I am appearing on a panel at Southern Connecticut State University tonight, talking about blogging. What expertise could I have?
Among the subjects I hope they touch on are the permanence of things placed on the Internet. Stay something stupid… do something stupid… it lasts forever. Who can live through that scrutiny?
I needed a good, practical way to demonstrate what I’m talking about, so I searched for my first recorded Internet comment. As it turns out, it was from 15 years ago this coming Sunday.
Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!bcm!convex!darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!WCSUB.CTSTATEU.EDU!FOXG
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%”INGRAFX%PSUVM.Bit…@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU”
Message-ID: <921111123853.2b436aed@WCSUB.CTSTATEU.EDU>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ingrafx
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:38:53 -0500
Sender: “Information Graphics”
From: F…@WCSUB.CTSTATEU.EDU
Subject: RE: examples, please
Lines: 2
Please… more on the UIUC thunderstorm simulations.
Geoff Fox
The message itself was sent on Usenet, a network of discussion groups. Back then it was a large part of the net. Today, it’s a repository for tech discussions and porn… not necessarily in that order.
Pithy, right? It was my response to a previous posting. Obviously, I wasn’t satisfied with the depth of information available.
As unimportant as this posting was, it’s been saved. Today I am glad it wasn’t a flame or curse filled rant. I had no clue it would live on beyond that moment.
Parts of my life aren’t pretty. I went places and did things I’d rather not remember. I’m glad the Internet didn’t start archiving my stuff until I was past 40!
“Today, it’s a repository for tech discussions and porn…”
Don’t forget illegal file sharing! That’s a big part of USENET these days. I believe the RIAA caught on and is suing one of the websites that access USENET. (Don’t remember which one, though)
-A
I was in the class tonight. This was by far the best panel discussion of the semester. You did great just by being yourself.
Ok, this is funny…. just above, you are correcting a post.
Well, in yours…
‘Stay something stupid… do something stupid… it lasts forever. Who can live through that scrutiny?’
Shouldn’t that be ‘SAY something stupid…..’?
—-
Geoff adds:
Beth is right and it has been corrected. All I want for Christmas is an editor.