HTML5, meet 1998. | Hacker News Reader

HTML5, meet 1998.

geocitieslycostripod.com

168 pointsxmojo29 comments

A fully compliant HTML5 website, with a UI straight from 1998. Uses HTML5, CSS3 and SVG. Have a peek at the source.

I am deeply impressed at the depth and subtlety of this joke. All the worst excesses of HTML 2.0, rendered in perfectly valid, well-structured, completely readable HTML 5.

It's not the language you use, folks. It's what you do with it. Bravo!

The fact that he went so far as to register a hilarious (and pertinent) domain name just to pull it off is icing on the cake.

He did forget Angelfire though

It's not the language you use, folks. It's what you do with it. Bravo!

I cannot agree more with you!

It validates! http://html5.validator.nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fgeocitieslycostr...

Unfortunately the stylesheet doesn't: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%...

You're right, but you should be validating with CSS3 instead of CSS2.1:

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%...

The only "error" is the British English way of spelling grey.

I surprised that all browsers still understand the meaning of "gray" as opposed to "grey". Anyway, it's fixed. The CSS validates now.

Or is it the other way around. Whatever. I'm Indian, so I grew up under the shadow of the British Monarchy, coupled with the modernism "invasion" of the 'Mericans. That's fucked up English for you. More fucked up than the Brits or the Americans. Did you read the text on the site, by the way? Took me half an hour to write.

I cannot, in good conscience, vote this up. But it made me laugh. :)

Just looks like a standard modern day myspace page...

LOL. Thank GOD, I was not part of that era. :-P

Era? It was only 11 years ago for god sakes.

On the Internet eras last for three years. Anything made in 2006 now counts as a lasting part of society; anything made in 2003 is ancient and wise.

Two days ago I was browsing an old forum and saw Jason Kottke, Derek Powazek, and Dave Winer's names, circa 2000, and Kottke sounded like Kottke and Winer was being an asshole. Hard to believe those guys were around nine years ago. I was barely double digits.

A legitimate point. "Eon" might be a better word.

Edit: I just had the terrifying thought of this sort of website coming back in vogue circa 2020 because it's "retro".

An era is defined by events. There was a Netscape 4 era even though it only lasted maybe 4 years. We will hopefully soon be out of the IE6 era. An eon is a measure of geological time.

I'm aware of both those definitions. My contention is that, in the context of the internet, 11 years qualifies as "geological time".

While one can hardly disagree with 11 years qualifying as geologic time in the context of the internet, the original comment, "Thank GOD, I was not part of that era.", was referring to something delineated by events (the widespread use of geocities-like HTML formatting and page design), which has nothing to do with how long ago those events occurred. The only notable thing about that comment is that nipra either isn't old enough or didn't get into the industry soon enough to be solidly aware of that period in Internet history. That era ended an eon ago.

Sites like these are particularly nostalgic for anyone who was making Websites around 1996. I'd give almost anything (maybe I'm exaggerating) if a) I could remember my old Geocities address and b) The Wayback Machine got to it before Geocities pulled the inactivity plug.

I don't think there's an "inactivity plug". When the announcement about Geocities being taken down came along I went and hunted out my old site and found it still going; it must have been a few years since I'd touched it and it was getting only a handful of hits (plus it was META-REFRESH redirected). The wayback machine never really went after the content of Geocities and the like, certainly it never had my stuff, presumably it was generally not worth keeping.

I still make sites like this. Its fun.

This has to be the most underrated witty comment here. +1.

Even in 1998, I think that this would still be considered an eye-sore. Well done though!

this is one of the most beautiful things I have seen on the web so far and it is one of the things I would point to if I had to explain why coding can really be art.

Congratulations to whoever made it: You made my day.

Thanks a million. You made my day by saying that.

Reminds me of my first site I did on angelfire.

I think this is the first thing I've voted up and also flagged :-)

It's more like 1996. But still, I am laughing SO hard right now.

It even passes all html 5 validations!!

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