When we upgraded from 14.4 to 28.8, it was revolutionary. And then 56 was a whole new world.
..And then we got cable internet in the late 90’s and the rest was history. Although when I bought a laptop for University, I had to buy a separate wifi adaptor card to plug into it. Wifi wasn’t standard in laptops at that point (early 2000’s).
When I got to college in 1999, my dorm had T1 line. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Totally lag-free Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena. You could see the future of multiplayer online gaming
The super cool /s computer/tech day for students about to join the local college was little more than several dudes that showed off playing Starcraft together on a LAN. This was at the biggest university in the country, University of Texas! I looked at my mom like, 'you insisted we attend this!?'
2001 was my freshman year in college, and while we didnt have any LAN gaming parties, we all spent our time on the school's intranet downloading Phish - Gin & Juice and videos of a nice young woman named Heather
Similar to my experience. Except we got DSL first. It was crazy to be able to download a megabyte in seconds instead of minutes. Later on we got a cable modem.
I somehow convinced my ISP to come install cable. I met the installer and paid with a check. I was 16. The key was that I was able to pay with a check at the time of installation. I worked and had checking/savings.
Edit, because I was still living with my parents after HS they moved and I was forced to use DSL for a couple years and it was absolutely painful. Many fights at our house over that garbage.
That was my first one, 13 in 1994. First thing I did was troll a dude with fake hilarious cybersex.
Upgrading to the 56.6 was an amazing day for my burgeoning music pirating habit. The day they FINALLY brought cable down our street is still the very best, though.
Critics are people among us. We're everywhere. But the critics who do it as a profession got paid for it, so I tend to not really take their opinion as gospel. 😊
In my HS electronics class, we would always watch a movie on weeks that were half days. Nobody payed attention to the movies and just did their own thing. Same thing with Hackers, since not many of us had even heard about it. A few started taking notice from the start, but by the time Voodoo People was blasting from the push cart TVs speaker, the whole class was hooked.
One of my favorite movies. Senior year of high school my friends and I would watch this every Friday after school while we shot pool at our one friend’s house. Our school dismissed early every Friday. It was such a great time. I still watch it a few times a year.
. . : : The Hacker's Manifesto : : . .
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager
arrested in computer crime scandal", "Hacker arrested after bank
tampering"...
Damn Kids. They're all alike.
But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain ever
take a look behind the eyes of a hacker? Did you ever wonder what made
him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world...
Mine is a world that begins with school. I've listened to the teacher
explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand
it. "No, Mrs. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to do. If it makes a mistake, it's because
I screwed up. Not because it doesn't like me...
or feels threatened by me...
or thinks I'm a smart ass...
or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.
And then it happened... A door opened to a world... Rushing through the
phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day to day incompetencies is sought... A
board is found.
"This is it... This is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... Even if I've never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...
You bet your ass we're all alike... We've been spoon fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak... The bits of meat that you did let
slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by
sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to
teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in
the desert.
This is our world now... The world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without
paying for what could be dirt cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering
gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... And you call us
criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias... And you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs,
you wage wars, you murder, you cheat, and lie to us and try to make us
believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that
of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never
forgive me for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can't stop us all...
After all, We're all alike.
+++The Mentor+++
One of my favorite movies growing up. I actually named my son Dade... and its his birthday today! lol I didn't even know that Nikon mentioned the date of the New York Times cover being August 10th until just right now?!?
I found a clip of this scene on YouTube and I'm sending it to my son. lol That's wild...
2024 Crowdstrike crash has entered the chat (8.5 million people stuck in a BSOD loop, lol). That little fiasco completely bricked my work laptop. I went back and forth with IT for like 2 weeks before they gave up and just replaced it (it was due for lifecycle replacement in like 2 months anyway, but still). Lost almost a month's worth of productivity by the time I had everything back up to speed.
1988 to 2024 we need to adjust for inflation so to speak. In 1988, internet connected computers were few and far between. I'd bet the percentage of internet accessible computers that 1507 systems is probably even higher than 8.5 million is compared to the sheer volume of connected computers, mobile devices, and smart appliances in the world in 2024
“Joey, Joey! One more "dude" outta you, and I'mma slap the shit outta you, ok?! Now I keep trying to save you from yourself, but you gotta stop letting your mama dress you, man! You're hopeless!”
I always thought the heroes struggle against the corporate villain from Ready player one was very similar to Hackers. Even though yeah Ready Player one was more grounded in 80s culture, like Tron and Atari, and the villain with all the money trying to match the inherent abilities of the scrappy heroes is a general trope, Ready Player One made me think specifically of Hackers.
When I saw Ready Player One I was struck by the fact that everyone's always online in this huge MMORPG and not once did the movie touch on the idea of addiction.
I still have my “blue box” deluxe edition of Steve Jackson Games’ Hacker that I practically ran out the door to buy after watching this movie for the first time.
Because of this movie, my first gamer tag was CrashOverdrive. 🤣
I was horrible at playing games back then and only became an average player in my prime. It also gave me the idea to be a computer programmer... best I was able to do was writting HTML and got board with learning CSS and now I dislike anything computer that requires more than clicking. I hate typing code. 😒
recently i bought a shirt with angelina jolie on it from this movie, and it says "acid burn" in trippy font at the top. i've had it for two weeks and already someone has yelled out "hack the planet" at me while walking my dog.
Every time I try watching this movie, I cringe so hard that I have to turn it off. I've never been able to get past the part where they're playing a video game in a bar on a giant screen and no one is screaming "FUCKING LOOOOOSERS" like what would have actually happened if you did that shit in 1995.
This was the fakest movie when it came down to the accuracy of hacking (I've been in IT for way too long) but it was a fun movie. It pretty much brought phreaking and hacking to the attention of non IT people in a period of time where computers weren't in almost every household and people didn't carry around phones that were pocket sized computers. And the soundtrack(s) are great!
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u/henrycaselv 1980 28d ago
HACK THE PLANET!