Eternal September

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

by crumpled • 11 years ago

12 11 11 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

anonbanker4• 11 years ago

Most of you weren't even alive in 1993.

Which means you never got to experience the internet.

And you don't know why it was important for those of us that did.

pavel_lishin• 11 years ago

Can you enlighten us?

ratboy6662• 11 years ago

Because 1993 was also the year that advertising on the internet was born.

Before 1993, it was considered ill-mannered to promote commercial products on the internet. We didn't mind commercial transactions, but certainly frowned on promotions. After all, they were (and are) delivered on the end-users dime.

unfunco• 11 years ago

That's quite the assumption. You're quite the seasoned pioneer, tell us stories about the olden days, grandad.

I'd guess that most of the HN audience is actually older than 22, you're not the only witness to the birth and growth of the Internet.

anonbanker4• 11 years ago

I'll make you and offer: we'll trade stories. I'd love to hear your stories of usenet back in '92. You go first.

ratboy6662• 11 years ago

  # sdate - Eternal September Date
  #
  # date -d '1993-09-01 UTC 8130 days'
  #
  # ce: .mshell;
  #
  s=`date --date="1993-09-01 UTC" +%s`
  if [ -z $1 ]; then
    n=`date +%s`
  else
    n=`date --date="$1" +%s`
  fi
  d=`expr \( $n - $s \) / 86400 + 1`
  if [ $d -ge 1 ]; then
    echo September $d, 1993
  else
    echo Error: date not in Eternal September epoch
  fi

And today is:

September 8153, 1993

Yes, I mourn the internet.

crumpled2• 11 years ago

I keep imagining that we can/will keep carving out new digital spaces that can hold the old hacker spirit. I'm just not sure what it looks like.

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

Maybe something like the CPM Users' Club.

Eternal September

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