Hacker News Reader

Comment by aquabeagle | Hacker News Reader

As is Heaven's Gate's website - http://heavensgate.com/

I know it's partly nostalgia, but something about both of these sites feels more fun to interact with and browse through than almost any modern website I visit. The web used to be so much fun.

Indeed.

It's not just nostalgia, the design invites exploration. The web was truly built for surfing back then. Now only The Feed exists.

That's it, exactly.

Navigating these sites feels like exploring a labyrinth. I feel like I can spend an hour on those pages, clicking all the hyperlinks, trying to consume all the content it has to offer

Weird thing from the bottom of that page's source code (apart from the black-on-black keyword stuffing that was done a lot at the time):

<div id="linkbyme" style="display: none;"><li><a href="http://www.heavensgate.com/img/index.asp?index=bogner-ski-we... ski wear</a></li></div><script>document.getElementById('linkbyme').style.display='none';</script>

Weird.

This is actually wild to me. How is it being powered? Did they just pay a hosting provider decades in advance?

Two members stayed behind. I heard recently they still respond to email.

>two group members were briefed about a side mission. They would remain on Earth – the last surviving members – and their job was to maintain the Heaven’s Gate website exactly as it was on the day the last suicides took place.

>And for two decades, the lone Gaters have diligently continued their mission, answered queries, paid bills and dealt with problems.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/two-decades-after-h...

Yep, at least as of 2016: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aeky35/a-suicide-cults-su...

They didn't drink the Kool-aid. lol.

> They didn't drink the Kool-aid. lol.

Fun fact: the folks at Jonestown didn't drink Kool-Aid either, it was grape Flavor Aid.

Alan Moore wrote a comedy comic where a traumatized Cool-Aid Man is publically accused of involvement at Jonestown and insists on the record in a tell all interview it was the Flavor Aid man who committed the crime.

Imagine missing the rapture to do sysadmin and PR. Maybe they are in hell.

I remember seeing that in the news when I was 16 years old. At that time the Internet was just starting in my country so the news came in a local news broadcasting. It was crazy.

Yikes.

hot tip!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com