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I also lost a point or two off my GPA playing WoW/EVE, and lurking 4chan. Now I work at Google and life isn't nearly as fun. Some days I wish I could go back,

I also lost a point or two off my GPA playing WoW/EVE, and lurking 4chan. Now I work at Google and life isn't nearly as fun. Some days I wish I could go back, so cheer up m8.

ckozlowski 9y ago
As I hit my mid 30s, I look back at all of this and I find myself missing it terribly. It's not like today is bad. But back then, it was really neat. I was too young to experience BBS and Usenet; I grew up with AOL and Geocities, and when the 2000s hit and I could convince my parents to get a cable modem, things were just off the wall. I spent a lot of time on forums too, overclocking this or that, or waking up for alarm clock-ops in EVE. I met people at LAN parties who I ended up working for later; set up servers to host our Unreal Tournament matches and learned to edit and repackage files so I could run around Jedi Knight as Deadpool with a lightsaber. I cringe thinking about some of the stupid arguments I got in, things I wrote on my blog, my livejournal, on the forum. I like to think I learned a lot about how people feel their way through an argument, and how a flame war gets started. One evening, when I'm not trolling HN at 1AM, I'll sit down and write how the early 2000s affected us all and set us up for today. I wish it was so fresh and new like it felt to me then. But I don't feel like today isn't as fun...but it definitely is different. I'm inclined to think that it's on us now to determine what the next chapter will be, what we will create that is fun that the next 18 year old will experience tomorrow and go "this is f&@#ing awesome." Gonna go play some Descent. =)
- mercer 9y ago
  > I spent a lot of time on forums too, overclocking this or that, or waking up for alarm clock-ops in EVE. I met people at LAN parties who I ended up working for later; set up servers to host our Unreal Tournament matches and learned to edit and repackage files so I could run around Jedi Knight as Deadpool with a lightsaber. As someone approaching mid-thirties, aside from EVE that's pretty much me you're describing. Jedi Knight was my first foray into modding. I never release anything, but spent a lot of time in JKEdit (and/or that other editor). I also working on two UT and UT2003 mods after that. Then there were the LAN parties, coping tons of crap from each other computers in between Quake and whatnot. There was also local play: Comet Busters, Liero, Molez, One Must Fall 2097, Wacky Wheels. And the flash stuff! Salad Fingers, Strongbad, that thing with the cats singing Independent Women in a French accent. JeffK, Cliff Yablonski Hates You. The drama fascinated me too: the TTLG forums and their colorful cast of characters, Digg 'selling out' and this new 'reddit' website, etc. > One evening, when I'm not trolling HN at 1AM, I'll sit down and write how the early 2000s affected us all and set us up for today I, for one, would very much like to read more articles like this submitted one about the history of the web, similar to the earlier posts here on the days of Ultima. It's far back enough in the past to be worth writing about (damn, makes me feel old) and yet I can't help but feel understanding those developments, or discussing them chronologically, will play an important role in understanding our current world. More, at least, than often superficial articles and theories about Trump/alt-right/Brexit/SJW that are written by people who did not experience what 'we' did.
  - lsadam0 9y ago
    It kinda hurt that I tried to impersonate jeffk in this thread and got downvoted into the negatives. I think people thought I was serious. Now I know for sure that I'm out of touch.

I also lost a point or two off my GPA playing WoW/EVE, and lurking 4chan. Now I work at Google and life isn't nearly as fun. Some days I wish I could go back, so cheer up m8.

ckozlowski 9y ago

As I hit my mid 30s, I look back at all of this and I find myself missing it terribly. It's not like today is bad. But back then, it was really neat. I was too young to experience BBS and Usenet; I grew up with AOL and Geocities, and when the 2000s hit and I could convince my parents to get a cable modem, things were just off the wall. I spent a lot of time on forums too, overclocking this or that, or waking up for alarm clock-ops in EVE. I met people at LAN parties who I ended up working for later; set up servers to host our Unreal Tournament matches and learned to edit and repackage files so I could run around Jedi Knight as Deadpool with a lightsaber. I cringe thinking about some of the stupid arguments I got in, things I wrote on my blog, my livejournal, on the forum. I like to think I learned a lot about how people feel their way through an argument, and how a flame war gets started. One evening, when I'm not trolling HN at 1AM, I'll sit down and write how the early 2000s affected us all and set us up for today. I wish it was so fresh and new like it felt to me then. But I don't feel like today isn't as fun...but it definitely is different. I'm inclined to think that it's on us now to determine what the next chapter will be, what we will create that is fun that the next 18 year old will experience tomorrow and go "this is f&@#ing awesome." Gonna go play some Descent. =)

mercer 9y ago
> I spent a lot of time on forums too, overclocking this or that, or waking up for alarm clock-ops in EVE. I met people at LAN parties who I ended up working for later; set up servers to host our Unreal Tournament matches and learned to edit and repackage files so I could run around Jedi Knight as Deadpool with a lightsaber. As someone approaching mid-thirties, aside from EVE that's pretty much me you're describing. Jedi Knight was my first foray into modding. I never release anything, but spent a lot of time in JKEdit (and/or that other editor). I also working on two UT and UT2003 mods after that. Then there were the LAN parties, coping tons of crap from each other computers in between Quake and whatnot. There was also local play: Comet Busters, Liero, Molez, One Must Fall 2097, Wacky Wheels. And the flash stuff! Salad Fingers, Strongbad, that thing with the cats singing Independent Women in a French accent. JeffK, Cliff Yablonski Hates You. The drama fascinated me too: the TTLG forums and their colorful cast of characters, Digg 'selling out' and this new 'reddit' website, etc. > One evening, when I'm not trolling HN at 1AM, I'll sit down and write how the early 2000s affected us all and set us up for today I, for one, would very much like to read more articles like this submitted one about the history of the web, similar to the earlier posts here on the days of Ultima. It's far back enough in the past to be worth writing about (damn, makes me feel old) and yet I can't help but feel understanding those developments, or discussing them chronologically, will play an important role in understanding our current world. More, at least, than often superficial articles and theories about Trump/alt-right/Brexit/SJW that are written by people who did not experience what 'we' did.
- lsadam0 9y ago
  It kinda hurt that I tried to impersonate jeffk in this thread and got downvoted into the negatives. I think people thought I was serious. Now I know for sure that I'm out of touch.