T w e n t y S i d e d
The recent spike in traffic to this site (because of DM of the Rings) reminded me of this:
On May 19 2003, both FARK and Slashdot linked to my humorous “History of the Internet” bit. The original site is long gone and replaced by a spam portal, but I do have the thing archived here. Now that was a day of heavy traffic. I give full credit to Hosting Matters, though. Despite the simultaneous FARKing and Slashdotting, the site never went down.
The History of the Internet hasn’t aged well, humor-wise. The jokes about X10 and Instapundit don’t really work. When I wrote it, Instapundit was still a huge monolith of the blogging world (not that the site has gotten smaller, it’s just that everything else has gotten bigger) and X10 is no longer an instantly recognizable name. I bet there are a lot of people reading this who’ve forgotten all about their sleazy, ubiquitous ads.
Still, that was a fun couple of minutes of fame. Everyone gets their 15 minutes I suppose, but I seem to be getting mine in lots of little 2-minute allotments.
Quakecon 2011 Keynote Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
This Game is Too Videogame-y
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
Please Help I Can’t Stop Playing Cities: Skylines
What makes this borderline indie title so much better than the AAA juggernauts that came before?
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
The X10! That brings back memories. I remember joking that the camera could ONLY take pictures of houses and half naked women.
I still remember the days when floppies were still used and I got an AOL floppy in the mail every other day. They definitely saved me from ever having to buy a single floppy disk.
I don’t know, I thought it worked fine. I may barely remember X10, and not remember Instapundit at all, but the jokes are general enough that they still amuse.
Plus, the dig at Bill Gates was brilliant.
That was you? I’ve ben laughing at that for YEARS. Don’t worry, it has aged QUITE well, actually (I STILL GET AOL CDS – DIEDIEDIEDIE!!!!).
And yes, the Gates comment was probably the single best part, which is saying quite a lot.
Sure, the Instapundit thing aged poorly, but the rest is pure comedy gold. Well done!
I think the humor has aged just fine! Thanks for the Zombo.com link, BTW — that was cute enough, and I liked the voice enough, that I sat through till it looped. :-)
I think the humor holds up just fine for about 90% of the entries. Also, according to your timeline, I started blogging about 1 year before it was invented. I must be pretty innovative:P
I love it! I remember fondly (or not so fondly) nearly every milestone on there. And bonus points for identifying the only successful dotcom in history.
So are you gonna update it for the developments of the past few years?
stephen: If I think of anything funny. :)
I remember a game where one had to write new fortune-cookie fortunes, and someone suggested
X10 – Tiny Wireless Digital Camera!
Sir, if you would just tell me where you bought that sense of humor, I’d like to get one for Xmas. The best I can do are lame otakusphere jokes.
I think your whole lemon portal is down! :( How am I going to look at this history of the internet?