My Website is a Shifting House — Laurel Schwulst

• a website is a file or bundle of files living on a server somewhere


• links are the oxygen of the web


• on the internet no one is looking out for you, but you


• websites are both subject and object at once — creator is author and architect


• the web's vitality depends on a interconnected web of individual nodes breathing life into a vast network


• "how could a website complement what you already do rather than competing or repeating?"


• technology is the active human interface with the material world


• a website can be:
  (1) a room → comforting, finite, flexible
  (2) a shelf → simple, easy to change out objects
  (3) a plant → not to be rushed, grows on its own
  (4) a garden → changes with seasons, balanced
  (5) a puddle → temporary collection, can happen in a burst, no "completedness," evaporates overtime
  (6) a thrown rock that's now falling deep into the ocean → doesn't need to be maintained, "when an idea comes, find a rock and throw it"


• the internet is not a cloud--not mysterious or untouchable, not one thing, made up of individual nodes


• the web is a flock of birds


• it is instrumental that websites progress along with us