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I went to high school with CmdrTaco (Slashdot) and Nate (Everything2). I built sets for plays with Rob and was Nate's lab partner in AP Bio. Both were (are) bri

I went to high school with CmdrTaco (Slashdot) and Nate (Everything2). I built sets for plays with Rob and was Nate's lab partner in AP Bio. Both were (are) brilliant guys, and super nice. Rob's sense of humor was one of a kind. (Jeff Bates was also a great guy, but I didn't know him as well.) It was a unique time back in the late 90s, and those guys had their finger on the pulse of internet nerdom. It was pre-Facebook, pre-"Web 2.0" pre a lot of things. In a lot of ways Slashdot was the spiritual predecessor to Hacker News, so we owe that crew a debt.

floren 5y ago
Did you ever listen to "Geeks in Space", the Slashdot podcast from before podcasts were a thing? IIRC they recorded sporadically around 1999 and 2000, just talking about whatever had been on the front page recently. I've thought about doing a sort of retrospective, listening to each one and writing a blog post about what they found interesting... it's a neat peek back at a different time and a different culture.
- wiremine 5y ago
  No, I didn't. I wonder if any of those episodes are still around?
  - floren 5y ago
    https://archive.org/details/Geeks_In_Space https://archive.org/details/Geeks_In_Space
johnisgood 5y ago
Yeah... when I said I would go back 20 years, this is what I was talking about... sort of... Those were the great times! Maybe I am just old and nostalgic and it may be something everyone does, but for real, those times had lots of issues, too, sure, but there were great things. People had interest in philosophy, free Internet, and so forth.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  You're just old and nostalgic. (No worries, so am I). People still have interest in philosophy, free Internet and so forth. Nothing is gone, it's just been made a bit less obvious.
  - wiremine 5y ago
    Agreed it is mostly nostalgia. But it _was_ a unique time: the internet was pretty new for many people, and not ubiquitous like it is today.
zeruch 5y ago
All of those guys were great, but oddly I interacted the most with Hemos, probably due to mutual interests in things like Frank Herbert and weird ambient music (e.g. Eno, Laswell). They were never bad people to be around.
wyclif 5y ago
I remember working at early-stage Amazon in 1998, and I would check Slashdot something like 4-5x per day. I remember that period before and after Slashdot was acquired by Andover.net fondly, especially CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal. I would also include, along with Everything2, (I recall a guy named Tim Vroom—I think he attended Hope College with the Slashdot guys as well?) its sister site PerlMonks.org. Man, I spent a lot of time there learning Perl and reading up on CPAN modules. I'd hate to be maintaining any of the code we wrote then now though!
wyclif 5y ago
I remember working at early-stage Amazon in 1998, and I would check Slashdot something like 4-5x per day. I remember that period before and after Slashdot was acquired by Andover.net fondly, especially CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal. I would also include, along with Everything2, (I recall a guy named Tim Vroom?) its sister site PerlMonks.org. Man, I spent a lot of time there learning Perl and reading up on CPAN modules.
cmdrtaco 5y ago
Saying my humor was One of a kind doesn’t mean “funny” :)

floren 5y ago

Did you ever listen to "Geeks in Space", the Slashdot podcast from before podcasts were a thing? IIRC they recorded sporadically around 1999 and 2000, just talking about whatever had been on the front page recently. I've thought about doing a sort of retrospective, listening to each one and writing a blog post about what they found interesting... it's a neat peek back at a different time and a different culture.

wiremine 5y ago
No, I didn't. I wonder if any of those episodes are still around?
- floren 5y ago
  https://archive.org/details/Geeks_In_Space https://archive.org/details/Geeks_In_Space

johnisgood 5y ago

Yeah... when I said I would go back 20 years, this is what I was talking about... sort of... Those were the great times! Maybe I am just old and nostalgic and it may be something everyone does, but for real, those times had lots of issues, too, sure, but there were great things. People had interest in philosophy, free Internet, and so forth.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
You're just old and nostalgic. (No worries, so am I). People still have interest in philosophy, free Internet and so forth. Nothing is gone, it's just been made a bit less obvious.
- wiremine 5y ago
  Agreed it is mostly nostalgia. But it _was_ a unique time: the internet was pretty new for many people, and not ubiquitous like it is today.

zeruch 5y ago

All of those guys were great, but oddly I interacted the most with Hemos, probably due to mutual interests in things like Frank Herbert and weird ambient music (e.g. Eno, Laswell). They were never bad people to be around.

wyclif 5y ago

I remember working at early-stage Amazon in 1998, and I would check Slashdot something like 4-5x per day. I remember that period before and after Slashdot was acquired by Andover.net fondly, especially CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal. I would also include, along with Everything2, (I recall a guy named Tim Vroom—I think he attended Hope College with the Slashdot guys as well?) its sister site PerlMonks.org. Man, I spent a lot of time there learning Perl and reading up on CPAN modules. I'd hate to be maintaining any of the code we wrote then now though!

wyclif 5y ago

I remember working at early-stage Amazon in 1998, and I would check Slashdot something like 4-5x per day. I remember that period before and after Slashdot was acquired by Andover.net fondly, especially CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal. I would also include, along with Everything2, (I recall a guy named Tim Vroom?) its sister site PerlMonks.org. Man, I spent a lot of time there learning Perl and reading up on CPAN modules.

cmdrtaco 5y ago

Saying my humor was One of a kind doesn’t mean “funny” :)