Getting to know you MAY 2022

[ratsmitglied]

On 5/26/2022 at 11:08 PM, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 26,

There is a lizard in a clear plastic cup with a lid on it. The cup has a label "no ice, no milk, lizard, for lizard" what do you do with the cup and lizard.

 

also are there lizards where you live? which kind?

Free the lizard and dispose of the cup appropriately

Lizards where we live - as in have seen on our property:
Shinglebacks
Bearded Dragons
Blue-tongue Lizards

Geckos
Skinks

 

Then we also have a variety of frogs, some turtles and snakes

 

 

7 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 27,

How old were you when you first used the internet? What is the first thing you remember doing on there?

It was mid-90s, not sure exactly when, and I don't remember much about what I was looking at in those early years (although I do remember the terrible, eye watering, backgrounds many pages had...)

[Evilhalfling]

May 27,

How old were you when you first used the internet? What is the first thing you remember doing on there?

started internet in college late 1992 .

but I had friends in HS who were phone phreaking and "Hacking" with a comadore.  (ie making free long distance phone calls.
i watched them do a run, but I wasn't really using it. 

first thing I remember doing was called  newsgroups?  like a huge BB - I dont remember exactly - it was long blocks of text about whatever the subgroup was 

 My dorm had a dummy terminal that could reach the internet and nothing more.
 

 

Edited May 27 by Evilhalfling

[Inarah]

1 hour ago, Evilhalfling said:

May 27,

How old were you when you first used the internet? What is the first thing you remember doing on there?

started internet in college late 1992 .

...

 My dorm had a dummy terminal that could reach the internet and nothing more.
 

 

 

Ah, yes, my university had a setup like that, too.  I was wondering why I wasn't getting any replies on usenet, and figured out they were blocking all outgoing traffic from those terminals.  But I soon figured out how to "hack" (ie, reboot) the library computers and gain access with line commands.  Bwah-ha-hah! 

 

 

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

12 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 27,

How old were you when you first used the internet? What is the first thing you remember doing on there?

It was about 1993 when my best friend moved away an impossible distance away (which I now drive to weekly along one of my routes). He invited me to an RP chatroom where he and his then-girlfriend hung out all the time, so that we could stay in touch. And that is where Pezler the Polychromatic was born.

[Evilhalfling]

1 hour ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

It was about 1993 when my best friend moved away an impossible distance away (which I now drive to weekly along one of my routes). He invited me to an RP chatroom where he and his then-girlfriend hung out all the time, so that we could stay in touch. And that is where Pezler the Polychromatic was born.

 

in 1993/94 My girlfriend and I played in MUD (Albion)  that we used for a chat room.  it was much free  long distance phone calls were not. 
the Text-only adventure game was friendly, social and a great place to develop romance -  at least 3 couples married in real life after there characters dated.  
a lot of the time it felt like an off topic thread here, with only 20-40 regular users, sharing bits of their lives or jokes. .  the game was what you did if no one was chatting. 

My now-wife and I still keep in touch with one of the other couples. 

 

Edited May 28 by Evilhalfling

[Werkrobotwerk]

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

[Rob Dean]

On 5/27/2022 at 9:23 AM, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 27,

How old were you when you first used the internet? What is the first thing you remember doing on there?

 

I’ll answer that in three parts.  Technically, I was in a fraternity of engineers and other stem types in college, so someone showed me the up-and-coming Internet thing and demonstrated how to send an email in 1981. I was 20.  I think I had a single look at the then version of Usenet, too, which was probably still divided into ~7 groups.

 

My own first personal computer, a Commodore-64 with a 300 baud modem, came to me around 1983, and I got a wildly expensive subscription to CompuServe, which wasn’t then connected to the rest of the net.  I hung out in RPG discussions, for the most part, and ran a live chat-based D&D game for a year or two.

 

The “real” internet, with a proper @ email address arrived at work in ~1990, by which time I was ~30.  The first fun thing I did with it was to subscribe to the Traveller Mailing List, which would nowadays not pass the use agreement that work requires.

 

23 hours ago, alchemist said:

I must have been about 25.  This was back in the late 80s when home internet access was still uncommon, but I was able to use it by virtue of working at a university.

The first thing I can remember doing was subscribing to the Traveller mailing list.

 

Ah!  A fellow TML veteran.  I was on for a long time continuously, but, in more recent years, have have unsubscribed and re-subscribed for brief periods of time.  As far as I know it’s still running, but I dropped off again sometime during the pandemic.  There hasn’t been a lot of interesting discussion in recent years. If I were to run Traveller today, I’d go minimalist, and just run it from some edition of the 3LBBs.  

 

Edited May 28 by Rob Dean

[Great Khan Artist]

1 hour ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

 

In the Star Trek RPG from Moedius, there is an entire chart of "technical" words. 

 

I am a paintbrush licker, so how about "oral reconstruction of organic pigment applicator". Described very badly, as it sounds horribly dirty. 

[ManvsMini]

3 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

 

Grasp the gizmo in your left hand. With your right hand, insert the doohickey into the little whoosie just below the red thingamajig and gently turn it in a clockwise direction until you hear a click... maybe a pop... look, there's a noise you'll hear. Attach the long thingamabob to the whatchamacallit. Do not under any circumstances allow the metal whatsit on the end to come in contact with the black plastic thingummy. Failure to follow these instructions will result in damage to the doodad.

[WhiteWulfe]

3 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

Attach thingamajig to the whatchamacallit.  Make it whrrbrr and if sparks fly you're doing it right. 

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

4 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

To reach your destination, turn left at the rock and then keep going until you turn right at the not-rock.

[Chaoswolf]

5 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

My first job after getting out of the Navy was working as a government contractor for a company that performed troubleshooting and repair of US Navy sonar systems. At one point, my partner and I were tasked with creating a piece of test equipment that was needed to verify a certain parameter that hadn't been tested/checked before. We managed to create the item and took to calling it 'the doohickey'. We kept joking that we really needed to come up with a better name for it, but we never did. Eventually, we were asked to assemble all of our testing notes into an official procedure. Well, we had gotten so used to just calling it 'the doohickey' that that was we had put down in our notes.

 

Which got collected, studied, written up into an official test procedure, and submitted for approval. We laughed like a pair of maniacs when we got the official, approved US Government testing procedure back a few months later and the test device was referred to as 'the doohickey'. The higher ups weren't as amused. 

 

I don't work there anymore, so I don't know if it ever got revised or not.

 

[Corsair]

6 hours ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

 

3 hours ago, ManvsMini said:

 

Grasp the gizmo in your left hand. With your right hand, insert the doohickey into the little whoosie just below the red thingamajig and gently turn it in a clockwise direction until you hear a click... maybe a pop... look, there's a noise you'll hear. Attach the long thingamabob to the whatchamacallit. Do not under any circumstances allow the metal whatsit on the end to come in contact with the black plastic thingummy. Failure to follow these instructions will result in damage to the doodad.

 

3 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

Attach thingamajig to the whatchamacallit.  Make it whrrbrr and if sparks fly you're doing it right. 

I cannot top these! Thank you guys for this!

[Evilhalfling]

May 28,

Badly describe something technical, or technically describe something badly.

My 17 year-old cat was having problems,  I called my mother and she diagnosed it as 
"Relapsing, remitting, paraplegia."    technically accurate but useless.  ie meaning - sometimes, her back legs didn't work.
Mom then told me to take her to an actual vet. 

the cat lived 3 more good years on a medically prescribed diet, before her time came. 

 

Edited May 28 by Evilhalfling

[Great Khan Artist]

5 hours ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

To reach your destination, turn left at the rock and then keep going until you turn right at the not-rock.

 

But look out for the cops at the surveillance bush.