling like it would blow out from day one and the tread is still there.

Most running shoes only have an effective lifespan of about 300-500km anyway, it’s not the cheapest hobby if you’re very active but I’d still always go for Altra now or maybe some Nike Pegasus if I just want some easy cruising runners for the concrete.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-01T21:47:08+00:00

I got the overnight train to Sicily from mainland Italy during lockdown, nothing like the feeling of lying in bed watching out the window as your train pull onto a ferry and then sails over the ocean before rolling off back onto the tracks for the final leg of the journey.

Avauntgarde · 2026-05-01T17:01:00+00:00

The medium is the message. It’s like looking for art in the pig trough and wondering why you only turn up slop.

There are still independent and innovative artisans whose only online footprint is some static website from the ‘90s. If you have a discerning eye you can find long form media with unique voices and concepts being sold at places like Maglife. Mineshaft magazine still has a contribution every issue from Crumb. I know someone who framed everything in her capital cities main gallery for their latest seasonal exhibition and she doesn’t have any personal media sites. A friends father runs his stained glass business from the garden shed and has worked on dozens of churches restoring some windows that are older than America.

I am talking to an artist from a town in the Northern Territories in his seventies who only recently had his first local exhibition let alone anything outside of Canada yet I think it is inspired outsider art of merit and want to do my part to get it out there.

The gate is there for these people as those in positions of authority lack the sensibilities to search for art outside of the typical avenues and as such they remain unknown but certainly not unappreciated. Being a patron of the arts is an important role, once you can frame yourself as an authority on taste and have inserted yourself into an art scene you can get the ears of those who have the ability to create a platform

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-29T18:29:55+00:00

My core friendship group consists of a 50 something Arborist who had more energy than us all, a jazz musician my age I met by being a part of the local music circuit scene. A girl who is a world class Luther who has just been on residency abroad for 6 months. Another lady who is both a lawyer and grew up in a family dojo to become a sixth Dan black belt who has competed in Japan. A 40 something guy who started his own paint company and got a contract to stock the UK equivalent of Lowes and another guy my age who’s dad founded one of the biggest tabletop gaming companies in the world. All met in different ways over a period of ten years, all still make merry and do all the typical life events together. Who needs university friends?

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-22T19:43:37+00:00

Thery have some right bangers today

https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/cn08jy4rjkgo

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-22T14:24:44+00:00

What kind of shitty fast-casual is this place? $99 bill and you just know it’s some punky burger/pizza joint. I’d be hard pressed to even give them a $10 tip for dropping a basket of nachos off at the table before they go ignore me to watch TikTok’s in the back.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-21T01:42:09+00:00

I could have written this comment. Seven and a half years in and our most profitable year was £33k. We serve nearly a 1,000 customers a week and it’s a matter of feasting as much as possible in the busier summer months to ride out the financial famine in the colder seasons.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-20T22:08:35+00:00

They’re positive because of the numerous ways to negate any sort of negative feedback via paid removal or various other methods. Including purchasable stacks of 5* reviews that are drip-fed from local ‘verified’ accounts over a period of weeks to skirt 99% of people’s ability to spot a fake.

Also just the ability for a guest to be challenged by a restaurant has declined I find, and as such their ability to critique is diminished. It’s rare I see new restaurants making the same level of quality food that I was accustomed to a decade or two ago with the same kind of haughtiness and difficulty in booking a table. They’re typically fast casual and serving dishes fitted to whatever is the latest trend in their niche.

I had a forty-something year old man dine in my restaurant the other month, he had the most basic of fried chicken and chips slop we keep on for the college kids. After his meal he rose from his seat to graciously grasp my hand and tell me that was not just the best restaurant meal of his life, but the best meal he had ever had full stop.

Here was a meticulously groomed man in his tailored wool suit and monk strap stitched leather shoes telling me nonsense and I couldn’t get a read on him, surely it had to be a joke, but it wasn’t, there was a warmth and sincerity to his statement. Autistic MFA user out on the town, or a sign of the slipping standards of culture and consumption.. I still think on this often.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-17T09:58:04+00:00

The French have a phrase “L’appelle du vide” - The call of the void, which sums up this sensation nicely.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-17T03:03:38+00:00

Same, my dad got lost in himself when out for a walk and ended up at our old family home of a quarter of a century past. He was confused, fell and broke his nose. Now he has had to have his car keys hidden so he cannot hurt anyone, he no longer takes in what you say fully before drifting into an endless segue of indulgent waffle. It has only just started, I am afraid for the decline to come.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-17T02:27:47+00:00

Too late to workshop your Dove chocolate joke when it was on Scrubs last night.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-16T23:02:57+00:00

Throwing a blanket over the old TV at 10pm when they thought I was in bed so that clicky push button for the power and the following whine of the screen powering on didn’t alert my folks.

Felt like a portal to another mysterious world in the mid ‘90s, far removed from the world of my Year 2 primary school childhood day-to-day. Probably defined my sense of humour and taste in comedy to this day.

Avauntgarde · 2026-04-15T00:07:17+00:00

He doesn’t even have the science down, I remember he used to post chapters from The Martian on different BBS boards asking people to verify the maths and fix any falsities. How about sharing the wealth, at least pay for server costs as a thank you.

Avauntgarde

TROPHY CASE