Dark

The sound of a jet's wake rolls around the sky, reminding me a bit of distant thunder, a bit of surf, a bit of a cat purring. A sustained wind plays through the treetops, too, its hum blending with the rumble left by the receding plane. Night being moonless, I cannot see the trees move. I only hear their stirring. On the ground, the air is still except for brief flurries which send dry leaves skittering a few feet. Far off, I hear a faint chirring of cicadas. But for the dark shapes of the trees, a few stars, and the quick flash of a single meteor, there is nothing to be seen. That is why the sounds dominate the night; that, and the soft stir of air against my skin, and the scents of dry grass and pungent pine resin. The town has vanished, and does not intrude as I indulge my other senses. I feel almost sybaritic. The darkest nights are the best.

Haunted

Over the three years that I've had a computer, I've stuck a goatload of web sites onto my favorites list. These are things I've found interesting and plan to re-visit some time. Usually, I never get around to it. Last night, I remembered a site I added several months ago and decided to check it out again. It was gone. Realizing that I had never cleaned out my favorites list, I decided to check a few more sites. I began going through one folder, and found that more than two thirds of the sites I had thought fit to save were dead. I've got some cleaning to do.

Web sites have shorter life spans than goldfish. I suppose that many of them have simply moved to other hosts and had their URL's changed, but most of them are probably gone forever. There is also the fact that many of the sites that have survived have not been updated in ages. This is not unfamiliar at LJ, where not only have many journals been deleted, but a majority have not been updated in ages. (Well, in Internet ages.) I was surprised to find that three of the companies which made gadgets that are in Sluggo no longer have active web sites. Two of them have been swallowed by other companies, and maintain only a page with a link to the successor company, and one has vanished altogether.

I'm beginning to see the Internet as being like one of those old business districts pocked with vacant stores because all the business has gone to the new mall on the edge of town. But those vacant brick-and-mortar stores might eventually fill with thrift shops, while much of the emptiness on the Internet is as virtual as anything else here. It just sort of collapses on itself, so that only that pale 404 page marks the passing of some dream, some ambition, some attempt to communicate something. Cyberspace is haunted by the ghosts of dead URL's.

Paid Members

We can post by e-mail now.

That's nice, but do I really want to add another straw to the load that Outlook Express already carries? It's certainly more unstable than the LJ client.

But I'll try it this once. Here goes....

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