You Should Run an IRC Server
In 1995 I was nineteen years old. I had just learned what the internet was. Within about a week of that, I learned what IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was. I don’t think it’s possible to explain to someone who grew up with social media just how wild it felt to type something into a chat window and have a person in another country type something back. In real time. For free. It sounds quaint now, like telling someone you were amazed by a light switch. But it was electric.
The Reluctant Gunner
I enjoy target shooting.
There. I said it. I’m a pretty liberal person, and I just admitted that I enjoy going to a range, setting up a target, and putting holes in it with a handgun or an assault rifle. I find it satisfying in the same way I find any skill-based activity satisfying. It requires focus and patience and discipline. There’s a feedback loop. You get better at it.
The Homepage Manifesto
There is a sound that comes out of a dial-up modem. If you’ve never heard it, imagine someone put R2-D2 in a burlap sack filled with angry weasels and then threw it down a flight of stairs. If you’re a Xennial, this sound was not only music, it signified the start of something we had to do very intentionally: Go online. It was the first step in a process. It was something special.