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55 minutes agoTook a bit but found it, it’s not ChatGPT but a small self-hosted AI with an open source model: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 27th, 2023
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Trying to track it down…
He was sick and had a weak moment. He didn’t realize that it would just make the quote up.
1·1 hour ago(wow I’m showing off my freakish memory here, I’m still an active Metafilter participant)
What? Newgrounds is still alive and still has lots of things posted?
Yeah, Newgrounds keeps chugging along though.
Also, The Conservatron, another crowdsource humor site, home of the Evil Black Marble from Marble Madness.
It seems like the Internet Oracle has finally, at last, succumbed to linkrot.
Two sites that still exist are Everything, H2G2 and the homepage of venerable roguelike game Nethack!
(I am slightly responsible for its continued existence. I noticed that it had gone offline a while back. I happened to have Chris, one of its founders, in my contacts list, so I sent him a message about it. Turns out to have been an expired credit card, a quick change of backing funds and GRUDGE MATCH LIVES AGAIN!)
One thing that still exists is WWWF Grudge Match, a likely inspiration for MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch, a crowdsourced humor site where they put different pop culture figures against each other in textual battles and people contributed their takes and votes on who would win. It hasn’t updated in over two decades though. It even spawned a book!
MUDs, MOOs, MUCKs and MUSHes.
Usenet in general
memepool
ectoplasmosis
Boing Boing when it was great
An early virtual world called WorldsAway, technically still exists at VZones but I don’t think it’s possible to make an account now
Hotwired
Suck.com and early discussion side adjunct Plastic.com
TimmyBigHands, short-lived humor magazine from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 people shortly after the show folded the second time.
The Sci-Fi Channel’s website and MTV.com, both started with the hopes of becoming a substantial part of the World Wide Web by getting in early, then shuttered when owners lost interest or believed the lies that social media was where the only thing that mattered any more. Also Cartoon Network’s website, which was once a joy. Adult Swim’s website hangs on, but is a shadow of its former self, and doesn’t host forums any longer.
The Usenet MSTing archives at pinky.wtower.com
DigDoug? Here? MeFi DigDoug? How are ya!
It’s working again, through the power of Ruffle!
it does! And they even had a new sbemail fairly recently! https://homestarrunner.com/sbemails/210-robots
AND at their website, which now uses Ruffle as its Flash player!
You can do anything at zombo com… anything at all… the only limit is yourself
Yes! I know Jeremy Parish of 1up and Retronauts, he rues 1up’s passing as well.
Also good was Joystiq, which was one of the best game news and culture sites. And recently I was reminded of Happy Puppy, the first really big gaming trailer and demo site, now dead for many years and barely remembered.
A bit of the Google that was like that persists as the ‘web’ subsearch. The site at https://udm14.com/ exists purely as a frontend to that search. It’s not exactly like the old Google, it’s still too ready to throw Youtube videos at the top of the results, but it’s still much easier to find interesting websites that way than Google’s default search.
YES! I happen to know a bit about that!
Half of it, Lore Sjöberg, is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/loresjoberg.bsky.social I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from someone else who remembers Brunching!
He has a website where he’s posted some of his work since, called Bad Gods: https://badgods.com/
And there’s a Discord where old Brunching fans hang out, Brunchma Expats, I can’t send an invite at the moment but I’ll try to remember to do it when I get back to the house!
He is!