Using the Internet for the 1st time [Recipe Websites]

Modern webdesign
Pete has awaken from an Emacs coma and attempts to learn User Interface design by surfing the web. On his way he comes across many well-designed, purposefully slowed-down, colourful recipe websites that teach him how good and modern UX webdesign needs to be like. It needs to resemble an orchestral piece: It needs to have tension.
Interview with a Web User in 2023 with Pete Liebering aired on the - aired on © The Modern Web User
More inspiration:
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Every Website in 2018
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#webdesign
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#javascript

[@MrGuyronen]

The 4MB JavaScript code to make the 2.71MB website "faster" had me in rage and in tears.

[@adojck]

One of JS files named botnet :D

[@ea_naseer]

Frontend based websites... but seriously I use so much framework code I don't really know main language.

[@chillappreciator885]

Agree

[@neonz2712]

@@adojck And another called bitcoin miner.

[@roxas8999]

This is like this epitome of wysiwyg site builders lol

[@davidb4020]

This is absolute gold. "Ads are doubling, we need to search the recipe faster"

[@GeorgeTsiros]

"for every doubling in processing power, software inefficieny quadruples" pretty much sums everything up. The internet has been mostly ruined. We're wasting energy for nothing. I wonder, how many gigawatts of power are wasted for serving all this crap, how much money? How much carbon is emitted?

[@marsdriver2501]

@@GeorgeTsiros as sad as inefficiency is, it also means it's easier for people to create. It's not all bad and gloomy

[@gogogalian]

@@marsdriver2501 Doing this crap is way harder than having a static HTML page, which is what recipe sites could easily be.

[@paulhorbenko9560]

​@@gogogalian Clearly, it is all to enhance the experience.

[@notdumbrella6399]

@@paulhorbenko9560 More like, to fish user data.

[@SeriousBlank]

"Oh, 6MB. That's like a standard size for a website. We could probably launch 60 Moon missions" LOL

[@reddragonflyxx657]

​@@mainStream-user The AGC has a 2048 word RAM and a 36,864 word ROM, both with 15 bit words (+1 bit parity). That's 30,720 (32,768 with parity) bits of RAM and 552,960 (589,824) bits ROM for 583,680 (622,592) bits total. I'll just count ROM bits without parity (network transfer size doesn't count RAM use from JS or decompressed images, so I won't count AGC RAM either). 6 MB (not MiB, this is network traffic) is 6×1000²×8 or 48,000,000 bits, which is ~86.8 times the ROM size. Of course, the Apollo spacecraft had redundant AGCs on board and the Real Time Computing Center on the ground (which had IBM System/360 Model 75 mainframes, probably 5 of them).

[@jerrygreenest]

Imagine explaining the future with 6mb «programs» barely worth of a food recipe to a scientist making 4kb moon launches

[@pescieccellenti3989]

This killed me lmao

[@silentfox740]

@@jerrygreenest possible with few words, to be honest. "Market competition".

[@coolm98]

​@jerrygreenest this brings really brings me aome sad tears

[@tylerljohnson]

having worked in this content-space, this isn't a comedy, it's a documentary.

[@varadinagypal]

exactly what I just wrote. I was expecting something funny, with a punchline, but... it's a documentary.

[@CommanderSteps]

Indeed. Like the recent HR documentary. 😄

[@GeorgeTsiros]

... who said it is comedy?

[@Wozza365]

A painful reality of what the web looks like these days. I'm surprised anyone manages to use it without ad blockers etc. And what's worse is half these articles are probably generated by an AI

[@Silencer1337]

So... how does it happen? Is it really just a long bloodline of interns trying to survive in the face of customer's who don't know what they want while regulators don't know what they're doing?

[@jasnarmstrng]

"What is this white-space for, for note-taking?" 😆

[@ff7522]

I lost it at that line lmao

[@yannick5099]

Science gave us powerful hardware, script runtimes and layout algorithms. The ad industry still manages to single-handedly nullify all that progress by only showing some texts, images and animated graphics. Beautiful.

[@kronk2294]

This is the most low-key savage destruction of all of modern web development I've ever seen...

[@CompanionCube]

you‘d think this is comedy, but this just sad reality

[@EdwardKen]

The sad part is that for the upcoming generation, this is the norm.

[@varadinagypal]

my thought exactly. I was expecting something funny. But... it's a documentary actually. Same goes for google. The results are somewhere between sponsored and total garbage, either generated garbage or timezone-written-cheap-labor garbage. Basically none of my old google tricks work, due to the SEO poisoning and such.

[@EdwardKen]

@@varadinagypal what do you think can be the solution?

[@queenstownswords]

@@EdwardKen bring back the blink tag... I could not resist...

[@anima94]

@@EdwardKen websites linking to other non-shit websites again.. kinda like before google

[@ih8people]

"Before we get to the recipe, let me explain to you how this chicken chow mein recipe almost saved my marriage" Peak internet moment here

[@scorch855]

A moment of silence for the chow mein poster's failed marriage.

[@almicc]

just realized that it said "almost" as in the marriage was not, in fact, saved by the chow mein recipe.

[@willmorris574]

It’s that exact amount of sad cringe that makes it feel like truth too 😢

[@reen6904]

​@@scorch855💀

[@einsteinx2]

I’ve been using ad blockers for so long I honestly forgot how bad the web is without them. Jesus…

[@doomtho42]

That was my main takeaway here as well. That, and a reminder of the fact that advertising is/was/will be the downfall of humanity.

[@gblargg]

@@doomtho42 Or the humans that put up with the ads.

[@ninek8]

Worst part is we might lose ad blockers I'm a few years

[@reinhardt_tv]

​@@ninek8 It's virtually not possible

[@sleeplessdev7204]

@@ninek8 Better learn to set up pfBlocker or PiHole

[@extremeheat7947]

One of the pages literally had a bitcoin miner script in it 😂

[@ninocraft1]

based

[@BrotherCheng]

Around 6:08 for those curious. I just want to know if that was added in post for a joke, or actually what the website has.

[@9SMTM6]

​@@BrotherCheng I did disable all my protections and went for it, could not spot it. Could be that it was removed or that it doesn't always trigger, or because my OS is Linux (though JS should work just the same, but someone malicious might want to avoid getting detected and thus don't do it on Linux).

[@eUnkn0wn]

@@BrotherCheng Probably served via ads?

[@Nukestarmaster]

All of them did, along with a botnet and a tracker of some kind.

[@BrotherCheng]

Usually this channel's videos would at least be somewhat making fun of the fictional character, but in this one I feel like I share the confusion and rage with him 100% lol. Most of these "modern" websites are borderline unusable, and I'm saying that *with* adblocker on.

[@SunDevilThor]

The internet is unusable now a days without an adblocker.

[@MaeLSTRoM1997]

not just an ad blocker, but a javascript blocker.

[@maxwellflitton3973]

I really resisted using an ad blocker for ages because I appreciate that they have to keep their website alive somehow and they're giving me free content. However, the average website literally got to the point where I could barely use it. It took forever to load and there were like 20 pop-ups when trying to read a basic list. Eventually, I had to install an ad blocker so I could actually use the website...... I don't want to meet the frontend "designers/developers" who think that these sites are functional and publish them

[@ILsanIsAdmin]

Got me rolling on the "golden ratio of website design" joke

[@davidbakin]

It's the _details_ in these videos that make them so terrific! To get to the internet he just naturally fires up Tor ...

[@unfa00]

I get this shellshock anytime I try to use the Internet through a normie's computer that doesn't block 80% of everything and I wonder why do people still bother using Internet when it looks like this. I'm sure in 10 years this'll look super tame and user-friendly.

[@varadinagypal]

I have a ton of blacklists on my custom router. I also wrote my own browser for my phone, some sites it proxies, some parses and strips before rendering in the webview. The internet is becoming unusable.

[@marlyman123]

@@varadinagypal any tutorials?

[@xqtggru]

за шчооо

[@varadinagypal]

@@marlyman123 part of it is trivial. Write an android app, featuring a webview. Put in hooks in the webview, to catch GET requests and filter them against a blacklist. Also, since many websites play around with the javascript timers, knocking out userscripts, write your own trigger into the java app, to inject javascript function calls - and yes, have your own script injected into the webview, along with custom styles. It's kinda trivial, actually. I mean the blacklist is kinda longer than the source code itself.

[@kunns123]

oh unfa is here

[@AntThinker]

03:56: How on Earth could he click Accept when there's obviously the Manage Settings button, which, after 6-7 minutes of clicking, would allow you to proceed with slightly fewer accepted cookies?

[@Tn5421Me]

I believe tor deletes cookies on exit by default. Not 100% sure tho.

[@guruware8612]

he's playing a web-newbie, newbies have no idea about tor. a beginner-user doesn't think about managing vs. accepting, even 'advanced' users miss that, there should be a reject all-button, but there is none for obvious reasons. not a single cookie is needed to "improve browsing experience" - if there is need for improvement then your developers failed to do so did you know that you already have a cookie put onto you system before it asks that question ? just don't click and register everywhere.

[@ped7g]

I don't really mind you switching from parodies to documentary, really like your first serious piece here, excellent work.

[@ProOmgHeadshot]

Using HackerNews as a search engine is too relatable.

[@jordangopie5244]

The framed photo of Stallman though 😆😆

[@andrewwashburn9357]

Best satire yet! UI/UX is so overstated yet so under utilized.

[@varadinagypal]

Sadly, this is more like a documentary, not a satire. A documentary with some funny lines, morbid humor.

[@TelmaFrege]

Satire? Reality 😔

[@vhr]

that's an ad. that's a recipe. that's an ad. that's an ad. that's a reci- oh wait no it's ad disguised as a recipe my bad

[@quazar5017]

I learned webdesign in art school. The teacher was pro and told us a good website doesn't even need CSS. It took a while for me to learn, but after 6 years and a dozen iterations of my personal homepage it now consists of a , and four and is basically indestructable. :)

[@zangl2955]

Lol. I hate learning css but like to write. Maybe I’ll just make your site style instead.

[@mbrav]

I haven't used the Internet in ages... outside of Emacs. I'm ded

[@chillappreciator885]

Man, that's brilliant. If someone asks me why do I hate the web nowadays I'll send this video

[@_ryju_]

"For every doubling of network and hardware speed, inefficiencies in software quadruples." Meanwhile nvidia: "Hold my beer and let me introduce you to ray-freaking-tracing so you can look at puddles in video games and buy 1800$ consumer GPUs!"

[@BusinessWolf1]

doesn't that mean there's truckload of money to be made in low level optimisations of high level inefficient stuff

[@heartache5742]

@@BusinessWolf1 but that's all actually difficult and no one wants to do it

[@ky3ow]

​@@BusinessWolf1 as far as i know its not hard to make ray tracing, it just needs more computing power, raytracing itself is not new and has been used for decades

[@bierernst1]

​@@BusinessWolf1 reimplementing the wheel over and over doesn't really give you the chance to do these kind of optimizations. Its also not life saving that the websites load faster most of the time so ....

[@gogogalian]

@@bierernst1 "It's also not life saving that websites load faster". Idk, using these websites makes me want to off myself

[@tsvetislavrangelov5932]

these are brilliant man, every time I get one in my feed I immediately watch it, thank you!

[@robertjenkins6132]

It's true: The recipe websites are so incredibly verbose. Sometimes I look up how long and at what temperature I should air fry some food I bought. I scroll through paragraphs and paragraphs of text and pictures and ads, when all I need is (1) temperature and (2) how many minutes. These people (or AI?) somehow write an 800-page dissertation for what should be a few sentences, a simple recipe.

[@cowofwar]

the point is to maximize ad impressions

[@redgt827]

blogger journalists do this a lot too, it's really annoying you click for what should be 1 paragraph and are given an entire irrelevant essay it's like their page is meant to be as full of ads as possible and the only way to keep you scrolling is to hide their actual information behind a wall of text

[@joaquinillo_]

Its just SEO

[@BrunoNeureiter]

Isn't that written on the back of the package you bought?

[@mechadeka]

Turns out that all those long essays they forced us to write in school were just preparing us for our future careers as professional bloggers.

[@kelownatechkid]

the 'get an email from my provider if this keeps loading' joke is incredible XD

[@_DRMR_]

This is fantastic. I'd love for you to review the entire internet, one video at a time!

[@mllenessmarie]

Ok, but for real - most websites nowadays truly are garbage :c

[@jlp2011]

as a food loving geek/nerd: “before we get to the recipe lemme blah blah blah blah” nails it.

[@ab.3800]

Botnet1 is a good JavaScript file name 😂

[@WavelengthCJS]

"Before we get to the recipe, let me explain to you how this chicken chow mein recipe almost saved my marriage." That opening sentence in the first article had me dying haha

[@watsonwrote]

"Does this look like a bad UI?" Absolute gold Also I forget how unusable the internet is without adblock

[@beeasy247]

"We have 5g in the favelas" ... that monotone delivery is perfect 🤣

[@stevebrown5597]

“All the buttons you need are visible” tea came out of my nose

[@sanyo_neezy]

this was the definition of painfully accurate

[@grapy83]

TRUE!

[@certaindeath7776]

"we want the full experience" deliberatly not using an adblocker for an adventure trip through the internet

[@StdDev99]

Damn this is absolute gold this time! But seriously why do they design crap websites like that? Are they just incompetent or that's on purpose? Do they just want to push their users away?

[@StephenHoldaway]

The long waffly content is to game search engines to rank higher, and to keep you on the page longer to show you more ads. Financially motivated content has ruined the internet pretty much

[@StdDev99]

@Stephen Holdaway Somehow it's good that we have ChatGPT and other AI tools that could solve this problem. It could just extract the important part so we don't have to get into this mess.

[@keith3761]

@@StdDev99 fuck man, using chat gpt for recipes is a amazing idea! Thank you! I can even ask it to add stuff I have to the recipe and it does!

[@varadinagypal]

SEO poisoning.

[@varadinagypal]

@@StdDev99 however, if by any chance that is how the traffic (and money) was meant to flow, having so many crap sites immediately shines an other light on who benefits here, and who loses.

[@incremental_failure]

I used to create websites back in 19...19...19...1997. Mine was exemplary for clarity and speed compared to this, it loaded faster that this trash even on dial-up. Search results also had almost no spam, I miss the 19...

[@gladykov]

Trying to find information today, is like walking shopping mall, looking for a residential area

[@fragdude]

It’s like we’ve gone back to the internet of the 2000s. Ads everywhere. Except they were in Windows XP-themed popups.

[@HandscharGeorgeCostanza]

"The golden ratio for website design" they call it the fibonAdcci sequence

[@rewrose2838]

Please make a sequel where he tries an ad-blocker for the first time!

[@TheBlackClockOfTime]

Audacity literally one of the best UIs out there.

[@sandoh9500]

Wait until Tantacrul fixes it

[@varadinagypal]

Good but not the best. I used to be a radio person, and audacity always felt like a left hand scissor in one's right hand. Good, but very far from perfect, proprietary tools were lightyears ahead. At home, I use audacity though.

[@heartache5742]

it is not intuitive at all and the grey hurts my eyes but i've used fl studio for about 35% of my life so maybe i'm just a baby

[@TheBlackClockOfTime]

@@heartache5742 it's possible

[@grmpf]

@@sandoh9500 I can't tell if this is a jab at Tantacrul or the opposite.

[@Alexander-Hatala]

Fun fact: The white space is to add padding between display ads on the viewable screen to stay compliant with ad supplier networks.

[@Mikenight120]

Best documentary with complete facts and evidence of our current internet. Man deserves a prize.

[@MasterSergius]

This is a first video on this channel, when I wasn't laughing, but was crying a lot.

[@jonbyrd327]

The web went from being the #1 source of malware to being malware

[@hovhadovah]

"Okay, these things are doubling again" 😂

[@kamsai5132]

I envy him for his Selfcontrol

[@HoseinRezaeianzadeh]

The reactions to white screens are awesome 😂 Also the tradeoff 😂😂😂😂

[@shokhdev]

White color get me 😂😂

[@striderstache99]

as a frontend dev, I'm sorry.

[@killingtimeitself]

i must regret to inform you that as a member of society we have collectively decided that we are going to crucify you for your crimes against society as a whole for eternity.

[@GeorgeTsiros]

did you agree to make stuff like this?

[@cubicinfinity2]

@@GeorgeTsiros No. Instead of being allowed to maintain the type of website it should be, we get forced and rushed into producing this.

[@MightyBrend]

I'm a front end dev. I get asked to build stuff like this all the time

[@striderstache99]

@@cubicinfinity2 you have no idea. Never work for government consulting. Ever.

[@mikhailryzhov9419]

Flashbang sound for the default light theme, nice. Disabled noscript in the Tor browser? I salute your sacrifice.

[@decky1990]

“Of course, I wrote it in Rust” 😂

[@chrfit1]

"What is this white space on the right for? For note taking?" Nearly fell off my chair 🤣

[@grimonce]

@5:55 These are ad producer bids. Eg. Google, Meta and others bid for the space on the website when a new user is present. The highest bid gets a chance to show an add... just attented a nice talk about this.

[@flippert0]

I applaud the tasteful and restrained color arrangement of sweater and wallpaper!

[@lollertoaster]

I expected to see you make fun of Emacs/GNU user, I wasn't prepared for that! As an Emacs user I 100% agree, websites with pictures are already extra for me.

[@KangoV]

I love the picture of Richard Stallman on the wall. Just awesome!

[@daveys]

6:04 - The names of the js that are being loaded. These videos are just gold. Well done!

[@yoavravid7893]

What I like to do with these websites is to delete their ads through the devtools. This approach also makes the website much faster as it doesn't need to load a million ads and can just focus on loading the resources.

[@programmersarealsohuman5909]

Twitter: twitter.com/KaiLentit

[@arjundureja]

your website doesn't have enough ads and social media links

[@markrlondon]

Please remove the start of the video, that belongs with the free software video.

[@dasdasdasdasdas2313]

bro was about to check /ck/ for a recipe

[@linuxbrad]

"Never go for the first one" (web search result). Words to live by.

[@thewonderfultartiflette4733]

I mean, he's using Tor, and it's not known to be the fastest browser, especially because of all the internet routing

[@jblumenstiel]

Gotta say man. This is pure genius. Thank you!!!!

[@GSBarlev]

0:44 Was not prepared for the Audacity of your slander today.

[@mariotabali2603]

Left like. Will watch later. Never give up!

[@0xatul]

The most funny part of the video is that, out of all this nothing is funny but rather reality.

[@scottisitt]

“The ads are clearly part of the experience.” 😂

[@oat1000]

"Does this look like a bad UI?" - its not open source but Maya is even more fitting for this joke imo. That program is so complicated and covered in buttons and dropdowns that open other windows with even more buttons and it just makes my head spin

[@quidoquidenzis5374]

"Oh, this ad is following us... Innovative"

[@SturmxHawke]

This was such a journey. It went from English, to Dutch and then Finnish(?) advertisements

[@aarondcmedia9585]

Nailed it. Even with an auto ad blocking browser, recipe websites are full of wtaf.

[@migueldeluis5507]

This looks like an ad for Gopher

[@565paolo]

Awesome the Audacity screenshot at 0:45 is a random screenshot taken from the internet. Text is in Italian

[@raymondallo9947]

The reaction to light mode and had to change to dark mode immediately. We have Alzheimers on a Chow Mein site. Priceless

[@disruptive_innovator]

The default light theme flash bang is killing me

[@hineko_]

there are sites that change their content based on wether your dev tools are open

[@i_never_asked_for_an_alias]

2:04 - .. propably 60 Moon Mission... lmao.. so true.

[@mhcbon4606]

it will be fun when they ll figure out how to monetize chatbots...

[@amandahugankiss4110]

Perfect cut at the end.

[@dvrsflrs]

this is a spot on analysis of the current state of the internet.

[@NaudVanDalen]

6:45 Wow. Keyword stuffing with text that's the same color as the background. They could even have prevented you from selecting that text to make it truly invisible. Rookie mistake. Also they have a Bitcoin miner and a botnet installed. Crazy.

[@GiantsOrbiting]

The Golden Ratio of website design,.... Nailed it!! 😂

[@jessicaryan9820]

As always - best of the best!

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

I thought I wouldn't be able to compete with all the fancy progress in the field of webdesign. That has been confirmed true, I could never compete with these modern horrors.

[@tehArgento]

"never go for the first one" lol xd. I fucking do that hahaha

[@koderkev42]

07:15 LMAO!! "The scrolling bar is just getting smaller and smaller ... I feel .. it will disappear at some point." Classic

[@OmarKhirat]

Thank god for Ad blockers 😂I felt anxiety just watching him go through this

[@swizice]

“Oh, this one’s nice, this ad is following us. Innovative…”

[@108u9]

The light mode flash bang 😂😂

[@scottalmond9206]

"What is this whitespace on the side for, note taking?" Ahahaha XD

[@mrtwrecks]

How I long for the days of simple HTML pages… Nowadays, I gauge how helpful a page is or how useful the information on the page is by how boring the page is. Super boring, not pretty = Extremely useful, contains helpful information, I’m about to learn everything I need to know. Super busy, tons of frills (buttons, dropdowns, animations, etc), overly colorful = Shit. Useful information limited. Will not learn hardly anything. If I hit a page that is straight HTML and nothing else, I might as well be having an orgasm.

[@neuvocastezero1838]

"With the Yellow Pages, I would have already ordered and eaten my chow mein."

[@_ryju_]

Only now I noticed carefully that one of the requirements was a "Radeon" RTX 2080. Those are really rare.

[@drishalballaney6590]

Was this a reference to Luke Smith? XDD

[@butthog9663]

masterpiece. you never miss

[@geosyrrus6423]

This is so dystopian the transcript should be nominated for a Hugo Short Story Award. Oh wait Hugos are for fiction.