Well, it’s been a harrowing day and a half since my home connection went out, leaving me dazed, confused and wondering what amazing stuff I’m missing. Maybe a funny picture with a caption, or a witty tweet about contemporary social mores, or news about the death of some villainous figurehead.
Lacking new stimulus, I’m forced to recollect. This time, it’s about my nearly two decades of Netizenship. Here’s the executive summary:
- While the exact age and speed eludes me, my first connection beyond my own PC came via a 9600 or 14.4 baud modem, used for kicks with local BBSs.
- It was in ’94 that I first went online to the actual Internet, with a 56k modem and Trumpet Winsock serving as the lens to a world I’d never seen before. Wow, I had that connection going full steam for hours at a time, downloading movie snippets, entire songs, and whatever else caught my fancy.
- A couple years later we had broadband… high speed, baby! I harnessed my LPB status to dominate Quake multiplayer (ugh I still can’t believe I played with keyboard only, no mouse!), and logged way too many hours in the WoW of the day – Ultima Online.
Since those formative years, I’ve never been without a connection for long. Some of my strongest ties are to a community that, in a way, helped to raise me… people who I’ve never met in person.
I’m so grateful for the Internet and for technology. Sure, there’s been some downs, but they’ve mostly been ups. And it looks like things will only keep getting better from here on in.
So I’m off for now, to check out whats going on with Twitter and Reddit while I’ve still got some battery left. Buh bye!
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Tags: disconnection, internet, technology
