My lawnmower blew itself up a couple of weeks ago. I am in the process of replacing the engine.
We don't have mice. The scorpions and rattlesnakes kill them all.
Wed Aug 25 2021 19:31:59 EDT from Nurb432I mowed grass last weekend. And relocated 2 mice that got into the house.
I'm just tons of fun.
3 mice this week.
We still dont understand it, i live in a development of houses. We are 2 blocks from the nearest park. ( where i take them to, ya we are one of those .. no kill )
"No, Mickey, I swear to God! I know it is a long walk, but you gotta come. We go to this dude's house, eat some of his food, he catches us - the first time I thought we were goners, but now we let him catch us on purpose. And get this... this is the mind bender... then... he carries us back home!"
Thu Aug 26 2021 16:49:29 EDT from Nurb4323 mice this week.
We still dont understand it, i live in a development of houses. We are 2 blocks from the nearest park. ( where i take them to, ya we are one of those .. no kill )
lol
Fri Aug 27 2021 10:54:37 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions"No, Mickey, I swear to God! I know it is a long walk, but you gotta come. We go to this dude's house, eat some of his food, he catches us - the first time I thought we were goners, but now we let him catch us on purpose. And get this... this is the mind bender... then... he carries us back home!"
Early 90s on my ST, using a dialup SLIP account to local guy that worked for a defense contractor. They let him run a BBS on their vax after hours, what had a darpanet connection.. Or the local college, friend went to school there and we shared his account. would drive down there like at 11pm to download floppy images for stuff like BSD or or minix ( and of course all sorts of shareware..). Upgrading to that 56k modem, was like night and day. Far cry from the old 300 baud acoustic i started with.
Reading Usenet.. vaxchat ( which i think evolved into iRC ).
And of course the local BBS scene, which i 'owned'.
Not too much later, irc parties were cool. Back before that became a cesspool. Ended up meeting a future wife at one.
Ah the good old days, when it was still fun.
I have a "Ten Years of September" shirt and a "Twenty Years of September" shirt. I won't exactly say I'm looking forward to having a Thirty Years one, but I assume I'll be getting one.
What changed?
It is something I think about quite a bit, lately. I'm relatively burned out on the whole thing - but what happened to get here?
And really, online culture is just reflective of society as a whole.
Sun Sep 12 2021 15:49:39 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar"Believe it or not, in the really early days, for the most part, people actually behaved well on the Internet."
I think a couple of things happened:
- The rest of the world got on board and it wasn't just the 'geek' types anymore. Most people are scum by nature and they act as bad as they do on the 'outside', perhaps even worse since they feel insulated from face to face ramifications. We were sort of isolated in the early days. it was 'our' sandbox, but not any more. Sure we had a few scum-geeks, but the % is low.
- Society has deteriorated in general the last 20 or so years i think, and since the 'common folk' live online now, its just 'here' too. Degenerate behaviour is now the mainstream on and off line, not the exception. ( why society is collapsing, that's a totally different debate of course )
I do think the mainstream showing up had a lot to do with it. As people started rolling into Facebook - they were all amazed that I was already there and had been for years - and they were all very, "Uh... how does this work, nerd?" at the start.
Then it started clicking for them - and it has been straight to hell in a handbasket since then.
I mean, that is what started driving me back to places like this. Not even forums are safe - they're too familiar and accessible. You need something with a higher barrier to entry.
Citadel may, admittedly, have the bar set a little TOO high... there are a lot of bright people who I think would be a great addition to the Citadel community who still find Citadel a little too rough around the edges. I thought it was just *MY* Citadel and my domain name... but they won't come here, either.
I'm very disappointed.
Sun Sep 19 2021 09:14:51 EDT from Nurb432I think a couple of things happened:
- The rest of the world got on board and it wasn't just the 'geek' types anymore. Most people are scum by nature and they act as bad as they do on the 'outside', perhaps even worse since they feel insulated from face to face ramifications. We were sort of isolated in the early days. it was 'our' sandbox, but not any more. Sure we had a few scum-geeks, but the % is low.
- Society has deteriorated in general the last 20 or so years i think, and since the 'common folk' live online now, its just 'here' too. Degenerate behaviour is now the mainstream on and off line, not the exception. ( why society is collapsing, that's a totally different debate of course )
I'm not sure its that the barrier is high, as its really not hard to be here. My feeling is that its all perception: Its not spoon fed to them in a rolling feed, and the content is different. They want fancy in your face "click and drool and i see endless pictures and cat videos scrolling past"..
That and you have to get past the "well all my friends are here" ( which is mainly why i still have FB account, that's where friends and family migrated too.. so if i drop that i drop contact )
Sun Sep 19 2021 11:55:14 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusionsI do think the mainstream showing up had a lot to do with it. As people started rolling into Facebook - they were all amazed that I was already there and had been for years - and they were all very, "Uh... how does this work, nerd?" at the start.
Then it started clicking for them - and it has been straight to hell in a handbasket since then.
I mean, that is what started driving me back to places like this. Not even forums are safe - they're too familiar and accessible. You need something with a higher barrier to entry.
Citadel may, admittedly, have the bar set a little TOO high... there are a lot of bright people who I think would be a great addition to the Citadel community who still find Citadel a little too rough around the edges. I thought it was just *MY* Citadel and my domain name... but they won't come here, either.
2021-09-20 07:16 from Nurb432
I'm not sure its that the barrier is high, as its really not hard to
be here. My feeling is that its all perception: Its not spoon fed
to them in a rolling feed, and the content is different. They want
fancy in your face "click and drool and i see endless pictures and
cat videos scrolling past"..
That and you have to get past the "well all my friends are here" (
which is mainly why i still have FB account, that's where friends
and family migrated too.. so if i drop that i drop contact )
There is a well understood phenomenon, according to which, people is more likely to embrace stuff if people like them are doing so.
In practice:
If uncle William and mommy Jane and cousin Jack are all using smoke signals for communication, little Ethan will integrate that smoke signals are what is cool to use because that is what people who Ethan indentifies with uses.
If you come along and tell Ethan of the wonders of the telegraph, he may agree that it is awesome, but won't embrace it, because you are a foreigner, a techie, and therefore use techie solutions, instead of regular solutions like William and Jane and Jack.
This is the reason why the opinions of people whose technical competence is unquestioned DON'T MATTER in practice. If Jane is having trouble with her web browser, which she is using because all her circle of friends is using it, and you suggest her to migrate it to something else, she will tell you:
"HANDS OFF, I WANT NO GEEKY SOFTWARE IN MY LAPTOP!!!!"
Even if your intention was to upgrade her Internet Explorer to another mainstream browser.
So chances are, Willian and Jane and company use "common" web sites because that is what everybody else is using, and if you suggest something else it will be discarded as a crap designed for geeks, whether this is true or not.
Yep. And that is what I mean by "the barrier is too high."
It doesn't look like Facebook. It is too techie. I can't figure it out.
I put up a walkthru on my website - that holds your hand through using a Citadel. No traction. It is different - their minds can't cope.
I was thinking you meant technical barriers. There really isn't any to speak of. Just a bit of common sense and willingness to poke around a little and look.
What changed?
Eternal September, that's what. It really is that simple.
People used to get online at a rate the online communities could absorb, at which they could be taught the societal norms of what used to be the online culture.
Now that it's mainstream, it's as shitty as everything else mainstream. You don't *want* the unwashed masses in your online community. They're a bunch of assholes.
Totally agree
I guess unless you are in it for the ad-revenue. then you do
Fri Sep 24 2021 08:55:12 AM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarYou don't *want* the unwashed masses in your online community. They're a bunch of assholes.