' X-NEWS: spcvxb comp.dcom.telecom: 23499 K Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site spcvxb.spc.edu \ Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!telecom-request Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom ! Subject: Thrills of Long Distance * Message-ID: <telecom12.588.4@eecs.nwu.edu>* From: stoll@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Cliff Stoll) Date: 27 Jul 92 02:59:12 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu4 Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu& X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu0 X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu6 X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 588, Message 4 of 5	 Lines: 87   7 Pat compared the Usenet to Ham Radio.  Got me thinking.   D You know, in every technical medium, things start out pure and sweetF and exciting; as they become cheaper and better and more popular, they( lose their purity; their excitement too.  A In 1956, nobody called long distance across the Atlantic.  Anyone D older than 40 remembers their first long distance phone call -- withA an eye on the second hand of the clock, you spoke fast.  That one C phone call was cherished and packed with information.  Not the same 7 thrill today; not the same information content, either.   ? And Ham Radio: When you could only communicate over morse code, A messages were terse and more hams knew each other.  Equipment was C homebrew, or at least built from kits.  Along with every other ham, 	 you knew:      - Morse code   - soldering skills   - basic electronics    - message protocols "   - basic communications etiquette  B And each ham knew this in order to communicate, not just to pass a2 test.  Intentional QRM and interference were rare.  C Today, you might need to know some of this in order to pass a test, + but most hams get along quite well without.   B Result: oldtimers claim that the quality of ham radio has dropped.= You hear of malicious hams interfering with others, anonymous C kachunkers on repeaters, and private repeaters closed to outsiders.   D Other technological areas are the same way as well.  Used to be thatB you froze when you went observing at a mountaintop telescope.  YouB wasted no time on a clear night -- every minute was precious.  YouF carefully developed a few glass plates, and delicately analyzed these, often under a microscope.   @ Now, your astronomical data comes on a magtape, cdrom, or over aD network.  You might never look through an eyepiece ... especially ifD you use the Hubble Space Telescope, or any of the other astronomicalE spacecraft.  You have more data, and better data too.  But the thrill  just ain't the same.  D Is the same thing is happening on the Usenet/Internet?  When you hadB to know the TCP/IP suite and there were a few hundred nodes on theE network, we mostly knew each other.  It was a kicker to just get mail D across the network or to ping another node.  There were fewer flames and nastygrams.   C With today's million node network, it's a rare Usenet group without B flamewars.  You might recognize a few posting people, but how many> have you met?  Malicious intruders break into computers.  Many postings have zero content.   B The thrill of receiving junk e-mail from Australia isn't quite theE same as hearing a warbly CW signal on 20 meters which just might be a D DX station.  A telephone solicitor calling from 1000 kilometers awayC is just an annoyance -- yet thirty years ago, you'd be happy with a ( noisy connection from two counties away.  D Something's happening here.  I'm not sure what, but BB King comes to mind: Thrill is gone.     0 73's     Cliff    K7TA    stoll@ocf.berkeley.edu    D [Moderator's Note: You hit the nail squarely on the head. The thrillF is gone -- it isn't *fun* any longer. And yes, Usenet is the same way.G Most of the net is rapidly becoming unmanageable. Consider this Digest: C When I took over, there were enough messages coming in to put out a E Digest every two days. When Jon Solomon first started the Digest back F in 1981, he would put out two or three issues per week most weeks. ForD the past year, messages have flooded in here at the rate of at leastB 100 per day and sometimes 200 per day -- this group alone. You mayC recall the CB radiio 'rage' -- when it was the latest thing back in C the 1975-85 period. Millions of them out there, and finally so many B people got so totally turned off, disgusted with the way it was soD crowded and so full of junk they just quit. Even the FCC gave up anyF pretense of monitoring or trying to control 11 meters. Now the band isA very quiet around Chicago by comparison. Only the real twirps are B still out there at it. Watch Usenet and see if the same thing willC happen in the next few years: A rapid increase in sites and traffic D (even more than now!) then suddenly a lot of places just pulling the< plug, at least on net news when they get tired of it.   PAT]