I feel like mastodon would appreciate this unopened 1998 three tape documentary about the pre bubble internet i found at my parent’s house
Naturally someone already uploaded the whole thing to archive.org https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Nerds+2.0.1+-+A+Brief+History+of+the+Internet%22
Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Towards the start of this a woman says that every year spent on the web ages you by seven years, so even though she’s 35, because her last year was a Web Year, she feels like she’s actually 42. This explains why everyone in the year 2025 is insane
@hannah longer than you think! longer than you think!
@hannah By that math, I'm over two centuries old. That sure explains a few things.
@hannah this does NOT bode well for me

@hannah

yeah that really has surprisingly concise explanatory power

@hannah I'm over 100 years by that metric then. Hahahahahahahaha
@hannah oh man that must be a real wild watch now
@hannah "Bob Cringely" feels incredibly on the nose
@carithlee he’s still around! https://www.cringely.com (it’s a pseudonym)
I, Cringely

on technology

I, Cringely - on technology
@hannah @carithlee wait, how did you get this to work just one hour ago (since it generated a link preview) and now the site is broken?! It says the WP Engine site is not configured for me!
@scott @carithlee an old school slashdotting
@hannah @scott I've heard that all of the fedi servers independently fetching link previews for a toot can cause a li'l DDoS on some smaller sites.
@varx @hannah @scott Can confirm. Volume was in the lower thousands but if you can't handle that (e.g. if the linked-to page is huuuuge), could be an issue.

"...attractive AND easy to use!"

Yikes. That... is cringely.
@carithlee @hannah

@hannah they had this as part of a little display at the RE-PC in Tukwila! i was so curious!

@hannah I downloaded this doc like a million years ago when Demonoid was around.

This is the first time seeing the physical packaging. Good stuff

@hannah "Oh yeah, well if nerds are so great, why didn't they make nerds 2?"

(Later)

We regret the need for a bugfix release of Nerds 2.0....

@hannah Strange of them to say that the guy is called Bob Cringely when it's clearly just Linus Torvalds lmfaoooo
@hannah well that quote from Ellison hasn't aged well, has it?
@praetor @hannah Yeah, my first thought. Capitalism destroys everything.
@praetor @hannah it’s aged like fine milk.

@hannah from the cringely box art i was 100% sure this was some sort of obviousplant hoax, until i'd watched a few minutes in

wow

@hannah
> Bob Cringely

Ah so that's where the modern meaning of "cringe" came from

@hannah

Netscape, AOL, Microsoft, Apple, 3Com

"One of these things is not like the other...now can you tell which one..."

@hannah oh shit I bet @vilmibm and @vcr would love to broadcast this
@vilmibm @hannah (also, summer was crazy, but now that the kid is back in school I can also be more available to run streams if we plan ahead, I still owe everyone that EBN tape)
@hannah Bob Cringely… now there’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
@hannah That is nothing short of awesome.
@hannah These are so good. I must look again.
@hannah @GossiTheDog version one had an awesome naked hot tub scene with woz.
@hannah the gold Casio fits the vibe perfectly!
@hannah I vividly remember watching this. I loved Triumph of the Nerds so much I somehow found a transcription of the episodes and printed them all out.
@hannah is this that same doc that has the crazy ping of death animation sequence in it?
@hannah We're still stuck on "serving the suits" ;_;
(corporate suits anyway)
@hannah i had happily forgotten about Bob Cringely, until now
@hannah i'd love it if those tapes screamed at you in pre-internetese
@hannah
Oh how I wish you cpuld open that and reset time...
@hannah huuuuuh; why does Bob Cringely look like James Franco's dad or brother or something?