The Computer Chronicles - The Internet (1993)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as period footage for how people thought about the early internet and 90s computing.
What it is
A 1993 episode of The Computer Chronicles on the early Internet, with guests including Howard Rheingold discussing online community. It is a window into how the internet was seen and what hardware was in use at the time.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2018 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Cites PavlovsCat · 2018-12 · on “I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me happier”
> What exactly is the problem with a monoculture? Loss of individuality? Yeah, though I can't say for sure if loss of individuality causes monoculture, or the other way around, or both. In the extreme extrapolation I would we wouldn't even be all the same humans, but simply not humans anymore. More like conduits, marionettes of each other. As for reversing it, I think that begins with the individual, with reclaiming oneself if you will. And that in turn starts with granting oneself the right to do that, wherever one feels comfortable and good about it. By that I mean, just because we're all so deep into something that might have been going on for generations, and can't just instantly "fix" e
Cites PavlovsCat · 2019-12 · on “Creating a deepfake took two weeks and cost $552”
I'd say a post-truth world wouldn't be a world at all so to speak, because if everybody lives in their own filter bubble, with no access to a common world, the public sphere, where humans can have experiences and communicate, ceases to exist. > You have to remember that in democratic societies citizens talking with each other is very important. We've lost a lot of that with the mass media. Now we have an opportunity for citizens to create their own communications with each other. So when these big deals with the big companies and the big governments carve up this new territory, I feel it's very important that we keep a kind of "social green belt", that we keep the ability for citizens to tal
Cites mellow2020 · 2020-04 · on “The Web is the Next Platform (1995)”
And this is a quote from Howard Rheingold: > You have to remember that in democratic societies citizens talking with each other is very important. We've lost a lot of that with the mass media. Now we have an opportunity for citizens to create their own communications with each other. So when these big deals with the big companies and the big governments carve up this new territory, I feel it's very important that we keep a kind of "social green belt", that we keep the ability for citizens to talk amongst each other. -- "The Computer Chronicles - The Internet (1993)" [this video]
Cites kristopolous · 2023-07 · on “The 90s Developer Starter Pack”
Watching old videos from the time like the Computer Chronicles, I'm pretty surprised how many people were running OpenStep on Intel hardware. It seems like it really made a dent for a year or two there. Check out the b roll around 5:43 [this video] And here you can clearly see the login screen on a likely Intel multi core machine, probably from Everex or NCR a similar company [this video] It's on the right hand side right before they cut it I've started to notice it a bunch in the 1993/94 timeframe. I had no idea. Next I'm going to find a bunch of people using A/UX and BeBoxes. My old bank, Washington Mutual, was using OS/2 until like 2003 ... Why not?