My first version of VoXYgen was posted in 1996. It was fun building the most rudimentary webpage and exploring what could be done on the internet. Since then, things have changed, and I’m suffering from “information fatiguesans the extreme levels of anxiety or sleeplessness that it presumably provokes. I have noticed, however, that I can’t keep up with Facebook. I bookmark sites that friends post and then waste time deleting them without reading them because the list is obscenely long. I skip surfing my usual reading spots. RSS readers have made blog surfing incredibly easy. The downside, however, is that with a simple click of a button, I flood my RSS reader with unmet reading obligations.

I’ve also noticed how many of my Facebook friends turn to Facebook when they have insomnia. I suspect this is not a good thing. Ages ago, when I started gaming online, much was made about how monitors keep people awake and depressed in a purely physiological way. Of course I was having too much fun to care. I often Facebook when I can’t sleep, and reading the depressing links in my news feed doesn’t help.

All of this has me reflecting on the impossibility of maintaining a website. The speed and quantity of information available online makes it a challenge. For some time now I have neglected updating the Haraway page, links page, and E-texts page. Although I am committed to maintaining the Haraway pages, it’s time to put the E-text page to rest.  With RSS readers, the E-texts page is irrelevant. It’s a graveyard of dead online journals with lots of empty shelf space waiting for new journals to be added. Moreover, the empty shelves will never be spacious enough to hold all the new online journals that interest me.

Time to close up shop.

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