From the mists of time.

[rivka]

lysana recently noted that Google Groups has filled in many of the holes in their Usenet archives - they now apparently believe that they have everything dating back to 1981.

This gives those of us with long-term histories on Usenet the cringeworthy opportunity to go back and see what kind of drivel we posted in our youth. For the most part, it's an opportunity I would rather have foregone (not that I can stop looking now, of course, it's like poking a sore tooth with your tongue). And yet, I also found this:

>: [My sister] felt that the reason that I wasn't happy or content in my job
>: was that I wasn't teaching the "gifted" kids. I guess she felt that I
>: should be using my creativity on "kids who can appreciate you."
>:
>: Do you think that people (teachers) w/ above avg intelligence should
>: use their creativity on smart kids?

>I think smart people have a duty to contribute as much as they can to
>society. (Just like anyone else.) For some teachers this would mean
>teaching smart kids, but for others it may mean teaching average, or even
>disabled (mentally or physically) kids.

Keep that attitude up and someone's going to roll over your toes with their
wheelchair. PLEASE, even among the nerd community, Stephen Hawking should have
made it quite obvious that PHYSICALLY DISABLED does not, in fact, preclude
some measure of intelligence. I was a crippled kid. I was also one of the
brightest kids ever to come through my (admittedly small-town) elementary
school. Now I am a crippled adult and a lot nastier, so don't make slurs
about the intelligence of disabled people or I'll whack you with my cane. [...]

Rebecca
The smartest cripple on rec.org.mensa

Okay, so it's needlessly hostile. And I'm surprised I didn't injure my bad hip further with the severity of the knee-jerking displayed here. Still, I kind of have to admire my feistiness.

I wrote this about six months after I'd been told by an eminent orthopedic surgeon that I would never walk without assistance again. I was struggling hard to figure out what that meant about me as person and a member of society. I was 20. It wasn't the most graceful struggle, but I'm not sure that anyone's would have been.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

oh, lord. lordy lordy lordy. now i must go look myself up. i'm not telling anyone what my college email address was, and i'll thank anyone who knows it to keep it to themselves.

mensans are very smart but occasionally not very bright. sort of like my dog. every once in a while i think i should join again, but i'm currently getting my socializing with smart people needs met.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

ack. i used to post to alt.sex. ack! when i was 19! ack!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

*wince*

See, this is exactly the kind of thing we need time machines for.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Yes. I remember rationalizing certain postings with "Well, it all goes away after a couple of weeks anyway."

Little did *I* know. There I am, laying down the law in 1983, preserved for eternity. Ooog.

[brooksmoses]

I used to post on soc.weddings. When I was 20.

I'm not at all sure this is better, really.

Though it did have some very entertaining trolls, and troll-squelchers.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if we were 19 at the same time (I doubt it, since CMU undergraduates got usenet access very early on, I'm not sure if we ruined Usenet first but I like to claim that we did), but when I was alt.sex was not completely unreadable.

I am also pleased to report that they don't have any more of a dossier on my 1987-1990 doings than they used to. Perhaps they HAVE the tapes but they're deciding whether to branch into extortion instead of just being a lawful neutral information clearinghouse.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

One of the things I like about you is that you do not suffer fools gladly. It took me until the age of forty to get to that point. : )

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Back in the mid-90s, I ran across some of my very first attempts at apa-hacking. Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

I like to believe we've all gotten somewhat wiser as we've gotten older, but then I'm a Cub fan, too.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Wow, I started posting in September. 1989. Wow. (In alt.sca.)

That post is old enough to drive.

Oh my...

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Wow. I found stuff back to 1996. Ahem.

Well, I wasn't planning to run for public office anyway...

Re: Oh my...

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Actually, an old USENET post did lay low a candidate I was volunteering for in this year's Canadian federal election. It was both fascinating and totally cringeworthy. Google on "malcolm azania" and "jews".

-J

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Kind of crazy, isn't it? Another thing that amused me was finding an old flamewar I was in on soc.bi with some biphobe. I remembered being rather incensed at her at the time, but I had completely forgotten the debate until my swipe at her crossed my virtual transom.

If only I could locate the post that had Gharlane of Eddore asking me privately if I wrote for a living and if not, why not. Such a lovely little flame it was...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Gharlane of Eddore asking me privately if I wrote for a living

That is what I call a compliment.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I was just a bit too young to be currently filled with regret. All of my list postings are professional, mostly about the vagaries of FrameMaker.

Whew!

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

I wrote this about six months after I'd been told by an eminent orthopedic surgeon that I would never walk without assistance again. I was struggling hard to figure out what that meant about me as person and a member of society.

i'm glad the eminent orthopedic surgeon was wrong!

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

*swoon* You are so wonderful.

I think I will leave it at that rather than get all romantic in front of all these PEOPLE. :-)

-J

P.S. They don't actually have everything dating back to 1981. A lot of my early stuff from alt.polyamory isn't there. (Which I quite honestly don't mind.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

They don't actually have everything dating back to 1981. A lot of my early stuff from alt.polyamory isn't there.

Thanks for letting me know, because of course my next project was going to be looking back for your older posts to alt.poly. And I need to see if I remember curiousangel's old posting addresses. (Who, me? A stalker? ...maybe.)

It doesn't look like my complete oeuvre is up there either, for which I am devoutly grateful.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

FWIW, even I don't remember all the addresses I used to post from. I know I posted from iowacity.net, and from bellsouth.net, but there was something before that which I can't quite bring to mind. I also don't remember if I ever posted from umemphis.edu, or what my username there would have been -- they got wonky for undergrads.

I think I saved my old archives for Free Agent, my Usenet newsreader, though, so I could look from that end on my old machine.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

For your stalking pleasure:

gawne@aardvark.nhn.uoknor.edu (nothing shows up in google from this one)
gawne@stsci.edu
Bill.Gawne@sunsite.unc.edu
GAWNE@law7.daytonoh.ncr.com
gawne@rosserv.gsfc.nasa.gov
gawne@nascom.nasa.gov
gawne@abs.net
gawne@pha.jhu.edu
gawne@eta.pha.jhu.edu
gawne@cesmail.net

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Didn't you have a .mil address at some point? Or am I misremembering?

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oh, right! It's a monster too:

MSgt_W_C_Gawne%S_A-Division%MCCDC@smtp1.usmc.mil

[almeda.livejournal.com]

They don't seem to have much from alt.alt either, which is where a lot of my early stuff was (hint: search on u28016, and/or Eloise and/or Podgirl, those being my noms de web at the time). For which I'm sort of grateful. Though the alt.alt folks liked me enough to try to newgroup an alt.fan.podgirl in my honor, which I suppose means something. :->

Searching on 'Joseph Dunphy' and any of my aliases will turn up an incredibly hurtful flamewar. I was attacked by a genuine net.kook! Who was in a meatspace acting class with me, of all the disturbing things.

All I will say in my own defense is that (a) I was 17, and (b) nobody is EVER as harsh an enforcer of the rules as the newbie who just learned them.

Nope

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

They can't possibly be caught up.

Searching for myself, one finds an earliest post of July, 1995, which is Ulrika posting under my name -- and already obviously in mid-discussion on r.a.sf.f!

So, either they ain't caught up yet, or they will always have holes.

Re: Nope

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

not totally caught up. i can find some early embarassing stuff, and then some only marginally embarassing stuff to alt.poly which starts out with "i'm back!" (my college decided that alt.* groups were Bad For The Children for a while...)

[erikted.livejournal.com]

(1) Go your younger self! And go you in the present for being able to see you former self with some admiration and compassion.

(2) Wow, did I have have an interesting sessiong with Google. But the additions are actually good. It used to be that only my single most embarassing post ever showed up -- now it gets buried in lots of other (slightly) less cringe-worthy topics.

But WHY weren't we given a hint at the time that our young university-based hotheadedness would be preserved for electronic eternity...

[kate_nepveu]

I once found my first Usenet post (which was asking a FAQ!) but couldn't find it recently. I would like to console myself that most of the sillier stuff is buried under the sheer weight, but the fact that I have my own fan group (directly linked to the sillier stuff) that comes up high on any Google of my name, well.

[ellarien]

I managed to find the handful of posts I made to misc.writing (back when it got maybe twenty posts a day) and rasfw back in 1993-4, posting with a home-made newsreader written in Rexx by a grad student. (At least, I think he wrote it himself; maybe he got it from somewhere else.) It took a bit of digging, though, given that I could barely remember my e-mail address from back then. Nothing too embarrassing about the posts, apart from my ongoing puzzlement about why POV switching is considered bad.