Paul Ford proves once again he is doing some of the most interesting work on the web. Compare Ftrain to your average blog. And check out his A Website for Harpers for a glimpse into an alternate reality where the web was realized as it was meant to be, and pets.com never existed.

XHTML/CSS/QXNYTLRPK, accessible for the people, JavaScript zip-zap, validating RSS hoo-ha, etc. The framework is solid XML and XSLT2.0, and plays nice with others….3,000 facts, 6,000 events, 12,000 links, 500 topics, and over 939 separate HTML pages. 300,000 words….Everything is in the Taxonomy….built upon a Semantic Web framework—albeit a primitive one….No Banner Ads….A small team of Java coders and I are planning to take the work done on Harper’s, and in other places like Rhetorical Device, and create an open-sourced content management system based on RDF storage.

All done up in that fin de siecle, “this website was typeset on a hand cranked printing press” signature Ftrain look. Spend a little while exploring, it is worth it.