The dumbest publishing platform on the web.
May 15, 2018 11:49 AM Subscribe
in 2 months: "txt.fyi proud to announce MarkDown support! Expect Word import soon"
in 6 months: "in order to help defray costs, we've added discreet text ads"
in 9 months: "exciting news! we've been acquired by CoinyMcCoinCoin, the premier crypto-currency for dead drops! but don't worry, we've been promised all your txt files will live on forever"
in 12 months: "CoinyMcCoinCoin has been acquired by Oath, Inc. All dead drop txts will be moved over to the new, ultra-secure Oath, Inc Network Cloud (OINK) where they will be fully accessible forever"
in 18 months: "after last week's breach of OINK, we regret to announce that txt.fyi is shutting down. An txt.fyi export tool will be provided soon" (Narrator: It isn't)
posted by gwint at 12:01 PM on May 15, 2018 [68 favorites]
in 6 months: "in order to help defray costs, we've added discreet text ads"
in 9 months: "exciting news! we've been acquired by CoinyMcCoinCoin, the premier crypto-currency for dead drops! but don't worry, we've been promised all your txt files will live on forever"
in 12 months: "CoinyMcCoinCoin has been acquired by Oath, Inc. All dead drop txts will be moved over to the new, ultra-secure Oath, Inc Network Cloud (OINK) where they will be fully accessible forever"
in 18 months: "after last week's breach of OINK, we regret to announce that txt.fyi is shutting down. An txt.fyi export tool will be provided soon" (Narrator: It isn't)
posted by gwint at 12:01 PM on May 15, 2018 [68 favorites]
I tried to post the Treaty of Westphalia, but it broke it.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:02 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Happy Dave at 12:02 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
So there's no way to browse, it's just like an imagehost for text?
posted by little onion at 12:04 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by little onion at 12:04 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only practical way for anyone to find out about a posting is if the author links to it elsewhere.
Yes.
posted by little onion at 12:04 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
Yes.
posted by little onion at 12:04 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
From the About:
The only practical way for anyone to find out about a posting is if the author links to it elsewhere.posted by cjorgensen at 12:05 PM on May 15, 2018
I could have sworn I learned about txt.fyi here on the blue a couple months ago?
posted by not_the_water at 12:05 PM on May 15, 2018
posted by not_the_water at 12:05 PM on May 15, 2018
So it's sort of a stripped-down Pastebin?
posted by inconstant at 12:12 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by inconstant at 12:12 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Also, gwint -- they already support MarkDown, you're too late!
posted by inconstant at 12:13 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by inconstant at 12:13 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Man, I am lost. Does anyone have a guide they can link?
posted by Samizdata at 12:15 PM on May 15, 2018
posted by Samizdata at 12:15 PM on May 15, 2018
Rob Beschizza is a Boingboing guy. There certainly isn't anything more to this than the cuteness you see before you. Quadcopters, raspberry pis, and free expression.
posted by turkeybrain at 12:25 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by turkeybrain at 12:25 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
I tried to post the Treaty of Westphalia, but it broke it.
That won't be an issue when this platform is moved over to the OINK cloud
posted by NoMich at 12:28 PM on May 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
That won't be an issue when this platform is moved over to the OINK cloud
posted by NoMich at 12:28 PM on May 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
...well, why did I click that "live" link. That sumbitch.
posted by azpenguin at 12:34 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by azpenguin at 12:34 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Man, and I thought Micro.Blog was stripped down.
But then again, I couldn't get Micro.Blog to work with my website, so I am sure that 5 minutes after I post something this will start smoking and explode.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 12:41 PM on May 15, 2018
But then again, I couldn't get Micro.Blog to work with my website, so I am sure that 5 minutes after I post something this will start smoking and explode.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 12:41 PM on May 15, 2018
I love txt.fyi and have used it to post several documents I’ve now forgotten about.
posted by silby at 12:46 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by silby at 12:46 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
Cute! I love how the logo is embedded as a tiny Data URI image that's embiggened using CSS (
posted by oulipian at 12:49 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
image-rendering: pixelated).posted by oulipian at 12:49 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
Happy Dave: "I tried to post the Treaty of Westphalia, but it broke it."
Pfft, the hipsters are now all about the Treaty of Perth.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:49 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Pfft, the hipsters are now all about the Treaty of Perth.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:49 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
So a pastebin?
posted by furtive at 1:03 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by furtive at 1:03 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Chrysostom: "Pfft, the hipsters are now all about the Treaty of Perth."
There are... treaty hipsters?
posted by Happy Dave at 1:09 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
There are... treaty hipsters?
posted by Happy Dave at 1:09 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
Treaty 7. You probably haven't heard of it.
posted by clawsoon at 1:15 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:15 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
So a pastebin?
Pastebin's interface is really crufty these days, so this seems like a decent alternative for non-coding purposes.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:15 PM on May 15, 2018
Pastebin's interface is really crufty these days, so this seems like a decent alternative for non-coding purposes.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:15 PM on May 15, 2018
This is pretty cool. And the !hacker formatting is funny.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:38 PM on May 15, 2018
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:38 PM on May 15, 2018
I love it! Bookmarked for future use.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:39 PM on May 15, 2018
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:39 PM on May 15, 2018
Getting in on all the treaty action. (So much rubbish translation in such a short document!)
Te Reo
English
posted by wilberforce at 2:51 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Te Reo
English
posted by wilberforce at 2:51 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
I tried to post the Treaty of Westphalia, but it broke it.
If txt.fyi broke the Treaty of Westphalia, does that mean the 30 Years' War is back on? Because that would pretty much fit with 2018's aesthetic.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:39 PM on May 15, 2018 [9 favorites]
If txt.fyi broke the Treaty of Westphalia, does that mean the 30 Years' War is back on? Because that would pretty much fit with 2018's aesthetic.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:39 PM on May 15, 2018 [9 favorites]
You just know any real treaty these days is going to be on a site called trea.ty or treatr.com
posted by chavenet at 4:24 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 4:24 PM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
can we replace medium with this please
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:30 PM on May 15, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:30 PM on May 15, 2018 [5 favorites]
in 2 months: "txt.fyi proud to announce MarkDown support! Expect Word import soon"Markdown was from day 0, two years ago or therabouts -- and the only thing added since then's been some security stuff!
in 6 months: "in order to help defray costs, we've added discreet text ads"
in 9 months: "exciting news! we've been acquired by CoinyMcCoinCoin, the premier crypto-currency for dead drops! but don't worry, we've been promised all your txt files will live on forever"
in 12 months: "CoinyMcCoinCoin has been acquired by Oath, Inc. All dead drop txts will be moved over to the new, ultra-secure Oath, Inc Network Cloud (OINK) where they will be fully accessible forever"
in 18 months: "after last week's breach of OINK, we regret to announce that txt.fyi is shutting down. An txt.fyi export tool will be provided soon" (Narrator: It isn't)
It costs about $30 a month to run and it's all static HTML, so there's no real reason it can't live forever without any of the shenanigans associated with VC-fueled "indie web" ploys.
posted by beschizza at 4:34 PM on May 15, 2018 [14 favorites]
I've been slowly working on a version with accounts so you can edit and delete entries and do image uploads (which would trigger a "fancy" permalink, a stripped-down version of the nearly universal Serious Journalism With An Enormous Image layout you see everywhere) -- but otherwise with the same "anti-social" rules.
posted by beschizza at 4:40 PM on May 15, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by beschizza at 4:40 PM on May 15, 2018 [12 favorites]
Editing was the main reason I made a Pastebin account, yeah.
I wanted to test its whitespace handling but seem to have broken it instead. Either my browser version or one of my add-ons, but I'm too lazy to find out what, hah.
posted by inconstant at 4:52 PM on May 15, 2018
I wanted to test its whitespace handling but seem to have broken it instead. Either my browser version or one of my add-ons, but I'm too lazy to find out what, hah.
posted by inconstant at 4:52 PM on May 15, 2018
This is to web publishing what Increpare's (twitter) Tinychoice is to Twine.
(Tinychoice tips - links need not appear only at the end - they need only take up entire lines or paragraphs, ended by a carriage return - also, double carriage returns are optional and not part of syntax.)
posted by BiggerJ at 6:47 PM on May 15, 2018
(Tinychoice tips - links need not appear only at the end - they need only take up entire lines or paragraphs, ended by a carriage return - also, double carriage returns are optional and not part of syntax.)
posted by BiggerJ at 6:47 PM on May 15, 2018
I miss web-pages of plain HTML.
There are tools such as Jekyll which allow you to do exactly this. As you'd expect, pages load very quickly. I have a writer friend who swears by it.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:56 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
There are tools such as Jekyll which allow you to do exactly this. As you'd expect, pages load very quickly. I have a writer friend who swears by it.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 7:56 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
Also, any links in this thread that do not lead to txt.fyi are bullshit.
posted by Literaryhero at 12:03 AM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Literaryhero at 12:03 AM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
I like it, but apparently for more n00b-y reasons than others here do. Speaking of which—I get the !timestamp tag. But what does the !hacker tag do, and why is the !professor tag (which on my browser changes text to a serif font) called "professor"?
posted by Rykey at 3:28 AM on May 16, 2018
posted by Rykey at 3:28 AM on May 16, 2018
@Rykey The !professor tag means it has no stylesheet at all, which for some reason I associate with faculty homepages until (suprisingly) recent history. The !hacker tag just makes it green on black.
I should add !mefi to make the background #069
posted by beschizza at 3:36 AM on May 16, 2018 [10 favorites]
I should add !mefi to make the background #069
posted by beschizza at 3:36 AM on May 16, 2018 [10 favorites]
Ha, I didn't even notice the green-on-black. My brain must have flashed straight back to the days of the BBS. Thanks for txt.fyi, by the way!
posted by Rykey at 3:46 AM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Rykey at 3:46 AM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
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posted by belarius at 11:59 AM on May 15, 2018 [12 favorites]