Tag Archives: USENET

August 7, 2016

More Notes

There are some notes that laid on the top of my possible next posts pile for a long time. Like the notes I posted recently, these clearly migrated from the same old boxes that I’m now excavating more seriously.

The ink is faded, and I can identify a fountain pen I used decades ago. I apparently thought they had potential. But as little statements on life — being from a younger me — they now seem trite and bumper sticker simplistic. Yet they’ve had just enough flavor to keep them out of the wastebasket.

I’m tired of looking at them. Here they are.

1 Comment | tags: big world, Dunning-Kruger effect, gravel, idle thoughts, old notes, USENET | posted in Writing

December 15, 2013

BB #31: Troll Bait

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve noticed over the years a drift in term (Internet) Troll. It’s possible the original sort of Troll isn’t around much anymore — for several reasons I don’t hang out socially on the internet much anymore. There is also that not everyone agrees with the original definition (although I think the evidence is clear).

So this is either a commemoration or a bid for language purity, I’m not sure which. Actually, it hardly matters which; the point is incredibly trivial, but it’s Sunday, and I’m feeling too lazy for serious thought. (It’s funny, but even in retirement I find I keep a weekly cycle in which the weekend signals different activity — time away from the computer mostly!)

My point is, an Internet Troll is a very specific creature.

4 Comments | tags: discussion, internet, Internet Troll, interweb, social media, trolling, trolls, USENET | posted in Brain Bubble, The Interweb

August 25, 2012

The CASA Boogie

By Wyrd Smythe

The other entry for Skydiving Saturday is another USENET post I made to rec.skydiving in August 1999.

And there’s a nice connection to posting these in August as I did with the three last year describing the first and second Tandem jumps and the first AFF jump. The girl friend and I made those two Tandem jumps in August of 1997, so August is the month it all began.

While we started AFF school that September, and finished the following March, the day of jumping described below (one of our most fun times as the drop zone) took place on a very hot day in August of 1999. A lot of things started to go downhill after that, so in a number of ways this represents one of the high points in our lives. It was definitely one of those days to press in your memory book.

4 Comments | tags: boogie, CASA, rec.skydiving, skydiving, USENET | posted in Life

August 25, 2012

AFF Graduation!

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s Skydiving Saturday at Logos con carne! I’m working on the upcoming TV Tuesday, so this weekend I’m going to coast a bit with some easy posts and archive excavations.

It’s also a good time to enjoy the end of lazy summer before we go back to school. After all, Logos CC is also about philosophy and computers and science (oh, my).

There are many meaty topics on the grill for later, but for now it’s free fall time!

2 Comments | tags: AFF, AFF jump, rec.skydiving, skydiving, USENET | posted in Life

August 2, 2011

Sideband #25: 64-Bit Address

By Wyrd Smythe

A long, long time ago on a USENET far, far away, I was part of a debate that started with the idea that, even if we had disk drives with 64-bit addressing, people would still fill them up with videos, images and whatnot.

The idea grew from some of us old-timers reminiscing about our first brick-sized 5-meg hard drive and how we thought, “Gee, I’ll never fill that up!” (And look how that turned out; I have single image files that wouldn’t fit on that drive!)

The premise was that, even with seriously gigantic hard drives, we’d still manage to fill them and need more, more, more…

1 Comment | tags: 64-bit, big numbers, bytes, disk drive, exabyte, hard drive, petabyte, terabyte, USENET | posted in Computers, Math, Movies, Sideband