Cool and cloudy; August is having second thoughts, it seems. Wait, no - there's the sun. Hold on . . . going away again. Okay, one of those. Pity people at the beach today!
You're not pitying them at all, are you. Understandable.
BURNING QUESTION Is Facebook "Like" considered free speech? Facebook says it is:
Facebook is disputing it. By the way, I don't think I've ever liked anything on Facebook. Maybe Life cereal.
Did you know he died in Vietnam from eating PopRocks with Coca-Cola? True story.
NET HISTORY Neatorama, for some reason, has a piece on the first BBS and "online troll." It was a teletype machine in a coffeehouse; people could send messages. To modern eyes it's as cumbersome and archaic as using the headlights of tractors to blink morse code, but it was pretty cool at the time. Here's a post by the guy they call the first troll:
And so on. The full historical document is here. Doc Benway was a fake name, taken from a "Naked Lunch" character. Wouldn't call him a troll - first "net personality" is more accurate. Very late 60s, that; has the sound of a rejected "Firesign Theater" script, or something from an underground comic, with the tone of something old 'n' folksy retrofitted with drug references. I've absolutely no way to prove this, but I believe I know where it first began: the letters to the editor in 40s and 50s sci-fi pulp magazines. I'd bet money Doc Benway wrote a few letters jesting about BEMs.
By the way, that early computer network? From the historical documents:
