Eternal September

[crumpled]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

[ratboy666]

  # sdate - Eternal September Date
  #
  # date -d '1993-09-01 UTC 8130 days'
  #
  # ce: .mshell;
  #
  s=`date --date="1993-09-01 UTC" +%s`
  if [ -z $1 ]; then
    n=`date +%s`
  else
    n=`date --date="$1" +%s`
  fi
  d=`expr \( $n - $s \) / 86400 + 1`
  if [ $d -ge 1 ]; then
    echo September $d, 1993
  else
    echo Error: date not in Eternal September epoch
  fi

And today is:

September 8153, 1993

Yes, I mourn the internet.

[crumpled]

I keep imagining that we can/will keep carving out new digital spaces that can hold the old hacker spirit. I'm just not sure what it looks like.

[JoeAltmaier → crumpled]

Maybe something like the CPM Users' Club.

[anonbanker]

Most of you weren't even alive in 1993.

Which means you never got to experience the internet.

And you don't know why it was important for those of us that did.

[unfunco → anonbanker]

That's quite the assumption. You're quite the seasoned pioneer, tell us stories about the olden days, grandad.

I'd guess that most of the HN audience is actually older than 22, you're not the only witness to the birth and growth of the Internet.

[anonbanker → unfunco]

I'll make you and offer: we'll trade stories. I'd love to hear your stories of usenet back in '92. You go first.

[pavel_lishin → anonbanker]

Can you enlighten us?

[ratboy666 → pavel_lishin]

Because 1993 was also the year that advertising on the internet was born.

Before 1993, it was considered ill-mannered to promote commercial products on the internet. We didn't mind commercial transactions, but certainly frowned on promotions. After all, they were (and are) delivered on the end-users dime.

[crumpled → ratboy666]

That's kinda true. But in a way, we invited advertising from the beginning, when we started heralding the internet as a direct-to-consumer news delivery platform. Meanwhile the entire business model of news media revolves around advertising.

[anonbanker → crumpled]

I know Gutenberg was thinking about click-through sales when he was working on his printing press.

Marketers took a good idea, and poisoned it to influence people for the purpose of selling them a product. Just like every technology they touch.

More marketers should take Bill Hicks' timeless advice to them.

[anonbanker → crumpled]

Who started heralding that?

That sounds like something the TV said. I never heard anyone I know saying that on their own.