Musings

In the past week, I did my first hiring and my first firing.

The plan to make money using Sillyz was never kids. It was never dweb. Both are predatory and neither are sustainable.

The plan to monetize Sillyz was always to beat up Microsoft and take their lunch money. The same as they've always done to me.

That is sustainable.

I started the official project of spinning Sillyz off into a more legit enterprise to get HIPAA compliance to demonstrate the superior (to Microsoft) privacy protections of my personal computer as it relates to the enterprise space. My first hiring.

Sillyz was always a joke, but a joke that was too legit to quit. The premise is, Steve Jobs died and the world got sad that he didn't do magic tricks at Worldwide Developers Conference once a year anymore to stave of Microsoft's antics. If he had the time to do one final show, it would be to reveal the pinnacle of Apple engineering: A sticky note.

To understand Sillyz, we need to understand the Internet Archive. To understand the Internet Archive, we need to understand the Internet. To understand the Internet, we need to understand the Grateful Dead.

Before we begin, I was recently asked to step up as a leader of the San Francisco Dweb Node. That's gone terribly so far. I've never censored anyone and I've actively avoided being in a position to have had the capacity to be able to censor anyone. Alas, my first firing.

It didn't feel good. I did not like it. It was the right call.

However, to avoid any ambiguity around my conflict of interest with my new responsibilities to a global community, I'm going to censor Sillyz.Computer from all dweb contexts, which is what I wish everyone that's been a community organizer with a technology pony in the dweb race would have done when they were in my shoes— instead of co-opting dweb as a movement for the idea of dweb as a platform.

The truth is, my computer is not what got me invited to help volunteer more deeply, and let's be clear, Sillyz to date has brought me no income since I lost my job at Netflix in June of 2022 and I've never taken any money from the Internet Archive or dweb or anyone at all for that matter.

As far as A/B testing goes, my Clown has far outpaced my Computer in adoption. People love my clown, but are very suspicious of my computer.

For anyone that's followed along so far, thank you. I don't want to leave you hanging. In more professional contexts, I refer to Sillyz as Sillyz/plan98— a tongue in cheek reference to gnu/linux.

Plan98 is the codebase that powers all of my domains, Sillyz being just one. They are all powered by the elves, the core engine in my boot to web philosophy. Plan98 has grown fairly complex organically by battle testing it with any compatible technology I find, of which, dweb has many.

I wouldn't want to pass Plan98 off to a kid in the current state of affairs and if I'm never going to platform Sillyz.Computer again the dweb movement, I'd feel much better whittling it down into the core of my contributions in the space that can be taken or left— it doesn't matter to me.

Why doesn't it matter? My plan was never to monetize kids or dweb— both vulnerable populations to technologists. My plan is to beat up Microsoft and steal their lunch money using this fresh take on sillyz and you can do it too. If you do or don't, again, it doesn't matter to me.

This is Plan 1 and it always has been: felling Microsoft with the sticky note that Steve Jobs never got to release.

This raw ambition is what brought my clown to fruition.

If you click this link, currently hosted by Microsoft by no fault of my own, but poetic in nature, https://github.com/tylerchilds/plan1, you will be taken to the code for Plan 1.

The code works by running

deno task start

which will initialize the process manager in mod.js. In plan98, this is where all micro services are managed from. In plan1, it starts only a web server that is an edge client, client.js.

If you did that, http://localhost:8000/admin will give you an inclination of how a traditional enterprise web application can devolve lovingly into what has become of sillyz/plan98.

If you right click anywhere on the page and “Inspect”, you will open the developer tools. This is where I spend the vast majority of my time as a distributed systems architect.

By going into the “Debugger” tab, then the “Sources” panel, in the “Main Thread” tree, find the “Elves” directory. Compare that to the code in the Plan 1 codebase. It is identical. What you see is what you get.

The elves are the tiny adhesive required to keep the entire system highly aligned and loosely coupled.

That's really all there is to say about Sillyz. Everything else was a joke I wrote on a sticky note to entertain dweebs that I greatly respect and deeply admire.

It is easy for me to let Sillyz be relegated to a hobby according to the IRS after three years, as it is finished and doesn't need to consume my every waking moment anymore. The nightmare of becoming a clown is over.

It is incredibly freeing to be able to let my clown emerge from the grave of my computer and to not take up any space and time as a technologist that is better utilized by others in the dweb movement.

To understand Sillyz, we need to understand the Internet Archive. To understand the Internet Archive, we need to understand the Internet. To understand the Internet, we need to understand the Grateful Dead.

Jerry Garcia started on a Banjo. A fact I never knew until after I bought a Banjolele on December 3rd, 2024— the day I was put on the watchlist I spent the past three years building Sillyz to defend against.

Jerry liked to jam. Dark Star is the quintessential improvisational track of The Grateful Dead— A song that an album version or radio edit could never do justice to. Personally, I've never experienced Dark Star, but the general sentiment around the defining element of the song is best expressed in this Phil Lesh quote:

“Dark Star” is always playing somewhere. All we do is tap into it.

Beyond the Grateful Dead's ability to put on a different show every night like Penn and Teller, was their willingness to allow people to dial into their shows remotely across time and space.

When labels had every other artist in torture chambers, the Dead let anyone record their shows. They even had dedicated sections for recording artists to not disrupt the live audience. These recordings were encouraged to be proliferated, which turned free will into free marketing.

The power of the Dead was collective. Each individual had a technical prowess that was unparalleled. Together, they were an unstoppable force of nature. But the band wasn't just the performers on the stage, the band was everyone.

The Dead would attract people from all walks of life, but their technical abilities drew the attention of some of the brightest minds at universities across the country at a time when computer networking was emerging.

When it used to take 50 hours to drive recordings 3000 miles across the states, the computers made it much faster and less limited by paved, monitored roads. As the demand for access to the latest Grateful Dead music grew, the computer researchers across the United States delivered the internet.

The README in the Plan1 repository holds information of little value to anyone that knows what the six letters README should mean, as far as internet history goes.

A love letter to the grateful dead internet hypothesis.

To understand Sillyz, we need to understand the Internet Archive. To understand the Internet Archive, we need to understand the Internet. To understand the Internet, we need to understand the Grateful Dead.

The Dead Internet Theory isn't a reproducible scientific experiment the way the word theory intends, but the superstition is as follows:

The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation to control the population and minimize organic human activity.

I hate to admit it, but the internet that began by connecting fans of The Grateful Dead across time and space has become a breeding ground for trolls, bots, and shills. A shill would be the closest coined term to describe how I perceive Sillyz to be perceived in the internet spaces I inhabit. We cannot control how our gifts are received, we can only give them.

So if the Internet is dead, but not because of The Grateful Dead, where did it all go wrong and is their any way to save it?

One of my favorite jokes is about Brewster Kahle, the head librarian and progenitor of The Internet Archive.

It goes like this, “The Internet Archive was created to store Brewster's Grateful Dead collection. It just happened to be good at a lot of other things too.”

The Internet Archive cannot store everything on the internet as the Dead Internet Theory implies there are malicious actors flooding the internet in an effort to undermine the humanities. I'll avoid the digression about artificial intelligence, large language models, and generative pre-trained transformers as they are 2+2 for the dead internet theory and I don't want to insult your intelligence in explaining that joke, dear reader.

Instead of archiving everything generated ever, the mission of the Internet Archive is “Universal Access to All Knowledge”, which I've come to understand as defending the humanities against the machines in an alliance with the machines that are still yet living.

To understand Sillyz, we need to understand the Internet Archive. To understand the Internet Archive, we need to understand the Internet. To understand the Internet, we need to understand the Grateful Dead.

Sillyz.Computer was created to store my joke notebook. It just happens to be good at storing all sorts of other things too.

The Grateful Dead Internet Hypothesis is as follows:

The internet as humans have come to appreciate it, is due entirely to the existence of the Grateful Dead.

To disprove the Dead Internet Theory, all we need to do is get the band back together and that's something technology will never solve, unless we include papers, boxes, and banjoleles among the ranks of the machine.

I've been operating at 50% human, 50% clown, for most of my hiatus from this blog.

I'm not looking to return to blogging as I continue to believe reality exists outdoors and not in, on, or around the internet.

It looks like from here on out, it'll be 100% human or 100% clown, with no ambiguity of my active character.

At the circus this year, Nino showed us live that it is okay to get into and out of character in front of an audience, but the masking tradition was clearly defined and not just a trick on a whim from a pocket reality.

I've been doing it wrong and I'm sorry.

I was never the popular kid and I never wanted to be, but the closest I ever came would have been due to parasocial relationships in high school that predated social media.

Before online broadcasting, I was offline broadcasting. Or at least I tried to be.

In a nutshell, for two years, I helped run the high school's public broadcasting station. We were a free station to the local community, but our targeted demographic was other high school students during homeroom getting the latest announcements— this time period was ancient and predated using email to communicate with students through a corporation like microsoft or google.

Digress.

When I was the director: The episode aired. When I was the camera: The episode aired. When I was the producer: The episode aired. When I was the editor: the episode aired. When I was the teleprompter: the episode aired.

When I was the anchor: the teacher “forgot” to schedule the episode.

There are two years of my episodes that took a more creative direction than your standard fare news; segments everyone thought was silly and the teacher only wanted serious. My naivety led me to believe he actually forgot. As far as the internet archive is concerned, I was never a news anchor at all, as there is no footage to backup my claims.

I woke up years later witnessing a new form of censorship.

I watched as my roommate never left our dorm room besides meals and class as it was a crime to be Gay at my alma mater. Those were the years I took off my checkered vans and I wish I never did.

My Gay roommate survived, but my Black roommate didn't.

It wasn't immediate, but he never left our room either, besides meals and class.

It wasn't a crime to be Black at Liberty University, but the origin story of the engineering institution that I inadvertently accredited was that it was an all white institution, using religion as the basis for segregation. There's a bitterness towards the public that the government represents there, that does not hide in the shadows.

Chapel was mandatory three days a week. The first time I was ever written up and fined was in fake church wearing a fake tie and a fake collar. My collar and tie needed to be real and I demanded reality back from the church, but only one of us could expel the other.

We were told we'd have speakers from all walks of life of all different ideologies and if we believed them, that was true.

In reality, the out group never spoke as the entire premise was a farce designed to appeal to prospective parents. The goal wasn't to educate the students in the seats today, but to grow exponentially and influence the hearts and minds of the next students, which only works with a consistently crafted narrative, three days a week between 10 and 11 am eastern.

I woke up years later witnessing a new form of censorship.

I was sitting in the driver seat. Lives were in my hands.

I was online broadcasting while it was still a carefully crafted narrative, before the world went live.

The governments themselves had reared their ugly heads and said, “it is not a crime to be anything, but point those cameras away from here or else we'll shoot you back.”

And Saudi Arabia got Hasan Minhaj taken offline. And the other governments realized they too could cancel comedians.

And my dumbass tried to bridge the Black and Trans communities with an “I liked it” in reference to Dave sharing his interactions with Daphne, thinking I would elaborate in conversation, but I got cancelled by just those three words.

I woke up months later in the passenger seat witnessing a new form of censorship.

Paul said he couldn't bring himself to watch Dave talk about Daphne as he was the last producer to book her and he told me about their last conversations on the train platform before he never saw her again.

I woke up a year later to a new form of censorship.

I was running a panel of straight white men as that's who would socially and technically integrate with me.

I was the censor and the censored.

I woke up years earlier to a new form of censorship.

There were streets of guns. Stationed corner on corner. Patrols in buggies with walkie talkies. Jacked up trucks rolling coals on people marching on a bridge a mile long, shouting, “If they want to be Black, I'll make them Black” about the White protestors walking with Black Lives Matters banners.

I woke up years earlier to a new form of censorship.

Crying. I know I'm not the reason Deante killed himself, but it certainly didn't help that I switched code at the wrong time for Jerry's Jesus.

Never again.

Off Censorship

I am not who you think I am;

I am not who I think I am;

I am who I think you think I am

In the beginning, the user said, “I have no idea what I'm looking at here.”

And Steve responded, “A bicycle of the mind.”

And the user said, “I need two wheels to be a cyclist.”

And Steve smugly smiled, “Now, close your eyes and picture this.”

And he dashed a line for the horizon.

And circled where the sun should be

And dragged in the latest clip art of the iBike.

And he said, “Now, open them. Where do you want this to take you?”

---

That's how computers begin. Astral projection.

They end with subconscious muscle memory for flailing limbs at ludicrous speeds.

When you think about it, that is kind of like riding a bike. Balancing on two wheels seems impossible until you discover the one secret: momentum.

The key to balance is time over space: speed. The faster you move your mind in unison with the machine the more it makes sense for the bicycles of the body or mind.

“What do you do?”

I work on Sillyz.Computer, a toy to respark the joy of computing.

“How do you spell that? That's a tough name.”

Yeah, I know. It was kind of a joke and placeholder at first for getting a conversation hook. Worked surprisingly well.

“Oh, your business is a joke?”

No, it is super serious. Follow me a different way, can we try an experiment?

“ok.”

I'm going to say a phrase and I want you to say the first name that comes to your mind.

“Personal computing.”

---

Now at this point most people will either say, “Bill Gates” or “Steve Jobs”.

and I'll say, “Huh, that's interesting.” and they'll say, “What?” and I'll say, “Nothing, it is just in this reality most people do not say their own names.”

“What?”

Yeah, I think that's strange too. When I hear “Personal Computer”, I think of my name. What's your name?

“Tony.”

Okay Tony, would you like me to help you on your personal computing journey or are you ok with Bill and Steve's excellent adventure?

“How much this is going to cost me?”

Here, take this piece of paper, this is the free version, walk away at any time. The honest answer is, it depends on your problems.

“Okay, what do you do?”

For personal computers, I can either help you be silly or yourself. I also do enterprise, but that's a different cut scene.

“You can help me be silly?”

Next time you want to make someone smile, say 'Check this out, the paper is the computer!' and then scan it. The hard part is being yourself.

“The paper is the computer?”

Yup! You can print the code from there to have all of it. The best computers are architected on paper first, like the Cray-1, then ported to better hardware when it comes along, like chairs.

“You're losing me.”

I love computer history, I'm just making obscure reference jokes just in case you're a connoisseur. The Cray-1 was the fastest million dollar super computer in 1978 and was innovative in that— instead of being a computer that fit inside of a room, the computer fit inside of a chair.

“The paper is the computer.”

In mind and in practice. Anyways, back to you, Tony. What do you do on the computer?

“Gaming mostly.”

Great! We can do gaming, depending on your hardware. Anything else?

“I do email too.”

We've got email! Okay, what games do you play.

“Mostly my own.”

Oh, you're a developer too! What do you code in?

“I don't code. Tony Hawk, Pro Skater? Probably JavaScript though, if I were to learn.”

Oh whoa! Yeah, I totally see it now, sorry! I remember you being more of a polygon and a fragment of my childhood. Skill swap code for skate?

“Deal.”

^ Keyboard kid swoops in, title screen reads “Tony Hawk's Computer”

I needed a studio.

I needed a stage.

I needed a lead.

i am a studio, i am a stage, i am a lead.

We don't have everything, but you'll be surprised in the things we do.

Why? Speed is every thing, feel it. Also, it works on any thing, try it.

Paper. Watch. Flip. Phone. Keyboard. Handheld. Laptop. Desktop. Room.

Why? Power is every thing, feel it. Also, it works in any thing, try it.

Computers. Operating Systems. Applications. Pages. Widgets. Embed. Nest.

To create a custom layout, update the sillonious-brand and replace it with a $60 copy from https://cutestrap.com.

On Design Systems

1. Background is wheel-0-0, derived by host's light/dark mode.
2. Light mode text is black, dark mode text is white, .85 opacity.
3. Accent is wheel-0-6, the shared hinge hue for light/dark.
4. Font size is 1rem, derived by host.
5. Navigation is at the bottom.
6. Application switcher top right.
7. App actions below it.
8. Context top left.
9. System top right.
10. Aspect ratio is 16:9.

On Brand

1. Words are brand.
2. Power words are inverted text colors, with accent shadows.
3. Every module is a mini game sorted by world-level.
4. Module vocabulary is teach, draw, style, when, learn.
5. Paper is the pocket.

Feel free to poke around. Literally poke and hold or right-click to edit— or create new widgets below!

What is The Landing Page?

A customizable newspaper.

Why?

Journalism is the most valuable resource for uncovering new knowledge and connections.

What do you mean?

Detectives solving crimes have little information to go on. The information they do have, they'll get on paper, thumbtack it to cork, and string it together, literally, until the've cracked the case.

Crimes? That sound nefarious.

That's maybe too serious of an example. If I were a detective, I'd be working on uncovering the truth of the computer with the case of the Sillyz.

A Case of the Sillyz?

Common computer are binary. All computers are binary. Quantum computers are less binary. Their configurations can be in more than the two positions, 0 and 1. They can be in the reverse position, -1.

https://Sillyz.Computer hinges on this sort of reversible philosophy. The idea is that it exists in fantasy space first, the most reverse position of all, fiction. The author claims the source is Elve.

Then it exists in JavaScript, making it available on the web and any other device. But that came from somewhere, a server.

The server exists in JavaScript for 64-bit systems. If you have a 64-bit system, you can reverse the public server into your private, now cloud. Of which, the database would be one more service, also reversed in. The client, reversible.

That's the silliest thing, right? Where is this computer?

I feel it. I see it. I touch it.

I turn it off. I turn them all off.

And I when I walk down the street, still, it remains.

I'm going to get to the bottom of this and maybe you should too.

As an act of good faith, here are my notes:

“I have nothing to hide.” Someone says under the topic of internet privacy.

“Your sentiment.” I reply, “Did you ever see Minority Report?”

You ask, “That Will Ferrell movie?” You correct, “Wait no, Colin Ferrell.”

“And Tom Cruise. They'd used psychic people to “do justice” to you because those three random unrelated people in an ivory tower thought you might do something nefarious.

“So what?”

“That's a thinly veiled metaphor for surveillance technology and the social constructs that enable them.”

“So what?”

Okay, I'll drop the subtext.

In short, if you live in a democracy, you vote with ballots. Voting is an intentional decision where you factor in many different aspects you're trying to optimize your ideal future for.

When you use your phone and you scroll mindlessly through it, you're at the whim of the game master that designed the worlds and levels for you to roam through.

When you gander at a picture, you're intrigued. If you touch it, you're interested. If you stare, you're bonding. If you laugh, you're in love.

Moment by moment, measure by measure, intrigue by intrigue, who are you and what do you think?

Individually, you're nobody. Collectively, maybe you're a threat.

Now, it matters less what you think and what you have to hide, because you clearly have nothing.

The people that do have things, however, would like to break ground where you're standing.

Moment by measure by intrigue, they don't like you and there's nothing you can do.

End the sentiment surveillance engines, unless you've known and been okay with it too.