More about Usenet
In yesterday's post about Usenet, I might have given the impression that I was a mere gentleman traveler who happened upon a conclave of barbarians and stayed ten years to study their strange ways. There might be some truth to that, but certainly not even close to the whole truth.
Continuing with the nuclear ice hockey played with straight razor sticks theme that I used in that post, there is no evidence that I was above it all. Whether the story was true or not, I had heard that hockey great Gordie Howe managed to survive in the NHL for as long as he did because he never allowed anyone to get away with dirty play against him. He would retaliate with jaw-dropping viciousness, sending the single message that he was here to play the game but that he would give any opponent something to remember for the rest of his career if invited to do so. I took a similar approach to Usenet, and only really moved away from it after 9/11, when I sought to remove the larger portion of nonsense from my life and be more serious.
Before that time I was as vicious as anyone who ever pulled on a pair of Usenet skates. I liked to skate (and I realize that I've already worn this metaphor out) fast and furious, gouging an eye here, slashing a tendon there, and rarely passing up the opportunity to put someone who needed it, friend and foe alike, hard into the boards.
O.K., enough nuclear ice hockey.
This is not the moment to name names and cite posts, particularly since the Google archives are in a transition and a bit dicey right now, but there will be a time to revisit the mayhem and the majesty of Usenet, the outlands of the internet, where the information superhighway took one nasty detour.
Continuing with the nuclear ice hockey played with straight razor sticks theme that I used in that post, there is no evidence that I was above it all. Whether the story was true or not, I had heard that hockey great Gordie Howe managed to survive in the NHL for as long as he did because he never allowed anyone to get away with dirty play against him. He would retaliate with jaw-dropping viciousness, sending the single message that he was here to play the game but that he would give any opponent something to remember for the rest of his career if invited to do so. I took a similar approach to Usenet, and only really moved away from it after 9/11, when I sought to remove the larger portion of nonsense from my life and be more serious.
Before that time I was as vicious as anyone who ever pulled on a pair of Usenet skates. I liked to skate (and I realize that I've already worn this metaphor out) fast and furious, gouging an eye here, slashing a tendon there, and rarely passing up the opportunity to put someone who needed it, friend and foe alike, hard into the boards.
O.K., enough nuclear ice hockey.
This is not the moment to name names and cite posts, particularly since the Google archives are in a transition and a bit dicey right now, but there will be a time to revisit the mayhem and the majesty of Usenet, the outlands of the internet, where the information superhighway took one nasty detour.
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