[cross posted to various places because I don't blog] phi...@aleytys.pc.my was the first email address I ever had. For the last fifteen years aleytys was a uucp node and I got my email and usenet via uucp. Today my ISP closed down UUCP and switched me to some unholy combination of cpanel/horde/IMAP. This marks a bitter sweet end to an era. This Christmas I shall offer a small libation to this period of time and probably wax maudlin into my beer.
Once upon a time we heard of this strange wondrous thing called the Internet from far off America. A group of visionaries decided that it was good and that we too should have it. A bunch of loud arrogant American consultants came by and laughed at us saying that a third world country like ours didn't have the smarts to build an internet. It became a point of honour, of pride and so we set forth on a shoe string budget with freeBSD, with Morningstar, NSCS Telnet, SLIPdial, UUCP, with blood, sweat and tears. It wasn't easy, connections were frequently dodgy and our usenet feed was a mag tape flow out of Berkeley once a week. The return trip carried our messages for the previous week and the earliest you could get an answer to your question was a fortnight. But built it we did, node by node, cable by cable. And we proved those arsehole Americans wrong. I was the 39th individual to sign up for an account when they became available. As early adopters every thing was new and there were no precedents. We helped each other and we helped less technically astute users get on the internet in our self help forums and newgroups. We were the new Prometheans bringing the Internet to the masses, we were the Lokapalas. Those were heady days and we the first users jokingly called ourselves "The Jaring Cabal" after our ISP (Jaring Internet). We were the leaders, the defenders and the supporters of the local Internet. I ran several successful RFCs for local usenet usegroups. Others contributed in their own ways. To all the other uucp nodes that were there, thank you all for the camaraderie. We had a real blast then didn't we back when the world was all new and bright and shiny. Back then we even had our own tongue-in-cheek slogan so one more time I shall raise my fist in the air and cry "There is no Cabal! Long live the Jaring Cabal"! phi...@aleytys.pc.my -- Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <philip.c...@gmail.com> http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief, oh Night, and so be good for us to pass. _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
