"Rifters" series also has some of the most grimdark-fun & chaotic versions of the "net" that I've ever read.
I had an absolute blast with so far the first two books. Watts' mastery of psychology & neurosis & suspense is captured in an incredibly tightly confined dark scary isolated space at the bottom of the ocean. The setting here is just so exceeding. What a series (so far).
And where the AI's fail to fill the subway station with air because someone smashed the clock on the wall visible on the security cameras and no onw realized that that was what was triggering the AI to fill the room with air before the train doors opened...
Well this makes me think of personal assistants. Lots of people have their assistant email someone else's assistant to set up a meeting. If these AIs actually work properly, the scenario may not end up being terribly concerning.
Oh, sure, Watts has those, too. The problem is that in that world, the public Internet consists entirely of bots screaming at each other, and is basically unusable for anything else. Now listen to the fears about GPT spam finally rendering Google utterly useless, and tell me you don't feel the foreshocks of that future.
I do think it a little over reduces the imagery/situation, a bit. Watts' late internet has so many factors of just wrecked savage badlands, being endlessly blasted with savage e-storms. Endless bots screaming, oh yes oh yes, but also just everything under active caustic assault, all pieces of information actively being degraded, constant brownout/black outs, storms & turbulence aplenty. It's wild imagery for a hellacious information space.
Packets are like little programs sent out into the din, trying to make it through the chaos, but being injured mangled warped & hobbled at every step. Picking up all kinds of riders & viruses or just being assaulted & damaged. It's wonderfully terrible imagery.
The second book is Maelstrom, named for this howling shrieking post-internet storm. Book 2, like book 1, has, best I can tell, nothing at all like it in all existence. Amazing grimdark shit.
Status epileptics can definitely be fatal. Epileptics are at serious risk of death from seizures or seizure-related injury so I would not be so dismissive of the risk.
This is what I came to suggest as well. I would also say that Express is a good one as well if you're looking to learn Node. Not quite as clear as the annotated source for Backbone, but well commented.
I also liked the "Let's Make a Framework" posts at DailyJS. DailyJS in general was a great blog that is now closed, but the archives are still up.