Geezer

There are 386 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 38 of 39).

Facebook is the new AOL

Remember in the early, dot-com days of the Internet there were two classes of Internet users, dialup users and AOL users? The dialup users had access to the full Internet (well, full for the time, anyway) and AOL users got a sanitized, prepackaged version of the Internet at best. We dialup users looked down on the AOL users and their “walled-garden” system.

It dawned on me today that Facebook is the new AOL. Facebook has this whole environment where things are controlled and it’s set apart from the rest of the Internet. There are some people whose online experience consists almost completely of Facebook. It’s a walled-garden just like AOL.

I’ve been on the Internet since 1992, the same year that AOL for Windows debuted. Seventeen years later we are back where we started.

(You clever MT.Net readers are different, though. The fact that you’re reading this shows you’re not part of the unwashed masses. Pat yourselves on the back.)

Q+E Photos

I blogged about these before but wanted to share some of my Q+E software photos again:

QE_Support-1QE_Support-2QE_Support-3QE_Support-4

If you know/remember who’s who, drop a comment and I’ll try to get everyone labeled.

The Onion has been “sold” to the Chinese

This week, The Onion (formerly “America’s Finest News Source”) was “sold” to the Chinese. Since then, The Onion has been running articles as if they were written by the Chinese Communist Party. Some bits miss the mark but some are quite clever.

In that theme, The Onion posted this status update on Facebook and made me laugh out loud:

The Onion NEWSWIRE: Disgusting U.S. Citizen Allows Saliva To Collect In Mouth.

As one person commented:

Chris Ross
Whoever is writing this I think has been to China – yes, that’s right, saliva (with the various “additives” they can add to it) belongs on the sidewalk and if that isn’t possible – indoor potted plants.

Any Westerner who has visited China nods knowingly at this fake headline. I saw it myself when I visited China. Thanks, Onion, for the memory and the laugh!

Journaling filesystems

I was geeking out a bit while I was cleaning this morning, thinking about how wonderful journaling filesystems are. My computers here at home occasionally lose power and crash, yet their filesystems almost always repair themselves.

Back in the Ancient History days, dropping power on a DOS and Windows 3.x box meant almost certain file corruption. That changed when Microsoft’s Windows 2000 added journaling to the NTFS v3.0 filesystem, and from that point on most every filesystem had a journal. (NTFS wasn’t the first journaling filesystem, but the first one for the masses. I believe the first was IBM’s JFS, released for AIX in 1990 and then for OS/2 Warp Server in April 1999.)

Now with improved manufacturing techniques and journaled filesystems, filesystems seem to last until the drive itself wears out. So now you whippersnappers know how good you’ve really got it!

One week left for Siteseers.Net

I’m retiring my long-time domain, siteseers.net, next week. I’ve had it since 1997, back when I used ISDN to access the Internet. While it will be sad to see it go, I don’t really use it anymore. I’ve got more than a dozen other domain names and this one is needlessly adding to the cost of annual domain renewals.

I’m going to park it at Sedo in case anyone is interested in buying it.

Shuttered

I spent part of yesterday afternoon at the former Army SIGINT base known as Vint Hill Farms Station, which is now a county park and office park development. Vint Hill reminds me of a similar base to which I was once assigned but is now also an office part development: Fort Devens in western Massachusetts.

As I surveyed the empty barracks and parade field, I realized that precious few of the places I’ve been stationed are still active military installations.

The only station from my military past that is still kicking is NTTC Corry Station in Pensacola. I was sent there after initial training in Fort Devens.

Makes me feel old.

Kodachrome

Kodachrome will be no more. Check out some reminiscences, the Kodachrome Project and Kodak’s Kodachrome Sildeshow.

Kodachrome (YouTube)
Paul Simon

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
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