In fish culture “down” is of course the direction in which one falls, and this is correctly depicted in the image.
It’s a common confusion, as Down vs Up is more nuanced in Fish culture. Fish technology is extremely under developed: imagine inventing the screwdriver, having it slip through your fins, and it immediately floating “up” into oblivion.
Debate is still ongoing as to if this is why fish do not use screws, or if it’s the other way around — if lack of screws was the reason they never invented screwdrivers.
Actually, there are several factors which could influence whether a dead fish sinks or floats, for example the cause of death, the phase of decay or kind of fish.
I chose this depiction because it is easier to convey in ASCII art that the fish is dead.
I also took the artistic liberty of adding some escaping air bubbles, although fish don't breathe.
Special Fish is a place for exploring profiles and lists.
You could think of Special Fish as a public word processor.
Usually rtf/txt files just sit on a user’s computer.
SF is about making those documents into a social network.
If you’re still confused, click on the dot in the upper left corner and you’ll be on the home page. Each of those squares is someone’s profile page. Many are just made of random lists or links. Others are detailed journals.
I think it’s turned out to be a great place to discover new people and as a portal to unfamiliar places on the Web.
Hey there, sorry that the site is down! Looking at getting things up and running asap. Special Fish is a small community website so it wasn't built to scale lol. For now, as mentioned by @bertman, you can browse an archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200420171359/https://special.f... Thanks Wayback Machine!
> Special Fish is a place for exploring logs and lists. You could think of Special Fish as a public word processor. Usually rtf/txt files just sit on a users computer. Special makes those documents into a social network.
Can you elaborate more on this? What do you mean by making text files on my computer into a social network? Is that just a metaphor or are you actually doing something like that?
It's more of a metaphor for how to think about/approach the site. Logs and lists are stored in a centralized db so nothing new happening behind the scenes. Supporters are able to download their content as txt files, so you could use it as an online version of TextEdit.
The first time I stumbled upon Special Fish was in the first comment on another HN thread titled "Rediscovering The Small Web" [1], so if you find Special Fish interesting you may also like some other things mentioned there.
I spent a couple of hours sufring the site and various personal pages linked within some profiles. From my small sample, it seemed to be popular among some sort of lo-fi designer/technoartist crowd. It was different enough from my usual intake of the web to hook me up for a bit.
I was tempted to register an account, but gave up after reading the pitch: "Special Fish is a place for exploring logs and lists." I mean... I've done blogs (on both home-made and stock tools), tumblrs, micro-blogs (Twitter and Identi.ca), small project-based websites, you name it. What is left to explore on the logs/lists space, especially given the simple pages I've witnessed across the site (and the simple tools given to authors, I guessed), that signing up would be compelling? What are the results of this exploration on Special Fish that are worth mentioning?
Thanks for the feedback. This is something I've been thinking about a bit since launching it. I don't think SF necessarily does anything new or hooks users and I'm okay with that. I actually intended the site be more focused around the lists, but people really seem to enjoy logging their day-to-day lives. Personally, I like reading these automatic thoughts from strangers. Many people talk about quarantine routines, life goals, and ongoing projects. It's cool to see all this overlap in how people are thinking right now. So again, nothing new here, just a slightly different approach to a community website.
I totally understand your hesitance on registering an account. There are so many ways of blogging/journaling on the web already. I actually think it's a good site to browse without ever needing an account. I'm looking at added RSS soon so you won't even need to really visit and can use something like Fraidycat to check in.
Also, SF was mentioned on Kicks Condor recently [1]. I like how they talked about the site... "but it hadn’t even occurred to me to make a social network that is just a directory". I hadn't really thought of SF as just a directory either, but I like the idea that its only purpose is to be a directory of people doing DIY stuff on the web.
38 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 95.7 ms ] threadIn fish culture “down” is of course the direction in which one falls, and this is correctly depicted in the image.
It’s a common confusion, as Down vs Up is more nuanced in Fish culture. Fish technology is extremely under developed: imagine inventing the screwdriver, having it slip through your fins, and it immediately floating “up” into oblivion.
Debate is still ongoing as to if this is why fish do not use screws, or if it’s the other way around — if lack of screws was the reason they never invented screwdrivers.
I chose this depiction because it is easier to convey in ASCII art that the fish is dead.
I also took the artistic liberty of adding some escaping air bubbles, although fish don't breathe.
Anyway, the fish seems to be alive again.
I think it’s turned out to be a great place to discover new people and as a portal to unfamiliar places on the Web.
Update: Okay we are back! Implementing more caching but should be working for now.
Can you elaborate more on this? What do you mean by making text files on my computer into a social network? Is that just a metaphor or are you actually doing something like that?
I’d use the same words to describe some other social networks.
I spent a couple of hours sufring the site and various personal pages linked within some profiles. From my small sample, it seemed to be popular among some sort of lo-fi designer/technoartist crowd. It was different enough from my usual intake of the web to hook me up for a bit.
I was tempted to register an account, but gave up after reading the pitch: "Special Fish is a place for exploring logs and lists." I mean... I've done blogs (on both home-made and stock tools), tumblrs, micro-blogs (Twitter and Identi.ca), small project-based websites, you name it. What is left to explore on the logs/lists space, especially given the simple pages I've witnessed across the site (and the simple tools given to authors, I guessed), that signing up would be compelling? What are the results of this exploration on Special Fish that are worth mentioning?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23326329
I totally understand your hesitance on registering an account. There are so many ways of blogging/journaling on the web already. I actually think it's a good site to browse without ever needing an account. I'm looking at added RSS soon so you won't even need to really visit and can use something like Fraidycat to check in.
Also, SF was mentioned on Kicks Condor recently [1]. I like how they talked about the site... "but it hadn’t even occurred to me to make a social network that is just a directory". I hadn't really thought of SF as just a directory either, but I like the idea that its only purpose is to be a directory of people doing DIY stuff on the web.
[1] https://www.kickscondor.com/special.fish/
I especially get a kick out of creative domain names. This is one of my favorites.