-------------------------------------------------
Title: Why am I here?
Date: 2022-02-11
Device: Laptop
Mood: Reflective
-------------------------------------------------
So in the absence of an 'About Me' page on this
gopher hole, I thought I'd write a little bit
about why I'm here.
When I was about ten years old, my uncle, who is a
wonderul man, who I credit at least in part with
my interest in computers, gave me a book. It was
called 'The Cuckoo's Egg', by Clifford Stoll.
I don't know much about how well regarded that
book is by history. I've seen it mentioned a few
times on Hacker News, but it certainly isn't fine
literature. For the ten year old me, it was
revelatory.
My early computing experiences revolved around my
father's work comptuters which he brought home,
then later an Amiga 500, and later still some
486-era machines running Windows 3.11. These are
computers which I loved, but they lived in
isolation in my home. The Cuckoo's Egg spoke of
*networked* computers. It was full of stories of
interlinked systems, collaboration, and a hacker
caught by the combined problem-solving abilities
of a loose network of slacker scientists spread
thinly over thousands of miles. It described
things which fascinated me; timesharing systems,
banks of modems, and user-to-user messaging. Even
though the events of the book occurred in my
lifetime, they felt so futuristic.
As I grew older, in my teenage years, we had an
internet connection at home, and I grasped the
very end of this era. I used IRC, but also AIM and
MSN. I learned about UNIX, installed and built
Linux, but also owned a Playstation. My generation
fell somewhere between Web 1.0 and 2.0, between
Slashdot and YouTube, via the weirdness of
Everything2 and Kuro5hin and SomethingAwful. The
commercialisation of the internet happened for me
in real-time. Even as the conversational medium
grew richer, there was already a growing sense of
loss. Maybe it was adolescent pretentiousness, but
at the time I felt that I acutely understood the
Eternal September. I felt I was missing something;
a romantic First Age, something which I briefly
connected with in that book.
I'm in my late-thirties now. Technology became my
life, and then my career, and now that I am
comfortable, I'm here to explore and reconnect
with this era of computing. It's novel for me but
familiar; I love UNIX, and I'm deeply intrigued by
what the SDF offers. I've been reading some of
these phlogs for so long now I feel connected, but
an outsider; now it's time to become part of this
community.
So -- why am I here? I guess it's love. I love
this medium, and the clarity and the community.
Thank you for having me.
