Margaret Levine Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Remember when AOL connected to the Net and unleashed AOLers on Usenet
> computer-savvy, newsgroups? Much moaning and groaning about the
> declining level of users ensued. (And it was true.)
This reminds me of the arguments we'd see on TV from quasi-concerned
republican moralists some months back about how Clinton was unworthy to
remain in the ranks of esteemed public servants....they meant his
license to be a shyster. It was hilarious.
I wonder if Usenet ever had this golden era. I don't know, I guess; I
only came online in February 1987. What I found is that the archetypal
bright male juvenille with poor social skills was inexact in one detail
- he wasn't very bright. The Net back then was decidedly male,
malevolent, and moronic, no matter they knew how to post articles
properly.
Believe me, the influx of other humans, meaning women and those who may
not have been older than sixteen but at least acted it, was a very
definite improvement. So they didn't always know how to cloverwrap
refractive retro commands in sufflex sendmail Snedley cones, they gave a
sense you were no longer in a junior high locker room.
There is a great paragraph in Death In The Afternoon representing how
the current is always shadowed by the past. You are very fortunate
I don't have it in front of me right now.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tim Bowden)
"The reason you can never go home again
is because you can never leave." - Timocrates
