JCPhoenix

joined 2 years ago
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[–] JCPhoenix 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'm almost 37. I remember as a kid being my parents' "navigator' on family road trips with the map. My parents still carry an atlas in their cars, but ofc, they're using GPS on their phones/cars like anyone else.

As far as actual pre-Internet, I was on the Internet at a pretty young age (back then). I think was 8 or 9 when my dad signed us up for AOL. Roughly 1995/1996. And I was all over that (only briefly did he put a filter on my account). So I don't have a whole lot of experience truly being pre-Internet. I was playing online PC games while my friends were playing on the N64 or whatever.

As a kid playing in the neighborhood, I either called my parents from my friends' houses (which I rarely did to my mom's anger) or periodically stopped back home. Or at the very least, be back before the streetlights came on.

I had a cell phone by 9th/10th grade, esp since I was involved in band and other activities. I think I used pay phone maybe once before that? And then never again.

I was driving before GPS was widely available on phones (which existed pre-smartphone), but you just printed out MapQuest directions before leaving. Which obviously relied on the Internet.

So yeah, I don't have much experience pre-Internet, really.

[–] JCPhoenix 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think that's the case. Like they're not unheard of here in the US. Like I could go out to the store right now and buy one. Wal-Mart or Target or a home goods store still sell htem. A lot of schools and colleges still have them in classrooms. But at home or in the office, I suspect they're more decorative than anything. Like all clocks in my place are digital. The only analog clock I have would be a watch in some box that I have that I never wear. I think my parents have one, like a small mantlepiece one. Otherwise, everything else is digital.

Analog watches are probably the most common encounter. But with so many, including me, using smartwatches, how common are they actually?

[–] JCPhoenix 4 points 10 months ago

I worked at a small MSP 2020-2021. Some of our customers needed access to government sites for reporting. The fact that some of these pages still had the "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer" badge or language was sad and frightening. Luckily there's browser compatibility mode in Edge (which as you mentioned is probably just changing the user agent string), but still. My dad works in govt IT and even he's encountered internal sites that require ActiveX. He has to sometimes figure out workarounds.

I did have one medical client that used some web charting/reporting platform. And it required a specific, long outdated version of Firefox. We had to intentionally turn off updates in Firefox so they could access it. Anything newer than that version and the site wouldn't load. It was very strange.

[–] JCPhoenix 6 points 10 months ago

Trackball or bust.

[–] JCPhoenix 1 points 10 months ago

I never really gave up reddit. I mostly did in the aftermath of the API loss; certainly didn't access it on mobile anymore (at least not signed-in to reddit).

But pretty quickly I realized that some communities on reddit, such as ones related to my job field, are pretty vital. Unfortunately, they haven't been replicated to Lemmy, or are still pretty nascent. This goes for some of my interests/hobbies as well. Yes I could "be the change you want to see in the world," but...I've done that on reddit before when I helped found a subreddit. I don't really care to do that again. There's one Lemmy community I'm trying to push a little bit, but I'm not a mod there, nor do I have the energy to build a community all over again. Sorry.

Anyway, I go back to reddit as needed. But only lurking, at least until about October, when I started commenting again.

I do try to not spend all day on reddit like I used to. My goal is to only go to reddit when I need information. Like I still do google/ddg searches with "reddit" as one of the keywords. And once I find what I need/want, I leave. But there are times when I catch myself scrolling my frontpage.

Idk. Reddit isn't going anywhere. Even in May/June, I knew that. Reddit wasn't built overnight (My account is like 13yrs old); it won't go away overnight. And the same applies to Lemmy and other sites. It'll take time before they get anywhere close to reddit, if they ever do. And that's OK.

I also don't have a problem with visiting different sites and communities and maintaining separate accounts all around. I have my Beehaw account; I have an account on Lemmy.World, since Beehaw defederated to LW; I have a separate account on Kbin, because I didn't initially understand that Kbin was just Activity Pub frontend; I have accounts on Tildes and other sites. I have a standalone Mastodon account on an instance. My Pixelfed account is entirely separate. And I do use all of these. That's OK. I'm not looking for "one account/site to rule them all." Even when I was mainly on reddit, it wasn't like that was the only place I was on. Different places have different things I'm seeking or like about them. Reddit just happens to be one of those sites. That's all.

[–] JCPhoenix 27 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Be(e) nice. You're on Beehaw right now. This type of comment isn't necessary or appreciated here.

[–] JCPhoenix 1 points 11 months ago

That's disappointing that the first Octopath doesn't really come together. I've owned it for a few years now and occasionally go back to it, but never long enough to finish it, even though I want to. It just can't hold my attention that well, mainly because I don't know where the story or stories are going. It's just too slow.

I wonder if it's necessary to finish the first game in order to play the the second game. Maybe I'll give that one a try instead.

[–] JCPhoenix 2 points 11 months ago

I picked up Cobalt Core on a whim during this current Steam sale. I don't really play deckbuilders, but this is a super fun game. It's a roguelike with heavy FTL vibes. I have yet to get that far in it because...

I've been playing tons of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. I bought it during the summer sale on Steam, but only started playing it now. It's a mystery game similar to the Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney games (probably because it's made by Shu Takumi, who also made PW/AA), but instead of investigations and court cases, the main gameplay revolves around limited time travel and then trying to make Rube Goldberg machine-style scenarios to prevent people from dying. And some of the challenges are, well, challenging to figure out how things work together and in what order to use or manipulate items. It's fun.

[–] JCPhoenix 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That's not even remotely true. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of old-school forums out there, some from the earlier days of the Internet, that still exist. And they're not all huge. Tildes, the platform OP mentioned, only does limited invitations, and isn't particularly large, yet is vibrant (reddit post-API certainly helped). You can see here that Tildes has about 25k registered users; I imagine the vast majority aren't active or only lurk. The same goes for tons of small communities on Discord.

I would agree if Beehaw was just starting off as just another forum out on the web. That's certainly a hard task to start on from literally nothing. But Beehaw isn't starting from nothing. As one of the larger Lemmy instances, a userbase has already been established. Of course, not everyone will come over to a standalone site or stick around for very long if they do migrate, but it is entirely possible for a smaller community to exist in a standalone configuration over time. As long as community members find value in it, and as long as admins/mods are willing to help grow the community, even it if is slow, people will stick around.

Not everywhere needs to be reddit, and not everyone wants that anyway.

[–] JCPhoenix 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I had a good Christmas. Actually got to have a Christmas with my family this year. Last year, I got caught up in that Southwest Airlines meltdown so I didn't get to spend it with my family. I avoided that this year by flying Delta down to my folks (and SWA did have some issues in the run-up to Xmas again this year due to weather at Chicago-Midway causing some chaos across the SWA system). Still flew SWA home; in fact got home about 30min ago.

Debating whether to go see my friends later today. It's a 5hr drive and basically today is the only day I can go, and then I have to be back by Friday night. It's currently 3:30a here. So if I decide to do this, I'd have to leave by noon at the latest. So we'll see how I feel in the morning.

Nothing big planned for NYE. Probably just get a bottle of champagne for myself and some Chinese takeout, as usual.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays, got some time off, and some time for R&R, too!

[–] JCPhoenix 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Merry Christmas! I was gonna say I hope you all get coal, but then being given coal doesn't really help the economy does it? Buy your own goddamn coal.

[–] JCPhoenix 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I still think you're engaging and charming. Even if you were quiet for the last two days.

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