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Stardate: 20201002.1417 | |
Location: Kitchen Table | |
Input Device: AlphaSmart dana.wireless | |
Audio: Neck fans | |
Visual: Tonkatsu Ramen, spinich and feta croissant | |
Emotional State:TGIF, centered and grounded | |
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It's triple digits outside and I am eating spicy tonkotsu ramen. I | |
would not normally eat hot food on a hot day, but I just had this | |
craving that needed to be satisfied. So I am wearing my neck fan | |
while I try to enjoy my hot and spicy ramen lunch. | |
Back on September 28th, SDF user, benj, had phosted about hobbies and | |
it got me thinking about my activities of leisure. He discussed | |
about how the hobbies he enjoys has a community associated with it. | |
I find this to be the case with my hobbies to some degree, especially | |
in the first half of my life. | |
In the 80's, there was video games and the Commodore 64. Going to | |
the local arcades, playing games with friends, talking about games, | |
sharing games, trading games, having friends over, going to their | |
place, etc. | |
Then I got my first 300 baud modem. That was a total game changer | |
that opened up my little world of video games to a, back then, | |
larger community of BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) users within my | |
local calling area (for those not around back then, we used to have to | |
pay long distance per minute just to talk or send data across county | |
lines, which could get quite expensive, especially if you were | |
downloading public domain software at 300 baud! Sometimes those | |
upload to download ratios and login time limits were a blessing in | |
disguise!) | |
The BBS community was really a magical place for me where I was not | |
limted just to the kids in my neighborhood or school to have as | |
friends, but to a broader assortment of local kids, adults, hobbyists, | |
hackers, anarchists, homemakers, professionals, pirates, all walks of | |
life. | |
OK, I'm going off track here. If you haven't watched it yet, check out | |
the BBS Documentary for more about the BBS days. | |
Sorry about that. Getting back to the topic; I guess my hobbies | |
changed to being less social when I started having kids. They | |
basically took up any time I would have had for hobbies. | |
NOTE: Spawning child processes is extremely resource intensive!!! | |
As the children became more autonomous, I have had more time for | |
leisure activities, which brings me to these times. | |
These days, I find many of my hobbies to be solitary, yet somewhat | |
social, mostly due to the Internet. I would partake in hobbies, | |
like my love of gadgets and computers, at home, but would supplement the | |
social aspect of those hobbies with various online forums, chat systems, | |
podcasts, videos, etc. This allowed me to still enjoy the hobbies as | |
well as be available to my family. The Super Dimensional Fortress is | |
one of those social places. | |
I first became aware of SDF in the 90's from the Internet of | |
that time. I did not join back then and just enjoyed the wild west of | |
the Internet of that time, with all of the low bandwidth, personal home | |
pages, news groups, ftp servers, telnet sites, remaining BBS's, freenet, | |
etc. | |
A few years ago, after having lived through the deteriorating and | |
distracting quality of content of Web 2.0 and social media, SDF showed | |
up on my radar again. After checking it out for a bit, I signed up as a | |
member. | |
Here was a place that had an active community of creative people that | |
really cared about the community and supported and encouraged each | |
other. Not only that, but share common passions and interests with me | |
that would appear unpopular, mundane, or lame to most of the cattle. On | |
top of that, people were pretty consistent at returning and participating. | |
Yeah, it is not perfect, but it is as perfect as it could be with all of | |
the personalities and backgrounds from all over the world, flame wars, | |
server failures, DDOS attacks, federated disputes, etc. In a sense, it | |
is perfectly human.. | |
One of the things I dislike about the Internet leading up to now is how big | |
and anonymous it can seem. Back in the BBS days, I felt like I really got | |
to know or become very familiar with the people on those systems. We | |
were pretty much in the same local calling area, same physical community, | |
same time zone, etc. We got to know each other by handle and which | |
boards we frequented. Yeah, you could change handles or have multiple | |
handles, but most people stuck with the same handle, especially when | |
people started to get to know you through your posts and replies or if | |
you were into software, when you started accumulating download credits | |
or access to other areas of the board. | |
The Internet users of now just seems so anonymous, unfriendly, disposable. | |
I think many of the users are just content consumers of the disposable, | |
agenda-driven noise whose personal data feeds the content owner's other, | |
sometimes hidden agendas. Those who have something genuine to share | |
just gets plowed over by all the garbage out there and don't want to share | |
anymore because maybe they think it doesn't matter or they're afraid to | |
put themselves out there to be criticized or ridiculed on a global scale. | |
I know I have felt this before many times and it has prevented me from | |
participating. These days, I still create but I create for myself. | |
I do participate and share sometimes, but it is not the primary goal | |
of my expression. | |
Another thing that really appeals to me about SDF is its history and | |
longevity. Here is a community and system that has been around since | |
1987. That was before the turn of the century/millennium! That's 33 years! | |
And they care about the history and celebrate it. They find the value in | |
the old and vintage and they keep it alive and even functioning. The | |
users keep the history alive with what they share from their memories, | |
whether it be on bboard, COM, www, gopher, irc, anonradio shows, | |
mastodon, etc. | |
SDF is not only about the old, but is also about the now. It is truly | |
super dimensional. There are modern components that have been | |
implemented, like mastodon, pixelfeeds, Internet radio shows, echolink, | |
VOIP, minecraft, federated components, etc. The users are a mix of both | |
old timers and new enthusiasts from all over the place experiencing and | |
sharing the same old and new technologies with each other. | |
With my timeline, this community brings me back to the Commodore 64, to | |
the BBS's, to my old PDA collection, even to my skateboarding days with | |
some of the users. It also brings back my college radio days through | |
anonradio's free-form programming format. It brings me back to the | |
subacultcha days through some of the music that you play on your shows | |
or on open mic. Even on Open VOIP, the vintage discussions have | |
dislodged long-forgotten memories of my early computing days. | |
Well, where am I going with all of this? Uh...well, like SDF user, benj, | |
my hobbies are traditionally social as well as differently social; | |
social none the less, depending on at what point in my timeline. Aside | |
from the restrictions of COVID-19, I can see my hobbies becoming more | |
social as the kids continue to grow and start living their own lives, | |
which should free up more resources for hobby and socializing. | |
p.s. I just completed this entry with much life interruptions. I am | |
not going to go back and edit and I take full responsibility for the | |
length of this entry any typos, and any meandering, confused or | |
disjointed thoughts, etc. ThiS is the xiled rumination construct after | |
all and life is too short to be edited. | |
20201004.1631 | |
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