bondcliff's profile (website)
Info
Name: Jim
Joined: December 26, 2000
About
What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.
This thread made me want to actually answer the questions. Feel free to skip to the TL;DR part or just walk away altogether.
What's the deal with your nickname?
Bondcliff is the name of a mountain in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It's a beautiful, remote peak, about as remote as you can possibly get in New England. For a number of reasons, it is a special place to me. Most of those reasons you would find boring so I won't list them here. Ask me at a meetup some day and I will be happy to bore you with them.
How did you get it?
I guess I gave it to myself, though nobody calls me that in real life except perhaps at Metafilter meetups and when that happens I usually say "Call me Jim, please." but they still call me Bondcliff and I suppose that's ok.
If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet
I'm going to do this anyway. My first experience that computers weren't just something in science fiction was in Kindergarten (1974 or so) when one of my classmates brought everyone an ASCII Snoopy calendar for show and tell. This was printed on the classic green bar line printer paper. She said something along the lines of how her dad's computer could write 100 lines a second or something ridiculous like that. It was impressive. Oh, hey, here it is, only updated to 1981.
Then, in fifth grade, I had one of those innovative hippie teachers who ran his class differently from anyone else. He had an original TRS-80 Model 1. He was cool. They named the library after him.
Later, in seventh grade, my mom decided that since computers were The Future, she should get us one. So she got us a TRS-80 Color Computer. That computer changed my life and probably saved it.
Eventually I became a PC tech, back when fixing "IBM Compatible" computers meant pulling out 16k chips with a chip puller, installing 8087 Math Coprocessors, and swapping 360k floppy drives. 20 MB (that's Megabyte, kids) drives that would cost $600 and take an hour to format. If you know what "G=C800:5" means, you probably did the same kind of work.
I do other work now but it's all been a natural evolution from those first few years tinkering with that TRS-80.
BBSes in the 1980s at 300 baud, AOL in the early 90s at 1200, to dial-up in mid-90s at 2400 or 9600, to cable modems, the rest is history. My son has never lived in a world where you couldn't instantly find the answer to any question. In some ways I envy him, but on the other hand he has never really appreciated having the ability to do that.
what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?"
Probably the first time I met people from the Internet in real life and nobody stabbed me.
TL;DR
Stuff about me:
"Never write anything; you'll only regret it." --Don Whillans, mountaineer.
This thread made me want to actually answer the questions. Feel free to skip to the TL;DR part or just walk away altogether.
What's the deal with your nickname?
Bondcliff is the name of a mountain in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It's a beautiful, remote peak, about as remote as you can possibly get in New England. For a number of reasons, it is a special place to me. Most of those reasons you would find boring so I won't list them here. Ask me at a meetup some day and I will be happy to bore you with them.
How did you get it?
I guess I gave it to myself, though nobody calls me that in real life except perhaps at Metafilter meetups and when that happens I usually say "Call me Jim, please." but they still call me Bondcliff and I suppose that's ok.
If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet
I'm going to do this anyway. My first experience that computers weren't just something in science fiction was in Kindergarten (1974 or so) when one of my classmates brought everyone an ASCII Snoopy calendar for show and tell. This was printed on the classic green bar line printer paper. She said something along the lines of how her dad's computer could write 100 lines a second or something ridiculous like that. It was impressive. Oh, hey, here it is, only updated to 1981.
Then, in fifth grade, I had one of those innovative hippie teachers who ran his class differently from anyone else. He had an original TRS-80 Model 1. He was cool. They named the library after him.
Later, in seventh grade, my mom decided that since computers were The Future, she should get us one. So she got us a TRS-80 Color Computer. That computer changed my life and probably saved it.
Eventually I became a PC tech, back when fixing "IBM Compatible" computers meant pulling out 16k chips with a chip puller, installing 8087 Math Coprocessors, and swapping 360k floppy drives. 20 MB (that's Megabyte, kids) drives that would cost $600 and take an hour to format. If you know what "G=C800:5" means, you probably did the same kind of work.
I do other work now but it's all been a natural evolution from those first few years tinkering with that TRS-80.
BBSes in the 1980s at 300 baud, AOL in the early 90s at 1200, to dial-up in mid-90s at 2400 or 9600, to cable modems, the rest is history. My son has never lived in a world where you couldn't instantly find the answer to any question. In some ways I envy him, but on the other hand he has never really appreciated having the ability to do that.
what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?"
Probably the first time I met people from the Internet in real life and nobody stabbed me.
TL;DR
Stuff about me:
- My name is Bondcliff. That is not actually my name.
- My real name is Jim, but most people call me... Jim.
- I have a twin on Metafilter. We're not actually related. OR ARE WE?
- Jessamyn once described me on the podcast as "a nerdy, Massachusetts suburban dad" and she pretty much nailed it. I'm ok with that.
- I have a quirky sense of humor and very little filter between my brain and mouth. Sometimes it's an asset, often it's a liability.
- Cortex changed my life.
- Metafilter has made me a better human being.
"Never write anything; you'll only regret it." --Don Whillans, mountaineer.