Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus

–Alex Blechman

Except in this case it’s a political party instead of a tech company.

That era of Internet history was wild. Between weird sex stuff like that and tentacle soup, weird body stuff like goatse and tubgirl, and straight up death like two guys one hammer. It seemed like every third person on the internet was trying to trick you into watching one of those.

Report, block, and move on folks. If the mods want this place to harbor racists then they’ll do nothing. But you did your job.

“I’m a faithful follower of Brother John Birch and I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church, and I ain’t even got a garage, you can call and ask my wife.”

–Charlie Daniels

The line was spoken by a green toothed hillbilly in a song he wrote. He was making fun of these types and painted them as drunk hicks.

For reference, 15 years later he had a song (the second part to this song, funny enough) that did its best to make fun of half the queer community.

Yep. A lot of these tech companies that have run in the red for years are now being called on to produce a profit and pay the big backers.

You can’t really cook a person’s rib primal the same way you’d do beef. People meat is not marbled like beef so you’d want to cook it low and slow with a lot of moisture.

So while you could have a people prime rib sandwich, it’s not going to have a great texture.

I can’t argue with that because honestly I was jealous of the folks running it. But they are buying new equipment today and I’m not.

It’s a veritable fuckton cheaper. In scientific terms at least.

Same. I have a lot of legacy recording equipment that I won’t replace until it stops working and it’s all mini USB.

I’m just glad I got what I did instead of FireWire.

I sing karaoke fairly often. I sing the nonsense lyrics and no one seems to notice, especially if I sing 90s rock.

Until the CIO gets the “telephone game” version of what’s going on.

I’m less concerned about that and more concerned about supervillains building lairs.

Some of us always look like shit.

That’s no fucking joke. Please just send me an email about this meeting because it’s not really worthwhile and I just want to crank out code.

It wouldn’t shock me, honestly. I did home support in a small computer repair shop for extra cash and all the leftover parts I could carry in high school in the 90s, then I did some time at an MSP for many years in the 00s and early 10s. I heard many versions of that particular anecdote from the time I started until CD drives stopped coming standard.

I can’t speak to the executable, but I know back in '95 the joke about someone calling support and asking why they have a cup holder but no CD drive was already crusty. There were a bunch of variations, but here’s the first one I found for those too young to remember:

Customer: "Can you help me, the cup holder on my new computer broke, and I don’t know what to do?

Friend: “Cup holder? What are you talking about? None of our computers come with a cup holder attached to them, and I’ve never heard of one that did.”

Customer: Yes, well the one you sold me did, and the other day I went to set a mug of coffee on it and it just snapped off!"

Friend: “Sir, can you describe what the cup holder looks like, because I still can’t picture what a cup holder on a computer would look like?”

At this point the customer is getting a little irritated!

Customer: “Look, I don’t know how you could not know that you sell computers with cup holders on them, because it’s right in the middle of the thing, and when you push a button on the side, it pops out so you can set your drink on it, and it says 4X on the front cover!”

A long pause . . .

Friend: Sir, are you telling me, you’re using your CD-Rom drive as a beverage holder?"

Customer: “What’s a CD-Rom Drive?”

And now, a terrible bonus joke that is completely unrelated but was around at about the same time:

How do you know if you’re addicted to the Internet? You get a tattoo that says “This body best viewed with Netscape 2.01 or higher.”

That’s what I was wondering. Could they please release the full definition of the version of the word “genocide” they’re using?

Except for the <.1% of users who do things like compile their own version of Infinity with their own user agent. They’re still there and not looking at ads.

It’s like the people who call Ted Cruz stupid. They’re absolutely wrong. Those two aren’t stupid, they’re just terrible people (assuming Cruz is a person) and are actively working against the well-being of the vast majority of the US.

Yep. A few of the big boys are pushing for hybrid but I think the great majority will never be full time in the office again.