As a freshman at UC Berkeley in September 1993, I got a front-row seat to this experience. It was my own awakening to this amazing small-world of academics and

As a freshman at UC Berkeley in September 1993, I got a front-row seat to this experience. It was my own awakening to this amazing small-world of academics and amateurs that extended beyond the reach of the physical analogue where I had just started attending classes. Looking back, I'd estimate that it took another 4-6 years before the usenet I met in those years died. Some obscure parts held on longer than others. It was an influx of trolls at the same time that legitimate traffic slowly died off. Back then, I blamed the web forums that were starting to divert and diffuse participation. I hadn't yet come to appreciate the insatiable need for humans to form ranks and piss on things. To not only root their identity and self-worth in the exclusive, the new, but to try to salt the earth and deny others the use of unoccupied ground. Now, I recognize more cycles and waves to everything. I have an almost, but not quite, Buddhist outlook on the nature of things. But, it doesn't bring me satisfaction nor clarity. It's hard to put to words, but is more defeatism or morose nostalgia. It's hard not to think that the imagined mountains of youth aren't really sand dunes that slip and flow to consume every step of a futile climb. All this activity and change may be the thin layer of growth on coral, or the irregular fringe of a petri dish.