🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 3 Aug 2018 15:53:11 -0400, Michael Black <mbl...@pubnix.net>
wrote:
>On Fri, 3 Aug 2018, JimP wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 3 Aug 2018 06:02:12 -0400, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 2018-08-02, ma...@mail.com <ma...@mail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 2018-08-02, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> On 2018-08-02, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 16:51:44 -0400
>>>>>>> Michael Black <mbl...@pubnix.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It may actually be the same thing, an expectation of centralized
>>>>>>>> computers taking care of everyone, instead of a whole lot of computers.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That is certainly the picture that appears in every science fiction
>>>>>>> mention of computers pretty much right up until reality did something
>>>>>>> different.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And now, under reality v2.0, the wheel is coming around again.
>>>>>> We're going back to centralized computers taking care of everyone
>>>>>> (FSVO "care").  There are still lots of computers everywhere,
>>>>>> but they're just being used as terminals.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is Facebook the present reality of Eternal September (Not the site, the present
>>>>> reality of the mob of people who would discover the Internet in September.)
>>>>
>>>> Most of the people on FB make the "eternal September" crowd look like
>>>> intellectual giants.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Look at the accusation that the Russians meddled in the election by posting
>>> bogus stuff on Favebook. Who the heck gets their political information from
>>> FB??? If there are many people doing this we have a lot more problems than
>>> just Russians!
>>
>> Apparently large numbers of people get their info only from FB.
>>
>I think that's some of the structure.
>
>It took me a long time to get online, but I knew about it since 1978 (Byte 
>ran a series about computer networking,  which did reference arpanet, and 
>there was also an article about the first small computer BBS).  I know 
>every so often after I got a modem in 1985 I'd dial up a local BBS, go 
>through the process of  registering, and then discover not much there, too 
>small a population to be of interest to me.

1987 for me, I-Amiga listserv emailing list. Occasionaly we had a big
argument over email or e-mail. Egad.

>But those decades, it was about talking to people I didn't know, and about 
>technology.  Other than those local BBSs, there wasn't enough density in 
>most places to allow for a "local", which is surely why usenet is 
>organized around topics.  When I did get full internet access in 1996, it 
>was still a relatively new thing, lots of people had gotten online by 
>then, but it was dwarfed by those who came later.  And somewhere, there 
>was a shift, people got on to do their shopping, to get their news, to 
>read mail from people they knew.  They weren't interested in the wild 
>world of talking to people they didn't know.

I had access to one BBS. Only one user at a time. And I think only 3
or 4 of us on there at all. I had BITNET, much better.

I think I got all the way up to 4 listserv lists.

About 1992 I got an actual Internet account, and got Usenet newsgroup
later that year. Thats when I was able to post to here without the
relay, which had gone away by 1991 I think.

>Tis is hardly a knew thing.  In late 1994 I started calling BBSs and 
>staying, and soon the "Good Times Virus" hit.  It was actually a warning 

I was on an email list back then, and someone asked about it. I
pointed out, as did several others, it was nonsense.

My first encounter with Usenet newsgroups was via relay as I was on
cp6.bitnet. I got a digest from here. And posted via email to here via
the relay.

I remember trying to email various people I knew at university, at
their home accounts; AOL and CompuServe. I had to know the format and
the relay to reach them. Success rate for them to get my email was
40-60% and about the same for their reply to get back to me.

It was easier to just talk at the university.

>People got suckered in "the old days", all those postcards to some sick 
>kid well after the fact, but in the old days some of it was filtered by 

I remember that. Didn't send one, then found out he had grown up and
didn't have cancer anymore.

>the fact that anyone online was a subset of the general population.  Since 
>it took some effort, money if nothing else but also some technical skill, 
>plus desire, to get online, that filtered out the worst of it.  But at 
>some point it shifted, everyone "needed" to be online, so it's no longer 
>an elite.

Yeah, I remember when Eternal September started. Ewww. All those free
AOL CDs.

>Facebook is a success for a bunch of reasons, but one is that aparently 
>there's none of that fussing html stuff.  They can slap somethign up 

My first several web sites were all html, typed in by hand. I did do
some copy and pasting, just changing what was different. I did a
drive-in movie thearter site, around 3,000 html pages. After I found
it being copied and others claiming they did the work, I took it down.