Who can forget the joy of scrolling usenet groups alphabetically to find alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk

[jpaskaruk@growers.social]

@th Possibly little-known factoid: that was kind of an evil newsgroup. They were a group of early trolls, whose main activity was joining other newsgroups covertly, and reducing the discourse to anger and fighting.

Ratfucking for its own sake, in other words, was their purpose on the internet.

[th@social.v.st]

@Cadbury_Moose oops it was alien not fan! I've corrected the post. (And bummer to hear it was a group of trolls)

[th@social.v.st]

@neil throbbers were the best and I love seeing them in movies from the 90s

[pa79@social.egalwaat.lu]

@th

I honestly remember reading alt.aeffle.und.pferdle. It was a very niche selection of users.

[vickforcella@mastodon.derg.nz]

@th @Cadbury_Moose I knew a few regs of that group. Kind and normal people. Allergic to idiots.

One of them created a few fan newsgroups for me.

[cadbury_moose@wandering.shop]

@th Ah yes, the Empire of Meow, and various subgroups like alt.fan.karl.malden.nose IIRC (it was decades ago), and then the spammers automated the crap out of net abuse and a lot of people gave it up as a bad job.

3:O(>

[gyrosgeier@hachyderm.io]

@th @cstross alt.dinosaurs.barney.die.die.die

[drhyde@fosstodon.org]

@th alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove got taken over by a weirdo who, along with his sock puppets, is now the only person there. But the community lives on elsewhere.

[poetaster@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@th I was very attentive to alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb but never had the nerve to adverbise the fact.

[bartholin@fops.cloud]

@th @Cadbury_Moose >alt.amazon-women.admirers

[th@social.v.st]

It seems like putting your IBM 701C Thinkpad in a full size briefcase defeats the purpose of the amazing butterfly keyboard

[mancube@pnw.zone]

@GyrosGeier
i forgot how obsessesed the early internet was with barney
@th @cstross

[infoseepage@mastodon.social]

@th No, it's right there! Now your briefcase can accommodate a external floppy disk too.

[nicksalt@mas.to]

@th alt.sex.bears.pickanick.pickanick.basket

[leah@blahaj.social]

@th alt.sadistic.dentists.drill.drill.drill

[cadbury_moose@wandering.shop]

@bartholin @th

alt.sex.sheep.baa.baa.baa.moo

[th@social.v.st]

Remember when personal electronics looked cool and slightly dangerous?

[artbikes@mastodon.social]

@th those were the days.

[dymaxion@infosec.exchange]

@th
Oh, I hadn't seen that before. It's beautiful!

[idlestate@toot.cat]

@th

Very Patrick Nagel