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The Max Headroom Incident

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Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#81

Post by FredPret »

notakio wrote: post #66
FredPret wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not much of an internet without mass participation though

As someone who was online in 1987, I've found the internet significantly less enjoyable as it has become filled with "regular people", hoping to share the knowledge they don't have with people who didn't ask for it in the first place. While I get what you're saying, there was also a time and place where you could wonder aloud how to do $technical_thing_x on $platform_y and get a knowledgable, competent response from…

The bulk of humanity have been endowed with sci-fi superpowers thanks to Wikipedia, Google, Google Maps, remote work, shopping from home, etc.

As for the nerds who lost their online paradise? They are now in insane demand, earning eye-watering salaries and company valuations, and rising to the top of the social ladder.

It’s not perfect, but it is bloody good.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#82

Post by zikduruqe »

jccalhoun wrote: post #54
criddell wrote: post #13

Is there a statute of limitations for a crime like this? I'd love to find out who did it, how they did it, and why they did it and have no interest in seeing anybody punished for something so harmless that happened a long time ago... Same goes for other famous unsolved crimes like the D.B. Cooper case.

I'm always amazed that people can keep a secret like this. I don't know if I could resist telling everyone I knew that I did it.

Myself and a group of friends were RF hackers back in the early 90's. It was really easy to do and honestly back then, people didn't overshare like they do today. It was (and is) not hard to keep things in our past a secret.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#83

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #74
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, the parent alluded to pranks they did in the past, of which we know nothing about and I expect many of which were more asshole than they were awesome. The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused…

I could not disagree more. The world needs more joy, not less of it. This type of prank is the sort of thing I think that uplifts humanity, whereas you see it as a scourge. I could not care less about people having their TV programming interrupted, and everybody has had shitty days at work. I feel like we're looking at art, and I'm admiring it and you're calling it scandalous. I think we're just two people that would…

> I could not care less about people having their TV programming interrupted, and everybody has had shitty days at work

Yet you feel it is somehow contributing to the world to intentionally create shitty days at work and not give a shit about people trying to enjoy what they're watching?

> I think we're just two people that would hate each other in real life and leave it at that

Yeah, I generally don't like people who think it is ok to take their entertainment in the form of making others miserable.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#84

Post by mattl »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #76
h2odragon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBS was the thing then. Compuserve and such. Talker BBS chat boards run on "OMG WTF is that" stacks of C64 hardware (look up "commodore 64 1Megabyte RAM") or gronkulicious clusters of RBBS hosts. There were UUCP gateways to netnews an mail built out of ignorance and Qbasic by some insane hacker but that was bout as deep as "internet" penetrated. "Joliet One" had a 3b2 but they were pretty restrictive with their feeds…

I had a C64 and my mom bought me a CompuServe starter kit at some point in the 80's. I think it was something like $6 an hour off-peak and over $20 an hour during peak hours, which might not even include long distance charges depending on where you were. That would be $20 an hour off-peak and over $60 peak in today's dollars. For 300 bits per second. For practical purposes, the internet did not exist for people like…

For practical purposes smartphones don't exist for a lot of people today, but we're not saying we're in the pre-smartphone era.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#85

Post by rufus_foreman »

mattl wrote: post #84
rufus_foreman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a C64 and my mom bought me a CompuServe starter kit at some point in the 80's. I think it was something like $6 an hour off-peak and over $20 an hour during peak hours, which might not even include long distance charges depending on where you were. That would be $20 an hour off-peak and over $60 peak in today's dollars. For 300 bits per second. For practical purposes, the internet did not exist for people like…

For practical purposes smartphones don't exist for a lot of people today, but we're not saying we're in the pre-smartphone era.

If a smartphone cost a dollar a minute to use, we would be saying we're in the pre-smartphone era.

Edit: sorry, per minute, not per hour.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#86

Post by OnlineGladiator »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #83
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more. The world needs more joy, not less of it. This type of prank is the sort of thing I think that uplifts humanity, whereas you see it as a scourge. I could not care less about people having their TV programming interrupted, and everybody has had shitty days at work. I feel like we're looking at art, and I'm admiring it and you're calling it scandalous. I think we're just two people that would…

> I could not care less about people having their TV programming interrupted, and everybody has had shitty days at work Yet you feel it is somehow contributing to the world to intentionally create shitty days at work and not give a shit about people trying to enjoy what they're watching? > I think we're just two people that would hate each other in real life and leave it at that Yeah, I generally don't like people wh…

And I don't like pearl clutchers who shit on others for having fun because they don't know how to have it themselves. Jesus dude, develop a sense of humor. You'll enjoy life more.

The part you're failing to understand is that from my perspective you are the person making the world a worse place. I understand why you don't like me, but you don't seem to understand why some people don't like you. Anyway, like I said before, we're not going to find common ground.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#87

Post by rufus_foreman »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #80
rufus_foreman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a C64 and my mom bought me a CompuServe starter kit at some point in the 80's. I think it was something like $6 an hour off-peak and over $20 an hour during peak hours, which might not even include long distance charges depending on where you were. That would be $20 an hour off-peak and over $60 peak in today's dollars. For 300 bits per second. For practical purposes, the internet did not exist for people like…

University access.

My mom worked at a university when she bought me the C64 and the starter kit. Towards the end of this period, I was going to university. We did not have that type of access.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#88

Post by mattl »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #85
mattl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For practical purposes smartphones don't exist for a lot of people today, but we're not saying we're in the pre-smartphone era.

If a smartphone cost a dollar a minute to use, we would be saying we're in the pre-smartphone era. Edit: sorry, per minute, not per hour.

I'm sure there are places in the world where a smartphone basically costs way more than that.

Just because your access was a dollar an hour, does not mean it didn't exist.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#89

Post by mark-r »

leephillips wrote: post #25
h2odragon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TV stations used a big transmitter up on the Sears tower for their real signal. That got fed by a little microwave dish antenna pointed out to a relay "in the city". So if you could get an angle on the dish with a transmitter of sufficient power, you could feed your own signal into whatever channel. "Hauling equipment up to the roof without getting caught" and "having haul-able equipment" are the technical challe…

Thanks for the details! (But would you need to haul equipment up to the roof? Couldn’t you insert your transmitter anywhere in the line of sight?)

The frequencies involved would be blocked by buildings, so the "line of sight" would necessarily be above them. Thus, rooftop.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#90

Post by jaywalk »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #71
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really reaching here. The prank was awesome, and you're generalizing pranks to being an asshole. If you're embarrassed by a prank like this as an adult that doesn't make you mature; it makes you boring. Nobody got hurt so how was anyone an asshole?

For one, the parent alluded to pranks they did in the past, of which we know nothing about and I expect many of which were more asshole than they were awesome. The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused…

Well, it didn't happen in the middle of the night, so nobody got woken up in the middle of the night.

You need more joy in your life if you see this as an asshole move.

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