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[robot_god]

I used to get a kick out of starting the thread, but now I just wait until someone else does it.

[Arachno-capitalist]

This guy is totally right. We need to rise up against our oppressive overlords. How dare they want clear dates, fuck them, fuck this board. ASSBAR RULES.

[jaydub]

Also, I just had one of these moments. 

...someone is wrong on the internet

Sooo many late nights and tardy arrivals due to this.  So many.

[Doc]

Aww I missed the fun.
As is traditional I'd like to put forth the theory that Farqussus is totally Onstad.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Isn't it spelled "whoa?"

[V-Adore]

Man, if God didn't want us to have Internet fiefdoms, he wouldn't have made so many goddamn Internet peasants.

(I could get really pretentious here and compare this board more to Renaissance Europe, where a massive die-off offered the opportunity for social mobility and the growth of fresh culture and a true middle/noveau-riche class outside the traditional lines of nobility, but a) it would be pretentious and b) Farkwad would probably show up to yell at me for thinkin', as is so outside the assbarian code.)

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah, my eyes glazed over when he spoke positively of the assbar.

[theinevitable]

I am pretty sure LFM made this joke, but,
SUCKS TO YOUR ASSBAR!

[Pedro Picasso]

Jamie showed me this thread last night.  It made me wonder how many of us are familiar with the phrase "the September that never ended."

You can look at it on the Jargon File or on whatever wikiWYSIWYG newfangledies the kids use today; you know, if reading is your thing.

Basically it's the tragic tale of how the net used to be all old hands.  All DARPA and professors and grad students.  And then every September there would be a new influx of freshman, and they would know nothing of etiquette or what had come before, and within a short period the huge majority of experienced users would inculcate manners into them.  In 1993 a company called America Online connected its largely inexperienced users with the internet's leading message system, USENET.  The resulting flood of uninitiated users overran the cultured few, and the internet has been a cesspool ever since.

Several things strike me about this story.  One is the fact that it repeats over and over again with different players and settings.  Another is the fact that hackers (in the elder sense) are both so unattached to existing convention that they freely create new jargon, but so neurotic that they rigorously maintain a records of their culture as it thrashes and dies and is reborn.  The most powerful thing that I take away is the fact that I first heard the word "internet" in 1993.  I was playing around on BBSes and learning how to craft a persona that wasn't connected with my physical appearance, but I wasn't on the internet.  I didn't even have an AOL account yet. 

In short, what I take away from 'the September that never ended' is that I am not a member of the cultured few.  I am a part of the cesspool.  And from my perspective, the cesspool is more interesting.  I love how this place welcomes newbs.  I don't love how some of them are brash and uncultured.  It makes me flare up like a street flare with ten pieces of flair.  But it often helps to remember that I am part of the cesspool.  And that the cesspool is often more interesting.


Hmmm....  I would probably post more if I didn't feel the need to drop volumes of reflective self-importance in each <textarea>.  I'll work on that.

[wombat]

  And that the cesspool is often more interesting.

Yeah but... I had email back when only grad students and professors had it. Only people you wanted to hear from were able to send you messages. Not bosses and administrations sending mass memos about things you didn't need to know about. Not people who wanted to sell you Viagra. Not... you get the picture.

Yeah, and neither could I, in those days, buy black sesame caramel candy online and have it shipped directly from Japan.  Or read Achewood. But still it was a golden age in some ways.

[lprkn]

Some proper shit.

It would appear that there is yet some classiness left in this old internet.

[Doc]

Hmmm....  I would probably post more if I didn't feel the need to drop volumes of reflective self-importance in each <textarea>.  I'll work on that.

The thing you should be working on is the belief that you shouldn't post awesome and insightful content. I, at least, love reflective self importance. What board did you think you were posting on?