cgra may have lived under a rock, but can try, with some help. can i get a list of the top finnish cool-things of the '90s?
jonsykkel[cgra]: linuks, ssh, irc, nokia phones, inva-taxi, list goes on
cgra: right
cgra: now we have supercell!
cgra: '90s list seems to also contain the first(?) graphical www browser
billymg[asciilifeform]: looks like lifeboat finally sunk (or BingoBoingo is doing maintenance), billymg.com down until i restore from backups elsewhere
bitbot[asciilifeform]: (asciilifeform) 2022-04-27 asciilifeform: iirc 'lifeboat' was a leased box operated by BingoBoingo pro bono
awt[cgra]: Recommended reading: Blood Meridian.
billymg[asciilifeform]: awt: i've had a physical copy of that on my bookshelf for the longest time and the strange thing is i can't even remember where it came from
awt[asciilifeform]: billymg: A chupcabra left it for you probably
billymg[asciilifeform]: well i'm not one to ignore coincidences, should probably get around to reading it
phf: http://logs.bitdash.io/pest/2023-01-15#1020391 << demoscene, everything is secondary. assembly the largest demoscene party was (is still) held in helsinki. which is also the reason why you can take any random fin lastname, add "nvidia" or "intel" to it, and get a google hit for "se
bitbot[cgra|asciilifeform]: Logged on 2023-01-15 06:25:29 jonsykkel: linuks, ssh, irc, nokia phones, inva-taxi, list goes on
phf[asciilifeform]: nior software engineer" etc. but also the reason why finland is no longer the tech talent powerhouse it was in the 90s
phf: i also suspect it's the reason why nordic and eastern european countries stopped producing tech talent the way they did in the 90s. hacker culture in Europe is city culture with lots of knowledge transfer via various hacker parties, lan parties, clubs and unix rooms. but all the ol
phf: dfags got poached by megacorps and relocated to seattle or similar.
cgra: phf, so hacker parties turned into gaming parties? what assembly's history page suggests
phf: this is way after my time, but i think there's assembly winter and assembly summer. summer is still the original demoparty format
phf: there's always been the lan party element, i remember having a q1 session where it was me and a bunch of fins, and the jokes turned into pretty aggressive "winter campaign against the russians lol" but it was still all in good fun
cgra: finnish mag "mikrobitti" (apparently started in '84) originally used to have programming articles, while later turned into a more generic consumer electronics crap. changed then their name to "MB", but it's nowadays back to the original name. not sure what's exactly in there today
phf: but as this page indicates, they split of lan party into its own party, and that got quickly baught out by some corporate e-sport grifter
phf: cgra, there's an element of time and place to it, i'm sure. like we had similar magazines in ru (computerra is one), which started as a programmer mag, and turned into consumer one by the end of 90s
bitbot[cgra]: Logged on 2023-01-15 11:52:38 phf[deedbot|awt]: there's always been the lan party element, i remember having a q1 session where it was me and a bunch of fins, and the jokes turned into pretty aggressive "winter campaign against the russians lol" but it was still all in good fun
phf: i was at some point certain that i'm going to get my ass kicked by a bunch of fins at the end of the game :> but they all came to gg me , and then we drank
cgra: were you winning? :)
phf: because it was a dm, but then it turned into 4 against 1, and it was still attrition
phf: http://logs.bitdash.io/pest/2023-01-15#1020415 << oh yeah, my music school was on the way to Propaganda lan club, which is where teamrus congregated. polosaty and co went to win early e-sports quake competitions on the world level, they'd kick my ass all the time, but you know 1v1
phf: 10-2/10-3. those fins obviously played, but they were casuals.
bitbot[cgra]: Logged on 2023-01-15 11:59:27 cgra[jonsykkel]: were you winning? :)
cgra: hehe, right
phf: when counter stirke came out, lots of casuals started coming to lan clubs, and i was making money to buy clothes and snacks and computer parts on 1v1 2v2 games for money. real lan rat
phf: which is also where the idea that "i'm getting my ass kicked after this match" comes from :>
cgra: how much were they on the negative?
cgra: lol, good times...
cgra: re q1, i never participated such larger lan events, but once a friend of a friend visited me, and there were a handful of my friends. played q1 with 3-4 computers. the friend-of-a-friend wiped floors with everyone else... with his black magic: mouse steering lol (i was a country kid)
phf: i went there by myself, and those guys were my introduction to a whole bunch of other fins. and we were obviously speaking english to each other, which was equally bad on both sides. but i remember somebody from that group explaining phong shading to me, and somebody else was showi
phf: ng me assembly code of their prod. it was like a genuine knowledge exchange
phf: also beer
asciilifeform: phf: while afaik is 100% tru that the finns & others moved to usa to work for microshit etc., asciilifeform suspects that win95 and the gpu were the mortal wounds to 'demo scene' long prior to the migrations
asciilifeform: i.e. at some pt in late '90s, the commonplace pc was no longer a machine that rewarded demoscene-style cleverness; but instead the kind of mindset which 'enjoys studying us tax code'
asciilifeform: the computer that bright teenagers could take interest in and form 'computer clubs' etc -- disappeared.
phf[asciilifeform]: that's also a contributing factor for sure
asciilifeform therefore strongly suspects that the 'obvious' cosmography -- 'oldfags moved to seattle and could no longer mentor local young folx' -- is backwards; they left at least in part ~because~ 'scene' evaporated on acct of 'not has with what'
asciilifeform 'participated' in demoscene strictly as a spectator, and formed distinct impression that win95ization was the 'time of death'
phf: nah
phf: neither 95 nor opengl were the death knell, for example i was a youngfag by all the measures, joined already long into win95 era, didn't know and didn't care about c64 or amiga, and yet i would say it was peak demoscene
asciilifeform had only c64 for 1st coupla yrs in usa, and enjoyed the demos; could not afford amiga before the latter went off the stage
asciilifeform: reputedly amiga ~was~ 'peak demoscene' -- on acct of 100% standardized and quite capable (in capable hands) graphics/audio chipset
phf: see you're looking at it from the "purist" perspective, but in eastern europe nobody actively disliked microsoft. for one it was phree and ms were clever enough to establish strong presence in the universities and not particularly go after pirates either
asciilifeform: indeed afaik in east eu folx bit the microshit hook without any hesitation.
asciilifeform: even formed a sort of perverse 'demo scene' with clever virii instead of graphics as main focus of 'clever' ( recall 'dark avenger', polymorphic engines, etc )
phf: also early windows versions were still light and tight comparatively to modern monsters. e.g. i learned about softice form scene, and you'd have people running their windows machines under cracked softice, so that they have better idea of context switches or whatever.
asciilifeform used subj
asciilifeform even lived to see the 'apotheosis', 'hard ice'
phf: also everyone was into gaming, so you had a mandatory cracked windows, running cracked softice, where you would load your pirated game of the month. i remember booting return to krondor and immediately dropping into softice for some reason, probably to figure out where health stats
phf: were, then spending like several hours trying to figure out what's going on. then going to bed and realizing that i haven't the slightest idea how the game even looks.
asciilifeform started in x86 reverseism in precisely the way described above, ended up living off subj for many yrs
phf: i'd maybe agree that it was synergistic, machines become too complicated (in a boring way) for a single wizard to hack, but you'd be surprised how insane the poach was.
asciilifeform: defo 'slow death' rather than 'in a day'
phf: will wright released spore in 2008, but i guess it was in development since forever, and his big pitch was that he got "demoscene, you probably never heard of it, programmers" and i remember it being incredibly cringe, because by then nvidia/ati/intel sales reps were standing at th
phf: e doors of demoparties and grabbing people and putting them in the back of unmarked vans to be shipped directly to the u.s. west coast
asciilifeform: the clever virii thing was possibly the last gasp, afaik peak was in 2010s ( asciilifeform showed up just in time to watch the 'interesting' evaporate away )
asciilifeform recalls 'spore' , mega-disappoint
asciilifeform: salt mines using 'hey this d00d published clever xyz in asm n yrs ago' as hiring filter continues, and prolly will continue ( complete with the part where you take the contract and find regular salt mine, and noshit the wurk has 0 to do with whatever made'em 'hey yer cool, work for us' )
asciilifeform on receiving end of this 'fortune' n times, like errybody else, and nuffin to write home about
phf: the whole "left behind" aspect of the scene, and i mean that in general, hackerspaces, lan parties, various get togethers, should not be understimated. now there's obviously a lot of people who got older, need to take care of family, etc.
asciilifeform: folx 'aging out' and '1 foot in grave' aint surprising, happens errywhere; the part that 'needs explaining' imho is the lack of 'next generation'
phf: i usually take a day or two on whatever trip to leave the women and friends behind to go explore local scene, and it's pretty universal experience. hackerspaces established in the good old days, but now run by zoomers, with more interest in intersectional integration or whatever, than they are in hacking.
asciilifeform: scar tissue.
asciilifeform: there aint aboutta be a 'next linus', for simple reason that is ~impossible to write meaningfully interesting ab-initio os for commonplace irons, for instance.
asciilifeform: ('is that a real program, or is that sumthing sumbody wrote?'(tm)(r) effect)
phf: http://logs.bitdash.io/pest/2023-01-15#1020458 << yeah, that's basically the question. and how this thread started. finland used to be the hacker powerhouse, and it's funny because i personally have to be reminded of it, that's not where my thinking would go now. but if you were to
phf: ask me about finland in the 90s, i'd do that "The Hackers" style bow "oh they are all 31337 over there"
bitbot[cgra]: Logged on 2023-01-15 12:41:45 asciilifeform[jonsykkel|deedbot|awt]: folx 'aging out' and '1 foot in grave' aint surprising, happens errywhere; the part that 'needs explaining' imho is the lack of 'next generation'
asciilifeform remembers all kindsa finn 1337, from the 'cave flying' games, the penet remailer, demos, linus et al, to almost modern times
phf[asciilifeform]: http://logs.bitdash.io/pest/2023-01-15#1020425 << i'm pretty sure by then all the techniques were already known, wall walking, circle jumping, strafe running. obv rocket and grenade jumps and straffe jumping. so you could gain significant advantage just from moving properly
bitbot[cgra|asciilifeform]: Logged on 2023-01-15 12:15:00 cgra[jonsykkel|signpost]: re q1, i never participated such larger lan events, but once a friend of a friend visited me, and there were a handful of my friends. played q1 with 3-4 computers. the friend-of-a-friend wiped floors with everyone else... with his black magic: mouse steering lol (i wa
cgra: right
cgra: awt: are you itching to get fiddling with an ircless blatta mutation, or does another 1-4wk make any difference?
awt[asciilifeform]: cgra: No rush. I'm still rather bogged down with consulting work.