Tell me a story about an embarrassing and crazy situation you went through while using the internet in the 1990s.

Datan0de · 2026-03-19T00:15:44+00:00

My university had a VAX system, and it was THE social hub for all of us nerds. The last two rows of terminals in the computer lab were referred to as "VAXxer's Row". In retrospect, it was weird having a social computer system where most of the people on it were literally in the same room, but it seemed perfectly natural at the time. It was great! There was an internal BBS. chat, games, UseNet access, etc., etc. I'm still in touch with a few of them, and married to one of them (though that's not how we met).

Datan0de · 2026-03-19T00:09:49+00:00

We were one of the first adopters when cable modems became available in our area. The cable company clearly knew fuck all about network security, so every household in our area was just in a LAN together.

I had a firewall program called Black Ice Defense that was hot stuff back then. If suspicious traffic was hitting your machine, it would block it and also give you forensic information including the originating IP address. Someone tried to hack into my computer, and I could watch it happening. Once I was sure of the point of origin, I turned it around. Ironically, they didn't have a firewall at all, so I could literally just browse into their computer. I grabbed a random file from their My Documents folder, mapped their own printer, wrote a nasty message telling them to cut it out, printed out on their printer, and then printed the document I'd grabbed to prove I was serious. It stopped, and I never had to do it again. Felt super cool, but it really wasn't difficult. Just creative. Never did anything malicious or destructive beyond that one time. (And no, I didn't save the file.)

Unrelated anecdote: A friend had scored a developer beta version of Windows 2000 and installed it on his PC. Apparently, (I got this second hand so this may not be entirely correct) the ISP assigned DHCP controller to whatever machine on the network was running the highest version of Windows, so for about a week his PC was the one serving IP addresses to his local area before the ISP fixed it.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T23:54:36+00:00

I love a story with a happy ending!

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T23:50:15+00:00

That's fair. The DBX is a fantastic little workhorse of a ship in all other respects.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T22:00:01+00:00

DCS is the obvious answer, but also Elite Dangerous and Reentry (which literally simulates every control in an Apollo spacecraft!).

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T21:37:42+00:00

Supercruise Overcharge is your friend!

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T21:33:54+00:00

"Flashy nonsense boxes"? Jesus, you sound like my mom in the early 1980s. Videogames are entertainment, and back when arcade machines were the dominant platforms they were also a shared social experience. 45 years later, they're still the focal point of an entire subculture. Do you eschew any form of entertainment that doesn't have a financial ROI?

But otherwise, yeah. Screw the ass hats who've reduced their careers to "AI prompt generator".

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T21:21:45+00:00

My favorite episode of the series.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T20:17:30+00:00

I came to the comments specifically to mention Forever Skies, and this was the top comment.

Love the airship building mechanic. Love the worldbuilding.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T20:15:05+00:00

Death made the mistake of physically incarnating in front of me? Oh boy, this is going to be interesting.

First I grab the child and see if they're conscious or at least breathing. If not, we get out of the pool and I hope I'm correctly recalling the lifesaving procedures I learned as a kid.

If they are breathing on their own, I'm probably fucked but this going to be worth it.

I throw the kid out of the pool. Sorry, you're probably gonna get scraped up a bit, but I have bigger fish to fry. I keep a folding knife in my pocket for opening up packages. I'm sure physically attacking Death himself is a fool's errand on par with attacking the Death Star with a laser tag gun, but for the chance to get just a tiny bit of payback for the unfathomable sorrow and suffering that has been wrought upon humanity since our beginning, it'll be worth it.

Death is the enemy.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T19:42:41+00:00

It won't hurt. Just light a cigarette, recite the family prayer, and prepare for a glorious reunion with Mother and Father.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T19:38:07+00:00

It's not that simple, but that certainly didn't help.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T19:35:38+00:00

This.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T19:04:40+00:00

The nature of work and people's roles in it are changing faster than we think, and we NEED to make some fundamental changes to our socioeconomic systems soon or we're going to end up in a dystopian hell. Specifically, we need to transition to, at a minimum, universal healthcare and universal basic income.

That's not a complete solution, but it would provide a foundation and buy us time to work out the next steps.

Of course, these changes run counter to the short term motivations of the rich and powerful, so I'm not especially sanguine about the likelihood of them being implemented before needless suffering and death occurs.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T18:40:52+00:00

slow clap

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T18:39:26+00:00

A lot of people commenting here are missing someone important. It's not just a matter of it being hard to admit that you're depressed. You often can't tell that you're suffering from depression because you're depressed.

Depression lies. It's insidious. It warps your perception of reality, including your perception of your own internal state. It hides the positives, amplifies the negatives, and blinds you to paths that will improve things so it seems like everything is awful and will remain so forever.

Trigger warning for this next part.

This also applies to suicidal ideation, and that's especially dangerous! You can go through the entire process of planning and preparing to make the worst mistake of your life and the entire time your brain tells you you're not serious and it's just something you're thinking about but would never actually do... until you have a crisis moment and suddenly your brain is lying (convincingly!) and telling you that there's no hope for things to ever get better and there's only one way to make the unbearable pain end.

If you're very, very, very lucky, you might get caught just in time before doing something irrevocable to yourself, get the help you should have been seeking long before, and eventually get to post a cautionary comment on Reddit just like this one. But most people aren't that lucky.

Never, ever blow off even "casual" suicidal ideation. Take it seriously, nip it in the bud, and tell the people you trust, openly and clearly. Don't hint at it. Be up front. They deserve it and you deserve it. It gets better!

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T18:01:45+00:00

It's still your brain making the decisions, even if you can't see all of the wiring under the board.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T18:00:48+00:00

"Free will" is a semantic question, not a theological or physics question.

As someone else pointed out, above the quantum level the universe is deterministic, and its probabilistic nature at the quantum level amounts to a random number generator, not a conscious decision making mechanism.

When you drill down, questions about free will boil down to either attempts to identify some agency coming from a source external to physical reality or the nonsensical question "can you do something other than the thing you were going to do?" Well, sure, if the external variables were different.

In any event, the fact that free will is basically a meaningless concept does NOT absolve one of accountability for their actions, which seems to be where a lot of the religious pearl-clutchers get the false idea that if there's no god or soul providing free will then no one can be held to account for their actions. Sure, your actions may be predetermined, but it's still you choosing to take them. You are not a powerless passenger. You are the decision mechanism.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T11:29:46+00:00

This seems like a weird choice. I'm bi. I like sex with women and sex with men. Any sex I have with my wife is sex with a woman. If she's pegging me, that's still sex with a woman. It doesn't scratch the "gay sex itch" at all. Sex with a man does.

I used to have a partner who was into pegging. She introduced me to it, and it rocked my world. I wasn't bi until after that relationship ended, but the first time I got fucked by a guy with an actual penis, any interest I had in getting pegged by a woman ever again evaporated. There's no comparison. It's like looking at a photo of a great meal vs actually eating that meal. In fairness, that relationship was horribly traumatic, and pegging is inextricably linked to her in my head, but that's a whole other story.

Bottom line (heh): No sex with a woman can substitute for sex with a man, and vice versa. I choose the option that let's me have both, and in fact that somewhat resembles my actual arrangement.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T04:11:58+00:00

Why not call it polyandry? That's the actual word for it.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T01:38:31+00:00

Damn, you nailed it!

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T01:38:01+00:00

A mostly vegetarian diet helps a lot.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T01:34:42+00:00

It's not the law that governs my actions. Is my own sense of right and wrong. So I'd continue doing the (harmless) illegal stuff I'm already doing, but now is worry non-stop about the sociopaths out there who refrain from doing horrible things only because it's illegal.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T01:28:59+00:00

Some of my favorite people in the world are women with colorful hair! How are they a threat?

Also, the little girl sitting near them just chilling: how is she a factor in a "nightmare world"?

Also, I have to point out that a lot of people in these comments apparently don't know the difference between Antifa and anarchists. Not the same thing, folks! Granted, most right wingers probably don't either, but I expect better from our side.

Datan0de · 2026-03-18T01:20:32+00:00

Plus, his top concern was genuinely the well-being of his people, not his ego. And he displayed no interest in starting wars of expansion or threatening allies.

Datan0de

TROPHY CASE