Reply #29: Sometimes, but not really ... [View All]

[RoyGBiv]

What I miss are the days of the early-Internet, and I mean back in the 80's when I had to hack into Department of the Interior computer through a phone number I discovered and access everything with the command line. (Did I say that out loud?) And when I say I miss it, I don't really miss having to do that. I just miss the intellectual exercise it was, which required a lot of creativity, and I miss the general lack of draconian security measures, DRM, copyright nazis. The slow speed, constant paranoia of getting caught, etc. I don't really miss that.

I remember being frustrated as a kid of living in a town with a crappy library where I could find books that referred me to other books and articles I couldn't get unless I filled out an ILL form and then waited for weeks and then had the librarian judge me over her glasses for the subject matter. Twelve year old boys aren't supposed to request through ILL a copy of the Hite Report, and they aren't supposed to want articles from Playboy from the 60's dealing with politics. It was a pain in the ass. When I want to know something now, I can find it, usually, and I can order books you couldn't get anywhere within 200 miles of where I lived since we had no bookstore here, and the ones in OKC didn't carry the reading material I desired. And I couldn't drive then anyway, so it was a chore.

I also miss the days before porn took over everything on the Usenet, but that's not really missing the days before the Internet.