They got my attention, as they included some images of an intricate Tile pattern, so I started to read and follow the successive posts. All small in length, but when put together tell the story and get us into an uncharted territory, discovering new things.
The story is interesting, and it will be my day's Blog project to share and document it. Hang tight. The Toots are reproduced as posted, with line breaks between each representing the small delay until the next showed up.
A modem was the only available way to reach out and connect to other computer systems in the early 90's. They were not cheap, but the allure of finding out what was out there was enticing. You saved, until you could get one.
My first modem was an US Robotics Courier 2400 bps, internal model. Purchased it in a company liquidation sale, new in a sealed box.
I had to learn VERY quickly of all the intricacies of IRQs, Com port addresses and default assigned IRQs, Jumper settings to change those.
Before consumer internet service was available, you needed an academic or business account.
Story Time. Joining the Internet in the mid 90's.
#introductions [words in Italicized text have Definitions later in page]
My first access to the internet was via an academic server, running Irix on a Silicon Graphics machine. They were pretty, with some purple details and very modern design. We low grade users did not have physical access of course, but the Irix command line was quite enjoyable, I learned all the basic operations of the Internet (that was pre-Web days) via command line utilities.
Pine for email. Gopher was cutting edge stuff. FTP to download text and binaries, program files from remote servers. Telnet , to access another Unix system in Colorado were I had a free shell account – the very first one I ever had.
Prussian blue or Berlin blue is the oldest modern synthetic color. It has been in use since its discovery in Berlin in 1704. The pigment is made from ferric ferrocyanide.
CASE STUDY. The history of the use of Prussian blue in Japan is an illustrative example of a process of rapid acceptance. The effects of the use of this synthetic pigment in Japan is a case study in the history of technology.
This month we have a process for nominating candidates for Moderator position here at the Mastodon and Discourse Forum instances at QOTO.org. It is an important one, and I would like to post a few notes and thoughts about it.
First of all, it's surprising how open and transparent the process of Staff selection is here; In most cases, these discussions are held In Camera, by existing site staff (moderators and administrators), sometimes subject to a vote between them, sometimes with Admins having the final decision, after accepting input.
Folks, good morning, hope you all are well. A personal request of mine.
Please consider trying to reduce the amount of General posting, as we have so many short messages with momentary thoughts that more serious posts are getting buried.
This thread contains Suggestions and Guidelines for new Mastodon users, and is copied from the series of Toots posted by @curator@mastodon.art on August 9, 2019.
All Toot posts are being copied here for easier reading and access by any interested parties. With a big thank you to Rheal, the operator there and author of the posts.
“Read this book. You’ll find plenty about John and all the other sky-high crackpots who were in the field with him and you may even get (as I did) a glimpse of the heroic excitement that seemed to make it reasonable to cuddle with death every waking moment—to say nothing of learning a heck of a lot about the way in which the business of science is really conducted.” (Issac Asimov)
[ A copy of post previously made 
