
We’d love to link you to this website but it’s impossible - danso
https://theoutline.com/post/2855/we-d-love-to-link-you-to-this-website-but-it-s-impossible
======
MaxBarraclough
Off to a bad start:

> A frustrating piece of art that challenges how your brain thinks about the
> internet.

No, the _web_ , surely.

Not the first time we've seen a non-linkable 'web page'. The website of the
2012 Olympics in London didn't ban linking, but they tried to attach terms of
use to linking to their site -
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120713/12025919694/olymp...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120713/12025919694/olympic-
level-ridiculousness-you-cant-link-to-olympics-website-if-you-say-something-
mean-about-them.shtml)

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Not to mention all the old pages that were made entirely in Flash. Want to get
back to where you left off? Have fun clicking through menus for ten minutes...

------
gorhill
I was able to load the page by using this js code at the browser console:

    
    
        window.location.href = 'https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/' + Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)
    

You may need to add 1 after the division by 1000 (inside the parenthesis) for
better result.

~~~
sli
> So far, -31028 people visited the website but did not see the art. Only
> 207.29% of visitors were able to view it.

Well those are some interesting numbers.

------
dvorak42
Given enough _time_ you can find a shortcut instead of having to follow every
redirect.

~~~
crazygringo
;) Thanks for the hint.

Site seems to have a bit of a bug though:

> _The art has moved 49949 times since its creation on January 5, 2018._

> _On average it moves every 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes and 11 seconds._

> _So far, -23724 people visited the website but did not see the art._

> _Only 190.46% of visitors were able to view it._

~~~
scrumbledober
seems they're using javascript for their maths.

~~~
Wehrdo
What makes you say that? In JavaScript, all numbers are floats, so overflows
won't happen.

------
bitwize
Ah, contemporary art. In which the goal, per Duchamp, is to produce the least
art-like thing you can and still get away with calling it art. And if that
doesn't bake your noodle, remember this: you're not creating art unless you're
trying to pass off non-art as art! For what is the meaning of art, but that
which challenges and questions what is the meaning of art? This is how we get
pickled sharks and books instructing you to dig holes for clouds and hide
until everyone dies.

The asymptote of this development is art which is completely inaccessible, for
if we think of art as something to be appreciated, then the truest art is art
which is impossible to appreciate!

So this is where we are: a web page designed to be, literally, pert-near
inaccessible, containing only a banal message when you succeed to access it,
being hailed as an avant-garde work of profundity. I'm a bit reminded of
Maurizio Bolognini's "Sealed Computers" piece, which features computers
programmed to algorithmically generate images but not display them (their
video ports having been sealed with wax) and strewn about a floor. The
audience gets the notion that something aesthetically interesting is being
produced, but doesn't get to see it or know what it is because fuck you,
audience. All they get is the sight and sound of those haphazardly strewn
beige boxes, slowly adding to the entropy of the universe. (One could,
presumably, exfiltrate the images via side channels, as in Van Eck phreaking,
but I get the vague sense that would be considered cheating and earn you a
swift boot right out of the gallery.)

------
phelm
I got to the end and it looked like this
[https://imgur.com/a/Wt5Gi](https://imgur.com/a/Wt5Gi)

~~~
cgtyoder
Math is hard!

------
thomk
Net Art defined; Having fun making useless technology.

~~~
aalleavitch
It’s a nice change of pace from our usual jobs of not having fun making
useless technology.

~~~
foo101
Please don't speak for all of us. There are many of us around who still take
our usual jobs of developing software to be an art of developing useful
technology.

I think comments like these, although said in jest, undermine the work of many
programmers who are creating useful technological solutions for a living.

~~~
aalleavitch
I mean, I was definitely just joking. But I also think it’s a reality that we
have to accept that despite our best intentions, much of what we make will be
consigned to the dustbin of history. Only a small percentage of our products
will ever break through that barrier to becoming truly useful in a lasting
way. That’s not a failure in my eyes; that’s the reality of innovation, and
the system is working the way it has to.

------
jdiez17
Here's a quick-and-dirty script to find "the art" (I haven't found it yet, if
there is anything to be found):
[https://gist.github.com/jdiez17/db4f87fc4dad7b0d855017358bf4...](https://gist.github.com/jdiez17/db4f87fc4dad7b0d855017358bf426ae)

Of course, by publishing this script I'm making "the art" harder to find...

~~~
Aaron1011
I tried that, but found that guessing backwards from the current time works
better:
[https://gist.github.com/Aaron1011/2595f8699ade9d4df16398a68e...](https://gist.github.com/Aaron1011/2595f8699ade9d4df16398a68e8c1a52)

~~~
jdiez17
They must have changed the response code, because I'm getting HTTP 200 on all
requests

    
    
      $ curl -I https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515222320
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2018 15:07:09 GMT
      Server: Apache
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

~~~
Aaron1011
That's to be expected.

The idea behind my script is that the URL is encoding the unix time of the
first visit to that URL. By starting at the current time and working
backwards, the first HTTP 200 you come across should be the current page.

~~~
jdiez17
Ah, I see. Yes, that is definitely a smarter way of doing it.

------
StavrosK
Here's a clone of the art, from [https://permanent-
redirect.xyz/pages/1515769473](https://permanent-
redirect.xyz/pages/1515769473):

[https://www.eternum.io/ipfs/QmNsrpB2GDfisYUqwdHxcVjHiAFWdTp3...](https://www.eternum.io/ipfs/QmNsrpB2GDfisYUqwdHxcVjHiAFWdTp3nMi7zPQ7zeeiuZ/)

~~~
Guillaume86
I got the same art at /1515769907

------
golergka
> So far, -23660 people visited the website but did not see the art. Only
> 188.36% of visitors were able to view it. You are indeed very special.

Not sure if it was HN frontpage, but something broke it down.

------
pc86
> _I won’t describe the art, though you can easily find it on Twitter, because
> it might threaten the joy of discovery._

Isn't the hero image of the article a screen shot of it?

~~~
cantrip
No, it's a list of redirect URLs and a quote from the final page.

------
fenwick67
This would be kinda cute if it weren't for all the posturing about it being
art. "challenges how your brain thinks about the internet" is an
overstatement.

------
throwaway2016a
I got one of these:

    
    
      Not Found
      The requested URL /pages/123.php was not found on this server.
    

Looks like it is literally creating a new PHP page for every single redirect.

It's value as "art" aside, there are much better ways to architect that.
Eventually doing a directory listing on that folder is going to take minutes.

------
shams93
Art hasn't always been about scarcity there's a long history of public art, in
ancient Egypt far from being scarce art was everywhere but art was effectively
sponsored by the government in ancient Egypt. You didn't sell art to a
collector you were sponsored by the government to make art that was everyone
to enjoy.

~~~
cantrip
Nearly all governments fund art currently and in the past and scarcity has
never been a defining attribute of art. Also, not all artists in ancient Egypt
were sponsored and not all art was for everyone, e.g. slaves.

------
godelski
Anyone noticing that the user count is off? Like REALLY off. I'm only seeing
it in the thousands. Currently it at 2546, but clicking the redirect I get
2434, 2380, 2306, 2075, 4011, etc. Seems like the counter surely broke.

------
seanalltogether
As of January 12th 15:40 UTC [https://permanent-
redirect.xyz/pages/1515769905](https://permanent-
redirect.xyz/pages/1515769905)

------
gumby
Since it issues a redirect can’t you simply do curl -L and let it makes its
way through them all? In which case every one of these “transient” urls is
actually, de facto, stable

~~~
slig
It's not really a 301 redirect. The server returns a 200 result page with a
text telling it's a "301 Permanent Redirect" and a link to click to the next
page.

~~~
gumby
How annoying.

------
huntermeyer
URL is a timestamp

[https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515439653](https://permanent-
redirect.xyz/pages/1515439653)

Time.at(1515439653)

2018-01-08 14:27:33 -0500

------
mattxxx
In the end, is it an art or is it a tech demo project?

...and what's the difference?

~~~
mattxxx
Adding this for kicks:
[https://youtu.be/vVFasyCvEOg](https://youtu.be/vVFasyCvEOg)

------
adregan
Why put art in quotes in the article as if to suggest it is not? Seems like
the piece got the author to participate and share their experience. Sounds
like pretty successful "art" to me.

~~~
nine_k
Would it better be called a "trick"?

