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The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

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Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#11

Post by swatcoder »

bdw5204 wrote: post #5

> There's not much that's bad on the Net Given the EFF email address, I think that's probably a quote from the same Mike Godwin of "Godwin's Law" fame. In other words, somebody who would have known what he was talking about. It'd be unimaginable for any informed person to say that about today's internet. I'm not sure how much of that was that life was just better in the 90s when there were few real problems in the wo…

The 90’s were rife with problems all over the world.

Just not as much for the nerds and curious professionals from “the West” that were playfully developing the internet like a quirky little collaborative art gallery.

The demographics of the internet were just very different then. I don’t think it’s so much a change in the character of the world that makes it different now, so much as that nearly the whole breadth of the world are staking claims in it, and thus a lot of the contention and animosity that has always existed in the real world now finally shows up here too.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#12

Post by anthk »

>Nethack. A dungeon-exploration game to which even non-Dungeons and Dragons fanatics can become addicted. Every adventure game has monsters and magic items, but Nethack has so many monsters, magic items, puzzling situations, and amazing secrets that you'll completely forget about the ASCII graphics. It's the most complex and thought-intensive adventure you'll experience on the Net (to access Nethack, FTP to linc.cis.upenn.edu /pub/NH3.1/binaries; also read rec.games.roguelike.nethack).

I still play it today, but under Slashem.

A crazy thing: Nethack 3.4.3 was released in 2003 and it was for long THE latest release of Nethack until the 3.6.x banch. Thus, that release was ported to anything capable, from Amigas to Ataris, Windows, DOS, PowerPC Macs, M68k Macs, Solaris boxes, the PSP, Android, iOS... everything.

Oh, and the lack of releases until Nethack 3.6.x helped Slashem to develop a lot.

>The Internet Chess Server. Always near to bursting with activity, you're guaranteed to find a chess mate of your skill level. Brush the cobwebs off your game or challenge a grandmaster. I personally keep a physical chess board handy so I can better visualize the game (to access, telnet to ics.onenet.net 5000).

telnet freechess.org 5000. Same spirit. Use XBoard if you want some GUI.

>Software that handles virtually all network functions via one seamless interface will emerge and begin to dominate the commercial Internet marketplace.

Netscape and Mozilla Suite. Now Chrome it's almost an OS.

For the rest: http://theoldnet.com

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#13

Post by yellowstuff »

bdw5204 wrote: post #5

> There's not much that's bad on the Net Given the EFF email address, I think that's probably a quote from the same Mike Godwin of "Godwin's Law" fame. In other words, somebody who would have known what he was talking about. It'd be unimaginable for any informed person to say that about today's internet. I'm not sure how much of that was that life was just better in the 90s when there were few real problems in the wo…

Consider that “Don’t ask don’t tell” was a progressive policy in 1994, and reassess whether even in the US things were better for most people then than they are now.

The quickest way to contextualize this article is that it’s like asking crypto true believers to write about crypto a few years ago, just as it was becoming mainstream. Of course someone said there were no real problems on the internet.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#15

Post by AnimalMuppet »

fein wrote: post #3

> Cancelbot wars. As spamming and the spam-killing cancelbots become more widespread, people will find their Usenet News messages canceled by someone who simply doesn't like them. Cancelbot software will spread, as people begin editing out opposing views and unfriendly ideas. Prescient. This is automoderator on Reddit to a T.

It was also the alt.scientology war.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#16

Post by antod »

swatcoder wrote: post #11
bdw5204 wrote: post #5

> There's not much that's bad on the Net Given the EFF email address, I think that's probably a quote from the same Mike Godwin of "Godwin's Law" fame. In other words, somebody who would have known what he was talking about. It'd be unimaginable for any informed person to say that about today's internet. I'm not sure how much of that was that life was just better in the 90s when there were few real problems in the wo…

The 90’s were rife with problems all over the world. Just not as much for the nerds and curious professionals from “the West” that were playfully developing the internet like a quirky little collaborative art gallery. The demographics of the internet were just very different then. I don’t think it’s so much a change in the character of the world that makes it different now, so much as that nearly the whole breadth of…

> The 90’s were rife with problems all over the world.

Yeah, I think the difference is how disconnected from the real world the internet/web felt in the 90s. It felt like a different dimension you entered - and "cyberspace" was non ironically talked about as a separate space, and culturally people wanted it to be a separate space with separate norms.

Now it kinda feels like the two worlds have encroached so far on each other they mostly overlap - and both seem hell bent on ruining the other.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#17

Post by kortilla »

bdw5204 wrote: post #5

> There's not much that's bad on the Net Given the EFF email address, I think that's probably a quote from the same Mike Godwin of "Godwin's Law" fame. In other words, somebody who would have known what he was talking about. It'd be unimaginable for any informed person to say that about today's internet. I'm not sure how much of that was that life was just better in the 90s when there were few real problems in the wo…

The bar for getting online is so much different we just get a full cross section of society. Many homeless people have internet access via a smartphone today, and in the 90s it was basically just upper middle class, rich people, and university students.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#19

Post by warning26 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #15
fein wrote: post #3

> Cancelbot wars. As spamming and the spam-killing cancelbots become more widespread, people will find their Usenet News messages canceled by someone who simply doesn't like them. Cancelbot software will spread, as people begin editing out opposing views and unfriendly ideas. Prescient. This is automoderator on Reddit to a T.

It was also the alt.scientology war.

Can you elaborate? This sounds like an interesting bit of early internet drama/history.

Re: The best and worst of 1994 and predictions for '95

#20

Post by echelon »

antod wrote: post #16
swatcoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 90’s were rife with problems all over the world. Just not as much for the nerds and curious professionals from “the West” that were playfully developing the internet like a quirky little collaborative art gallery. The demographics of the internet were just very different then. I don’t think it’s so much a change in the character of the world that makes it different now, so much as that nearly the whole breadth of…

> The 90’s were rife with problems all over the world. Yeah, I think the difference is how disconnected from the real world the internet/web felt in the 90s. It felt like a different dimension you entered - and "cyberspace" was non ironically talked about as a separate space, and culturally people wanted it to be a separate space with separate norms. Now it kinda feels like the two worlds have encroached so far on ea…

The internet until around the time of Facebook felt magically obscure.

Sure, lots of people were using it. But many of them couldn't openly advertise their feelings or form social groups. It was a domain of the technical and the young.

There won't be anything else like that feeling.

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