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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I thought the same thing when I was looking at the first volume! It was a really weird time to grow up in. I was about 12-14 when my friends introduced me to BBSes. We had a main one that was really small and you could only stay online for a short period of time every day for free, so we would try to catch each other there after school. I can’t remember how many concurrent users it supported, but maybe it was 8. There were a few bigger ones we would use too after our minutes ran out. The news paper had a BBS as well that supported a lot of people, but it didn’t have fun games or other kids to talk to, so that one was boring.

    There were women that used the BBS regularly. I went on a blind date with a girl at a pizza place. Her friends were there too and it was about as uncomfortable as a blind date can be. I also became friends with a girl at my school from the BBS. We talked online and realized we had some classes together. I was surprised she was into such a nerdy hobby at the time because she was a cheerleader and a “cool kid.”

    The craziest BBS memory for me is that, 10 years ago, someone at my work recognized me from a BBS. A lady stopped me when I was walking to the break room and said she knew me and my friends from back in the day. I didn’t remember her or all the details of the BBSes that she was talking about, but she threw out names of a lot of people. She was one of the older teenagers that hung out online. Some of those kids would have IRL meetups at pizza places and stuff. We didn’t really interact much online with the older kids, but we knew a little bit about them and they knew about us. You definitely wanted to talk to everyone and figure out who they were and if they were someone you could be get along with. New users were exciting.

    I miss that old era. I remember the day that our main BBS had a connection to “The Internet”. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. But I think it basically connected you to IRC or something similar. You could join hundreds of chat rooms and talk to so many people. It was overwhelming. Up until then, I only talked to people in my city/area code. Sometime later my family signed up for an internet provider (never AOL thankfully). There was a period of overlap where I would log into the old BBS after using up my daily minutes on my family’s dial up internet plan.

    Tildes sounds intriguing. I will check it out.





  • I received a chain e-mail saying that If I mail the person who sent me this $1 and forward the e-mail to all my entire contact list, I will be a millionaire. There are hundreds of email addresses in the body of this email from all the forwards that have happened before it was forwarded to me. How cool! Unrelated: how are all these spammers getting my email address? I only gave it to all my friends and family. And my friends/family only send me cool chain emails and funny jokes. e-mail is a new technology, so surly they will fix this spam problem by the year 2000.










  • I’ve lived in a house that has a Black Widow problem for 14 years. I had severe arachnophobia when I moved here. Unfortunately, I don’t use poisons in my house, so my only option was to kill them by hand. The first several years, I would do regular patrols of my garage and yard at night to squish them. Night is the best time to kill them because they will usually sit in the middle of their nests. If they are not in the nest, I can usually find a bug to throw in the web that draws them out quickly. I had a favorite tool for the job, but anything screwdriver-ish will work. I know all their favorite spots, so it doesn’t take long to do a sweep. I also destroy the egg sacks.

    I realize that without covering my house with poison, I will never be rid of them. More than anything, I just try to keep my floors and yard tidy with less spots for them to call home. Luckily, I have never seen one in the house other than a few juveniles. I think there is no food in the house for them, so the small ones that get in the house end up starving.

    Most people go with poisons, so I thought I would pop in with my weirdness. Don’t worry about it too much. But also take precautions like not leaving your shoes where they could get in. And inspect boxes that have been in the garage before bringing into the house.


  • jiberish@lemmy.worldtolinuxmemes@lemmy.worldKtitle
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    7 months ago

    I was the same. I also avoided any Kpackage because of kdependencies it would install along with it.

    I was shocked when my Linux Guru recommended KDE whenever it was that Plasma got really good. I reluctantly tried it and I was hooked. I was in love with the infinitely user configurable UI. I felt like I could easily bend the interface to do what I wanted. It’s been many years now and it’s hard for me to use anything but KDE. I even tried to give Plasma Mobile a go on my Pine Phone.


  • In some countries Christmas is a national holiday. It’s simply the name of a holiday that affects everyone in my country (USandA). Because of that, it’s both a secular and religious holiday. So do what you want with that. Celebrate by worship, by spending money, by seeing family, or do nothing and enjoy the quietest day of the year (in my city, at least).

    And not to mention that Christmas isn’t even a real holiday; the Christians just co-opted and modified all the solstice holidays of every culture they conquered. The only “reason for the season” is to indoctrinate. Merry Christmas!