gifs

Geez, I hope he made it to last call.

[via Imgur]

"Time out. I need to make sure I'm still sexy. OK, time in."

[Via jj.am]

Yes, the image above is the entire original Star Wars movie (also referred to as "A New Hope" — primarily by jerks) in poorly-drawn, heavily-pixelated animated GIF form.

"Why, why do we need this?" you might find yourself asking repeatedly.  "Is my job really so horrible that I will stare at anything on my computer screen besides working?"

If you watched the entire thing, the answer to that question is probably, yes, your job is horrible.  Or you have too much time on your hands.

Either way, note how GIF Star Wars is still far superior to all of the prequels …and possibly Return of the Jedi.

[via Blame It On The Voices]

Months after the initial announcement, today, it becomes official: Yahoo has shut down GeoCities— one of the original kings of free web hosting services.

Now, all of those GeoCities websites (excuse me, "Web Sites") are coming down. It's got me more tear-jerkingly nostalgic than Where The Wild Things Are.

No doubt, GeoCities started a revolution, but many of its ways have gone by the wayside. While Yahoo deploys the virtual demolition crews, let's make one last toast to a few of the relics they'll leave in the rubble.

1) Under Construction GIFs

It's absurd to think that putting up an ?under construction? sign on a web page was at one point an idea that was (pardon the pun) ?ground breaking.?

Why did people make such a big deal out of being ?under construction? in the 90s? It's not necessarily something you want to attract attention to. ?Hey! See this fancy animated GIF? That?s just a previewof how impressive my site will be when it?s done.?

Sadly, putting up 37 under construction animations is definitely as impressive as your Family Mattersfan page ever got. (Except for when you added the auto-playing MIDI version of the intro song. That was awesome.)

And why the civil engineering motif? Are you trying to tell me that a self-taught HTML geek is like a construction worker? I hope not. Making a website is about the furthest you can get from hard manual labor.

See the other six retro things we'll miss after the jump… more...

A week from today, GeoCities — Yahoo's free website hosting arm — will be no more. Yahoo decided to pull the plug a while ago but on Monday, it's official. (Don't worry. We'll be paying our respects for the rest of the week.)

One of the two and a half things that GeoCities bestowed upon web culture was the idea of ?under construction." Just stick an ugly orange warning image on your site, and you have instant license to jack things around without regard for your users!

People are scrambling to save things from GeoCities before they go ?poof" and a group called Archiveteam has built a site to save these legendary under construction signs. It?s kind of ironic that they?re saving "under construction" signs from a site that?s about to get demolished. I guess it makes sense though ?- people will need them when they start rebuilding after Yahoo bulldozes the place.

Sites are always under construction but when was the last time you actually saw one of these signs? In concept, they don't make much sense — even back then — since websites are almost by definition dynamic entities.

One banner that I saw had flashing sirens surrounding animations of men using pneumatic drills over a hammer being operated by an invisible hand slamming the "C" in a giant "UNDER CONSTRUCTION." Why did they have to make such a big deal out of being under construction in the 90s? ?Hey! See this fancy construction GIF? That?s just a preview of how impressive my site is about to be when it?s done.? Sadly, putting up 37 under construction animations is definitely as impressive as your Family Matters fan page ever got.

Why should there be a civil engineering motif to websites that are still being made? Real construction isn't similar to making changes to a website. In real life, construction causes traffic. On the web, it's the opposite.

Plus, by this rationale, computer science geeks are "construction workers." Well then, where are the tans and muscles! Nonsense. Making a website will never be hard manual labor.

But there's one construction GIF that's acceptable to use. How could you pass this up? My Web Developer is the Lord.

[via The Presurfer]