Older millenials nostalgic for the good ole' days
From Redditor The_Law_of_Pizza in the "older millennials of reddit: what was life like in the 2000s?" thread:
The 90s and 2000s were a perfect blend of comfortable analog life and the tantalizing promise of a digital future.
It was a time when you could go to the mall and literally be disconnected from everyone but the friends you met there. Your parents couldn't call you. Your work couldn't call you. None of you were staring at a screen texting people who weren't there. It was just you mall rats, your shopping, and the food court.
But it was also a period when you might have a beeper, or an early cell phone, or a palm pilot - things that were amazing at the time, and made you feel like you were living in the future. It's hard to convey that feeling to somebody who has grown up in the digital era; but try to imagine living in a world where getting separated from your friends at the mall meant an hour of searching for them store by store - and then suddenly having a small flip phone you call them on.
The technology was just advanced enough to be incredibly useful without being advanced enough yet to consume you.
It was a time when every year brought insane leaps in technology - jumping from 2D graphics to fully 3D Voodoo-powered wonder.
Think about it. This period literally went from Super Mario World to Batman Arkham Asylum.
These were real, genuine and exciting things to look forward to rather than just the year's new iPhone with a slightly enhanced camera that you only pretend to see the difference in.
The internet itself was still a new, wild frontier. It hadn't been captured by huge corporate interests yet, and wasn't overrun by the lowest common denominators spamming social media for clicks and dollars. There simply wasn't a big financial incentive yet, so everybody who was surfing those digital waves was just there to have fun.
It's a time that will probably never come again.
Millenials have officially reached the age of nostalgia for our childhood. This rings very true to my feelings of that era, but also I'm keenly aware of the overlooking of the problematic portions (anti-LGBTQ masked in the most measly of willingness to acknowledge gay people, as just one example.)
Regarding the framing for technology of the era, it's 100% true. I had a pager in high school, then a cell phone, and a palm pilot. I yearned for more and more technology in my life. I learned HTML as I became addicted to the Internet and its possibilities. I started blogging in this time. I was on IRC more than I am on Twitter these days.
Wild stuff to think back on. And oh god I feel older and older every day.
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This is 100% my mental memory of the driveway at the first home I lived in as a child. I only vaguely remember it at all, as we moved out when I was three, but in my recollection the driveway was so steep it almost inverted at one point. I have sense gotten to go back to the house and see it and while the driveway is a noticeable incline, it is far from a mountain-climbing challenge.
Oh how I miss Calvin & Hobbes. I recently re-read the anniversary book of comics, the first time I had gone back to them in a purposeful manner as an adult and it was so much more impactful and funny now that I had that adult perspective.
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"Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About 'Ghostwriter'"
Ghostwriter occupied a fascinating middle space for me as a kid. In some ways I was the perfect target for it, but also, in truth, I was on the upper range of their target age, and also at that time I had access to a computer at home and was already well versed in it, so the main hooks of the show were just slightly off target for me.
That said, I found this background absolutely fascinating. To hear that it was originally supposed to be about being a show which followed Sesame Street in reaching children, and how it was a show designed to show text - from that central concept the rest of the show was developed.
And, above all, the realization that Ghostwriter's lore is that they were a ghost of an escaped slave, is mind blowing and makes me want to delve back into the show.
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Ah the good ole' days when we needed multiple pieces of electronics to accomplish so little.
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One aspect of our move away from coins and physical currency (at least here in the States) is that when I found a quarter in my pocket this morning, I began flipping it while I waited for a printer to finish something for me. And I was struck that I don't know the last time I flipped a coin and that it help a nostalgic value to me. Not something I would have predicted.
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Super Mario World music restored
A group of superfans have begun reverse engineering? Sourcing? I don't know how exactly they are finding the songs, but they are putting up the soundtrack from Super Mario World at the uncompressed (aka like it was played and not rendered down to fit on a cartridge.)
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Retiring Tucows Downloads
This is some serious nostalgia. I remember eagerly looking for new freeware and shareware to try on Tucows.com when I was younger. I knew the site was still around, and today learned the news that that would soon not be the case.
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