Do you remember the time before the internet?

[H4run]

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

I agree. Most of my elementary, junior high, and high school friends are on my Facebook. I mean, it ironically gives the sense that we're still in touch, with the absent of keeping in touch, it's an impression without substance, an illusion. There should be a sweetness where we never meet each other for decades, then we meet up and find out about each other. That tension is eliminated with social media. That's only one aspect; there are lots of others that we can talk about regarding social media.

 

[Samson]

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

Social media came before the internet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Social media came before the internet.

Going back farther, you have letters to the editor of the local paper, and letters to the editor of magazines. That's the kind of 'social media' I grew up with.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Social media came before the internet.

Well I guess you can call Usenet social media of a sorts, but I doubt folks on social media since 2008 or so would call it the same.

I was in Business school at UNC in 82-84. I may have even used this, but at the time didn't know it. The two schools were and still are sports rivals and competed for b-school students and national ranking in that arena. Back then both schools had very progressive B-school programs so this is not surprising.

"Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University,[8][2] over a decade before the World Wide Web went online (and thus before the general public received access to the Internet), making it one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use." From your link.

 

[Kyriakos]

Going to a reunion with people you just happened to be with decades ago, is arguably less meaningful than interaction on social media ^^

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Well I guess you can call Usenet social media of a sorts, but I doubt folks on social media since 2008 or so would call it the same.

I was in Business school at UNC in 82-84. I may have even used this, but at the time didn't know it. The two schools were and still are sports rivals and competed for b-school students and national ranking in that arena. Back then both schools had very progressive B-school programs so this is not surprising.

"Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University,[8][2] over a decade before the World Wide Web went online (and thus before the general public received access to the Internet), making it one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use." From your link.

Google acquired the searchable database of usenet posts and used it to refine and train their own search methods.
Usenet also contained a large amount of extremely useful computer code.

(BirdJaguar: You might get a bit wistful here about socks and sandals, and the language of the gods, so take a moment.)

Just one example: the comp.lang.fortran group had contributors who wrote IBM's fortran compilers. The head of that team was still answering questions there until he retired a few years ago.

Dagnabit, now I've got tears welling up.

END PROGRAM

 

[Smellincoffee]

Going to a reunion with people you just happened to be with decades ago, is arguably less meaningful than interaction on social media ^^

For what it's worth, my high school class never bothered with a ten-year reunion, and at the twenty-year reunion maybe ten people showed up? Like a buddy of mine said to me in Walmart -- people I want to see IRL, I see in IRL. The others, I know about their kids and their wives and their ex-wives and their boats from facebook. And the rest? Wouldn't want to see again anyway!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There are very few of my former classmates I ever wanted to see again. I kept in touch with a few, and a few others are casual "hi, how are you? Fine" kinds of interactions if we bump into each other at the mall. And there are some I couldn't stand - at the age they were when they were bullying people, they were old enough to know better. Fast-forward, and they're old enough to know that apologies would be appropriate. Nothing has ever been forthcoming, so why would I ever want anything to do with them?

I was rather blunt about this when someone phoned me about the 10-year reunion. The person who called was one who, while not among the bullies, she also never spoke up in my defense when her friends joined in. I told her this and said, "I never want to see them again, so don't call me again. I won't be going."

I did encourage a friend to go to the reunion, though (10th year anniversary of junior high reunion). She said she hadn't really done anything with her life so why bother? I reminded her that she'd had jobs, she'd done a variety of things in the theatre, from acting and dancing to tech work and was on the board of directors, she'd gotten married and traveled, and the farm was successful, and she was in college pursuing a degree in drama. That's plenty to say she's done with her life, more than many of them could likely say, and if that's the only reason she wasn't sure about going, she should go.

So she did and said she'd had a great time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, I've only been to one reunion (elementary school), and it sort of sucked

 

[Birdjaguar]

I went to my 50th and discovered a bunch of old men showed instead of my former classmates.

 

[Angst]

The internet is good because it’s funny. You get jerks from all over the world. Participating together in a nightmarish cesspool of stagnant evolution. It’s beautiful.

this is my view. the sheer efficiency; we get to be stupid, faster!

 

[Kyriakos]

The internet has positives too, of course, no need to focus on the bad ^^
Back in the day you'd need a couple of thousand dollars to buy the books you can read online (if you go on a spree on some favorite subject) in a month or two. And that's assuming you would be able to find them.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The internet has positives too, of course, no need to focus on the bad ^^
Back in the day you'd need a couple of thousand dollars to buy the books you can read online (if you go on a spree on some favorite subject) in a month or two. And that's assuming you would be able to find them.

In some cases it depends on if you find them on a non-legit site or if it's legit in the way that you can find some fascinating stuff on Project Gutenberg.

Some years ago I was trying to find an unabridged copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, in English. It was available on Project Gutenberg in French, and so help me, I'd have tried to wade through it in French. Fortunately, though, one of the second-hand booksellers in town here found me a copy in English.

 

[Kyriakos]

Libraries - unless incredibly massive - won't solve the problem if you are looking for a lot of very specific books. Yes, for classics of literature they might, even if small, but not for most other fields

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If I were to catalogue my book collection according to the Dewey Decimal System, I'd hit every single major category, before even remotely approaching the fiction part. That's what happens when you collect stuff, keep some of the grandparents' books, and never get rid of your college textbooks. Even foreign languages are covered here, since I've got books in French, Swedish, Latin, Lolcat, Klingon, Romulan, and Vulcan.

Libraries - unless incredibly massive - won't solve the problem if you are looking for a lot of very specific books. Yes, for classics of literature they might, even if small, but not for most other fields

Over the years I just found it more convenient to buy a book, whether new or second-hand, rather than keep traipsing back to the library. I like to take my time with a book and not be under a deadline.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I defy you to find my fanzine collection on Kindle. Parts of it are available on fanfic sites or other fan sites, but some of it is actually forbidden to be posted online (Marion Zimmer Bradley's estate said so, but screw them; the fanfic sites don't police the Darkover stories that are in non-English languages and they haven't bothered with the English ones either, in recent years).

Sounds like an impressive collection! Mine is limited by moving too frequently to want to accumulate many more.

I've moved a lot in the past 15 years, and most of my books went with me every single time. Yes, they're heavy, and yes, it's a pain to pack them. But I need my library, both for reading and research, but also for my mental health. I don't feel comfortable in a place that doesn't have abundant reading material. Even my current bedtime reading consists of a choice between a Doctor Who fanzine and an anthology of alt-history stories. I also have a notebook and pens handy in case an idea for one of my own stories or filksongs occurs to me and I need to write it down in a hurry.

There are books in Lolcat? Klingon does not surprise me, but Lolcat does!

The Cheezburger site used to sell collections of captioned lolpic books and calendars. Not to mention that you could at one time buy the Lolcat Bible (the bible was translated into Lolcat). It's available free online, though I think you have to use the Internet Archive now to find it. If memory serves, someone started a Lolcat Shakespeare project, as well.

I can just imagine Hamlet's most famous soliloquy: "2 naps or nawt 2 naps... dats a reely gud kweschun..."

Someone translated the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" into Lolcat, complete with screenshots and even lolcat commercials. Imagine an episode of Star Trek with everyone speaking in Impact...

Another side benefit of the Internet and the switch towards e-books, I've found it's much more likely that I can renew a book than it used to be, and I can do it from home. Which in turn has increased my positive disposition towards libraries, as you are right, it was always annoying to be partway through a book and be at the really good part and then have to return it.

The e-books with a waitlist don't have that benefit.

The nice thing about owning the book is that you never have to worry about renewing it. There are some books that take me a day or so to read. Some take a couple of days to a week. The big ones might take a month. That Antony & Cleopatra one took several months.

I have a copy of Armageddon 2419, a Buck Rogers novel, that I started reading sometime around 1978 or so. I haven't finished it yet.

 

[Takhisis]

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

I suspect that it was inevitable that they'd develop in the first place.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I LOVE Zany Golf. And I know that some folks here have told me that it's available for PC, and I've honestly tried it. But it's not playable, and I can't figure out why.

I use the WinUAE emulator for playing Amiga games on the PC. It is, I believe, free BUT it does require the Amiga kickstart ROMs which are not freely available. You can buy Amiga Forever which includes the emulator AND ROMs, but I don't know how much that costs these days (Edit: $19.95 apparently, in presumably US currency). Alternative sources for the ROMs may be available.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thank you for offering. Money's tight these days, though, so it will have to wait.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Thank you for offering. Money's tight these days, though, so it will have to wait.

Sure is. The Under Construction gif guy is on Linkedin looking for a new job.