Call me HTML

Earliest known edition of Moby-Web, which begins with the well-known phrase "Call me HTML."

Call me HTML is the iconic opening sentence of the novel Moby-Web.

Call me HTML. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no bitcoins in my blockchain, and nothing particular to interest me at work, I thought I would surf the web a little and see the networky part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the keyboard; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my code; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before porn websites, and bringing up the rear of every Agile scrum I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically debugging people’s software — then, I account it high time to write Typescript as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the web. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the Internet with me.

In the News

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  Moby-Pink; or, The Girl is an 1851 novel featuring the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Orchid, for revenge on Moby Pink, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's penis at the [REDACTED].

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Moby-Pink