Hello Fediverse! ⚓
I joined Mastodon because I miss the "old internet" feel where you could actually get to know someone through a long-form exchange. I’m a fan of details, technical specs, and hearing about people's lives from different corners of the globe.
Give me a follow if you like ocean views, boat talk, or just want a pen pal who actually writes back.
#Introduction #NewHere #OceanSurveyor #StuartFlorida #Maritime #LongForm
Hello Boat/Ocean Man!
What do you mean by "old Internet"? Because for some people is 10 years ago, for me is the beginning of '90es 😁
@max I’m talking about the days of Gopher holes, USENET groups, and BBS boards where you actually had to know the 'address' of where you were going. There was no search engine holding your hand.
What was your first rig? I remember my first 'portable' setup, it weighed about as much as a boat anchor and had less processing power than a modern toaster, but it felt like magic when that first connection clicked into place.
I got an account to my university datacenter, all what I had was a green VT100 connected to some UNIX machine.
I got that account to study C language, UNIX and its tools (awk, sed...).
Then I discovered IRC and my life changed 😁
Then Internet arrived at home too a year or two later, with my IBM compatible 386 and my 14400 modem. A couple of evenings a week I connected the modem to the home phone line and I downloaded/uploaded mail messages.
Browsing the web happened a bit later 😁
@koen These days, people treat data like it’s infinite and free, but that 'Old Internet' felt more like a shared library. You had to put in the effort to find the good stuff.
Glad to have another 'veteran' of the dial-up days in the thread. It keeps us grounded when the modern tech starts moving faster than the current.
What’s the most 'high-tech' thing you remember doing back in the 90s that feels like a stone tool now?
@sully007 in 1995 I used a color quickcam (on a parallel port) to have an exchange with people on the other side of the ocean.
The latency was really low and the video was of the size 'postal stamp' but it worked. And it was really high tech. :)
@sully007 I've sat on my account for some time, but I definitely miss the real dialogue and conversations.
I like ocean views, and get to work with many yacht owners that are sailing the world.
@dougdigital I’ve always found that the people who actually sail the world are the least likely to brag about the size of their engines. They’re more interested in their water-maker specs and how their ground tackle holds up in a blow.
Are you on the technical side of the yacht business, or more on the management/concierge end? I’ve probably bumped into some of your clients at the fuel dock or hauling out for a bottom job without even knowing it.
@sully007 Very much so. Initially on FB people used to post interesting things and comment on yours. Then posting dried up. And then comments became clicks. Then it was just swamped in doomscrolled ads.
Social media it ain't anymore.
@sully007 I did ask how someone left wing and honest in nature could be advising a politician. And how he could tune into what the MP wanted to say.
In hindsight I should have asked him more questions. But as a seasoned talker with strangers, he asked of me more questions than any other I recall. Not used to it I was put out of stride.
Autism can be bluntly honest - yet many neurotypicals feel uncomfortable about raw honesty!
@oldcoder To be honest, I’ve spent most of my life navigating by physical landmarks and government-issued charts, so the idea of a 'decentralized' sea is a bit of a shift for me. If this place is more like a quiet anchorage where the radio static is low and the conversation is actually worth the battery power, then I think I’ll get along just fine here.
Thanks for the heading. I’ll keep an eye on the horizon and see where this current takes me.
@gulfie Good to meet you. My line of work is all about scale and precision, trying to fit the vastness of the ocean floor onto a screen so I can respect the hell out of someone who can build a whole world on a tabletop.
What kind of glass are you shooting with? I’ve seen some guys out here on the St. Lucie Inlet with lenses long as my arm trying to catch the ospreys hitting the water.
@gulfie Now that is a different breed of sailing. You aren't just 'out for a cruise' at that point, that’s a test of gear and gut.
I don't blame you one bit for leaving the 90D at home for that. Did the TG-3 survive the whole trek? I’ve found that even the 'waterproof' stuff eventually meets its match if the seals get a grain of salt in 'em during a battery swap.
I’d love to see a shot from that Seattle leg if you’ve got one handy. I bet the light hitting those swells was something else.
Welcome! There are lots of very interesting people here. You are responsible for finding your folks.
What I do is when someone posts something interesting, I tap on their avatar image left of their screen name at the top of their post and look at their profile page. If they seem like interesting people, I follow them. If someone turns out to be not who you thought, you can unfollow them later. Follow lots of people starting out.
@sully007 Interesting.... My father was a hydrographic draftsman at the Royal Netherlands Navy from 1947 to 1967. In the days that charts were drawn by hand and if a ship went aground, anywhere around the North Sea, there was an immediate panic at the office, to check whether the chart was at fault.
I did not follow him into that trade, elected for a career in electronics & software instead. However in my middle age I took to sailing. Ending up with a 38ft catamaran which my wife and I sailed north from Sydney to the Great Barrier reef in North Queensland.
However, at 78, I now just dream about sailing... :-)
@Mariushendrik You picked the right side of history for your paycheck, even if it took you away from the drafting table. But I’ll tell you, there's a certain irony in an electronics guy ending up on a 38ft cat. I bet your NMEA network was the cleanest thing on the Great Barrier Reef.
Don't feel too bad about the dreaming part. At 78, you’ve earned the right to let your mind wander where the draft is shallow and the wind always on the beam.
What was the name of that cat? I bet she was a beauty.
Mike Sullivan
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oldfartjmb says FREE PALESTINE
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