4 ms·

Man, reading Electric Sheep was the best. I really feel blessed to have been born 50 years ago, today in fact. Living through rise of personal computer, birth o

Man, reading Electric Sheep was the best. I really feel blessed to have been born 50 years ago, today in fact. Living through rise of personal computer, birth of internet, and the explosion on electronic and online art engendered by both.

silentsea90 6y ago
Happy birthday! How was living through the 80s? I wasn't born then but find the subculture fascinating. Did you make gazillions from being invested in tech through the 90s until now (lots of assumptions made here). Do you miss anything about life in the past(beyond nostalgia)?
- ubermonkey 6y ago
  I'm not who you replied to, but I'm the same age. Your questions are interesting so I'll answer anyway. 1. The 80s sucked. I was a dateless nerd in a shitty town in a shitty state for most of it. They got marginally better when I went to college in the more sophisticated and urbane state to the immediate east. And that state was Alabama. No kidding, UA was MILES more sophisticated than the crappy college town I grew up in. I think this is probably because the University had much, much more influence in Tuscaloosa than USM had in Hattiesburg. The music was cool, though. The last waves of punk plus the waves of more indie-style stuff, plus the explosion in Athens, GA, all made for great tunes. To this day, the opening chords of REM's first albums are incredibly transportive and soothing to me. (And one of the only times I've ever been truly star-struck is when I found myself in line at an airport bookstore behind Mike Mills.) 2. In the late 90s, I was briefly (and theoretically) rich on paper. Not "Netscape stock" rich or "MSFT rich," but worth about $5MM. Sadly, it was not liquid, and became worth $0 in short order. I was an investing partner in an Internet tech consultancy -- mostly, custom web sites and software, which at the time you could charge a lot of money for -- but didn't have enough stock to turn the boat. We got sucked into the massive-land-grab mentality, and tried to go toe to toe vs. firms like Agency, and predictably lost. But had we aimed lower we could've been a tidily profitable regional player. The lesson is that there's nothing WRONG with mid-market, you know? The experience cost me actual money (not options), but it was also incredibly educational, and cheaper than grad school would've been, so I'm not sore about it. Sadly, the dot-com crash left me richer only in skills. I had to burn savings to keep my house from late 2001 through early 20003, when I started making money again. 3. I have enjoyed my life in every state. At 50, I could prattle on about this or that that used to be cooler, but so many things are manifestly cooler NOW it's a bankrupt enterprise. And God knows I don't want to come off like some bellyaching boomer. I mean, think about it: how much would this pandemic have sucked in an era without broad connectivity and online community? There's widespread enough bandwidth, and good enough software, that my 80 year old mother can very easily initiate a video call with anyone she likes. Sure, most of the folks who post on HN probably had online pals they were gaming with or chatting with or working with a decade ago, but the non-digital would've been materially more isolated. However, I will admit I definitely miss the Internet before Eternal September happened. There's more HERE now, but the broad internet culture moved from fairly intelligent and articulate to, well, nihilism. Few places reward multi-sentence or multi-paragraph expression now. (HN is a very notable exception.)
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    Not just a question for ‘ubermonkey’: HN and where else?
    - throwaway293483 6y ago
      I would say some boards on 4chan, some forums and some discord servers, and some subreddits can be good for meaningful discussion- if you have niche tastes and don't mind putting up with a handful of stupid people. For example, I enjoy painting and weightlifting as well as programming, and can list several places I enjoy going to discuss and share stuff related to those topics. In my eyes, the issue with modern internet communities is that there are too many people there "just for the sake of it". I find that communities focused on a specific thing don't suffer from the repetitive and bland drivel that fills the front pages of most discussion websites. Due to the nature of this advice, I won't just list a bunch of forums and discussion boards I look at and post on. I'd recommend you search for places based on your interests.
    - ubermonkey 6y ago
      The Well is one of my other stalwart haunts.
      - germinalphrase 6y ago
        I enjoy the Long New talks. You’d say WELL is worth the fee?
        ubermonkey 6y ago
        Well (heh), I think so, but I've also been participating there for 20+ years. It's not as active as it once was.
  - silentsea90 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing this! Fascinating.
  - 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- njharman 6y ago
  The 80's was AWESOME. The future was going to be all new wave music makeup and cloths. All neon, cyberpunk, hacking the corpos for money and "fighting the good fight". What happened wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't that. One thing living through several generations and reading/knowing lots of history. Every period is fine. Everyone believes their period to be special, they aren't. Things happen in cycles, very little is revolutionary. Every period has it's big events and sucks and is great. People's experiences are mostly the same. People just don't learn/know history. Newp I didn't have money to invest. I "retired" (in quotes cuase I didn't have money) at 30ish, and biked around europe for a year. Ran company into ground playing MTG and video games instead of running business. career didn't really start to take off until 38 or so. I've done fine and feel lucky for it. Not really miss. Would be great having youth now that I'm smart and wise and wealthy (compared to young). As young person it's hard to believe/understand the vigor, mental endurance and "wide eyedness" of youth. But all periods of life are fine. Enjoy and make maximal use of every period of your life.
t0astbread 6y ago
Nice, happy birthday!

silentsea90 6y ago

Happy birthday! How was living through the 80s? I wasn't born then but find the subculture fascinating. Did you make gazillions from being invested in tech through the 90s until now (lots of assumptions made here). Do you miss anything about life in the past(beyond nostalgia)?

ubermonkey 6y ago
I'm not who you replied to, but I'm the same age. Your questions are interesting so I'll answer anyway. 1. The 80s sucked. I was a dateless nerd in a shitty town in a shitty state for most of it. They got marginally better when I went to college in the more sophisticated and urbane state to the immediate east. And that state was Alabama. No kidding, UA was MILES more sophisticated than the crappy college town I grew up in. I think this is probably because the University had much, much more influence in Tuscaloosa than USM had in Hattiesburg. The music was cool, though. The last waves of punk plus the waves of more indie-style stuff, plus the explosion in Athens, GA, all made for great tunes. To this day, the opening chords of REM's first albums are incredibly transportive and soothing to me. (And one of the only times I've ever been truly star-struck is when I found myself in line at an airport bookstore behind Mike Mills.) 2. In the late 90s, I was briefly (and theoretically) rich on paper. Not "Netscape stock" rich or "MSFT rich," but worth about $5MM. Sadly, it was not liquid, and became worth $0 in short order. I was an investing partner in an Internet tech consultancy -- mostly, custom web sites and software, which at the time you could charge a lot of money for -- but didn't have enough stock to turn the boat. We got sucked into the massive-land-grab mentality, and tried to go toe to toe vs. firms like Agency, and predictably lost. But had we aimed lower we could've been a tidily profitable regional player. The lesson is that there's nothing WRONG with mid-market, you know? The experience cost me actual money (not options), but it was also incredibly educational, and cheaper than grad school would've been, so I'm not sore about it. Sadly, the dot-com crash left me richer only in skills. I had to burn savings to keep my house from late 2001 through early 20003, when I started making money again. 3. I have enjoyed my life in every state. At 50, I could prattle on about this or that that used to be cooler, but so many things are manifestly cooler NOW it's a bankrupt enterprise. And God knows I don't want to come off like some bellyaching boomer. I mean, think about it: how much would this pandemic have sucked in an era without broad connectivity and online community? There's widespread enough bandwidth, and good enough software, that my 80 year old mother can very easily initiate a video call with anyone she likes. Sure, most of the folks who post on HN probably had online pals they were gaming with or chatting with or working with a decade ago, but the non-digital would've been materially more isolated. However, I will admit I definitely miss the Internet before Eternal September happened. There's more HERE now, but the broad internet culture moved from fairly intelligent and articulate to, well, nihilism. Few places reward multi-sentence or multi-paragraph expression now. (HN is a very notable exception.)
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Not just a question for ‘ubermonkey’: HN and where else?
  - throwaway293483 6y ago
    I would say some boards on 4chan, some forums and some discord servers, and some subreddits can be good for meaningful discussion- if you have niche tastes and don't mind putting up with a handful of stupid people. For example, I enjoy painting and weightlifting as well as programming, and can list several places I enjoy going to discuss and share stuff related to those topics. In my eyes, the issue with modern internet communities is that there are too many people there "just for the sake of it". I find that communities focused on a specific thing don't suffer from the repetitive and bland drivel that fills the front pages of most discussion websites. Due to the nature of this advice, I won't just list a bunch of forums and discussion boards I look at and post on. I'd recommend you search for places based on your interests.
  - ubermonkey 6y ago
    The Well is one of my other stalwart haunts.
    - germinalphrase 6y ago
      I enjoy the Long New talks. You’d say WELL is worth the fee?
      - ubermonkey 6y ago
        Well (heh), I think so, but I've also been participating there for 20+ years. It's not as active as it once was.
- silentsea90 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this! Fascinating.
- 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
njharman 6y ago
The 80's was AWESOME. The future was going to be all new wave music makeup and cloths. All neon, cyberpunk, hacking the corpos for money and "fighting the good fight". What happened wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't that. One thing living through several generations and reading/knowing lots of history. Every period is fine. Everyone believes their period to be special, they aren't. Things happen in cycles, very little is revolutionary. Every period has it's big events and sucks and is great. People's experiences are mostly the same. People just don't learn/know history. Newp I didn't have money to invest. I "retired" (in quotes cuase I didn't have money) at 30ish, and biked around europe for a year. Ran company into ground playing MTG and video games instead of running business. career didn't really start to take off until 38 or so. I've done fine and feel lucky for it. Not really miss. Would be great having youth now that I'm smart and wise and wealthy (compared to young). As young person it's hard to believe/understand the vigor, mental endurance and "wide eyedness" of youth. But all periods of life are fine. Enjoy and make maximal use of every period of your life.

t0astbread 6y ago

Nice, happy birthday!