ourcurrenttimesarehardandtherewillbenoexcuses. It’s a paradigm shift for our world and especially for our minds. Let’s face it and be real here: it’s not 2000 anymore. We should all have realised this much earlier. And adapted accordingly.
We should know how technology works and what its implications are by now.
Despite this simple logic, under the hood really not much has ever changed.
A computer is still just a computer and there will be no quantum version of it for maybe many more decades.
A smartphone is still a phone but with applications similar found on PCs (or much inferior versions of those).
And AI is still not really AI but just machine learning algorithms which can’t produce anything without human created data.
So what the heck happened? Really!?
In this year 2024 it feels like we are still in the 50s of the 20th century: the Internet didn’t make people smarter – they became more stupid. And more affected by misinformation than ever before.
With AETHYX MEDIAE as your reliable and experienced partner, you can make a difference all by yourself and be part of a better and brighter future, not a darker one.
Drop us a line anytime at info@aethyx.eu. And add subject THANKS24 to get 20% off on all our services until 4th of December.
It can still work out for us. But only if we are working together. If this fails, all that’s left will be damnation. And not by divine powers but all by ourselves.
starting this month, we added a new feature to all our web projects: basically we are blocking all AI crawlers. Or at least we try to.
It’s not said that it works or the crawlers will respect our manually integrated rules. However, at least we tried our best.
We do this for two main reasons:
1) you should be in control of your posts and thus your data. If your individual posts are used for alteration, you should know beforehand. Currently this is not given with the methodologies machine learning tools are trained. These just use what they can find on the open web
2) if your work helps in any way for monetisation of individual companies, you should get your portion. Our idea is let’s be fair: 50/50. For every Euro earned with your hard work, you should get at least 50 Cents
Here is the current list of crawlers we try to block as of now:
AI2Bot
Explores sites for web content that is used to train open language models
If you are already a customer (thank you!), we activated it automatically on your website for free. There is no additional cost and there never will be.
If you want to join as a new happy customer, the feature is added automatically when we set up your site. The information is already up to date on the product overview page: https://aethyx.eu/eshop/.
Sorry for the inconvenience. In an ideal world this would never have happened. However we are far from ideal at the moment. Let’s look into the future as things can only get better from here.
we all have our roots and as such, of course there was a time before algorithms, a time of a highly personalised 90s web, which we know very well too.
So for today we’d like to share a nice piece of nostalgia with you from a time when the web was not even half as polished and more personalised compared to what it is today:
View Source to Learn HTML
One of the most common “hacks” was simply right-clicking on a webpage and hitting “View Source.” This allowed you to peek at the HTML behind any website, copy it, and modify it to create your own site. Many amateurs like me learned coding by reverse-engineering other pages.
Hiding Easter Eggs:
Websites were full of hidden Easter eggs, from secret links buried in seemingly random places to invisible text only visible by highlighting.
Customizing Mouse Cursors
Changed the mouse cursor to something ridiculous like a sparkly wand or a rotating icon.
Unwanted Music
Many websites would automatically play music (MIDI files were popular), usually without warning or a way to stop it. I did that too. Nobody complained back then!
Pop-Up Madness
I quickly learned to use JavaScript to create endless pop-up windows as a prank. Some mischievous sites would trap visitors in a loop of windows, forcing them to either close them all manually or restart their browser or computer – one of the early forms of trolling!
HTML Marquee and Blink Tags
For extra flair, many websites used the <marquee> tag to make text scroll across the screen, or the <blink> tag to make text flash. These tricks were respected and seen as a sign of creativity.
Under Construction Forever
People loved to plaster their websites with flashing “Under Construction” GIFs, even if the site wasn’t actually being updated. This was a playful way to signal that you were working on something new, though often nothing ever changed! I did that too. The mystery was part of the charm.
ICQ “Spamming” and Custom Away Messages
ICQ, one of the earliest instant messaging apps, allowed users to customize away messages with all sorts of weird ASCII art or status updates. And later yahoo messenger took it to the next level with custom sounds and notifications.
Free Internet with Trial Discs
We used to have disks that offered free trials of internet service providers. I remember collecting them and using them to get online without paying for a subscription. I figured out that if you signed up using different email addresses or tweaked the trial periods, you could string together months of free internet access.
Hotlinking Bandwidth Theft
Hotlinking was a common hack where people would steal images or media from another site by directly linking to them. This would use up the original site’s bandwidth, and some webmasters would combat it by replacing hotlinked images with something embarrassing for the thief.
Prank 404 Pages
Many early websites featured custom 404 error pages that were often filled with jokes, riddles, or even taunts. These made the 90s web a bit more entertaining than just seeing a Page Not Found message. I remember talking to my friends about –
Friend – What content should I add in my 404 page? It feels empty.
Me – 404 is the real homepage. Add everything you have got.
Its sily when I think about it. But owning a website was a badge of honor.
We hope you enjoy reading here as much as we did. We know exactly what’s going on here but for many readers today, this may be something completely new. Let’s try to preserve it in a way we all might have a smile for many years to come. 🙂
after 14 years existence of this neat little Indie online publishing house, let us introduce you now to our official mascot: the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)!
We chose this animal for several reasons. Here is why:
it’s agile: no animal on Earth could represent this spirit more. It’s our ultimate goal in anything we do here since our inception
it’s a cat: everybody loves cats! So do we
speed: the Internet changed the way we consume, interact with and create media. You need velocity for that. Perfect for our agile approach
it’s majestic: the cheetah knows exactly what it does. Every movement during the hunt requires perfect coordination of the body. Oh, and if things get hectic, luckily you can catch it with your tail!
it’s a neat predator: as a company, you sometimes have to be able to negotiate tough. It is an advantage if you look cute here
As positive as this may all sound, to this day, the cheetah is still listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Because of that, we support the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) since many many years with a monthly double digit Euro amount. With our help, we are a godfather for a cheetah (we are currently having our third animal already) and ensure that the animals are able to survive for many years to come in the wild.
You can do this too: as an individual through donations. As well as a company. Any help is highly appreciated not only by us (the big cheetah fans) or the CCF but by the cats themselves. Purr!
What we will do now is insert small cheetahs from time to time here on our website. If you find one, send us the address (URL) of the page where you found one to info@aethyx.eu. At the end of the year you may be one of the lucky ones to win something! It’s a surprise but we are sure you will like it. Chirp Chirp!
Stay tuned and never stop running,
the aethyx staff
Today we would like to share a short video about the man who changed Internet journalism forever:
We are not affiliated with Wikileaks in any way. We are also not very deep into investigative journalism. Nevertheless, we think Julian Assange is and always was important for our Western democracy and journalism in general. Let’s hope we will never see a similar case in the future, as we can’t afford loosing our reputation regarding our freedom and the freedom we protect and are willing to even die for since the end of WWII.
