Castle Aching

[Martin S-C]

Ah, yes. The Internet. Leading the uneducated astray since 1994.

[Regularity]

Ah, yes. The Internet. Leading the uneducated astray since 1994.

That’s the general adoption of Sir Tim’s www address format.

The internet goes way back before then. It was just ****ing awkward to use.

[Martin S-C]

It was a joke. I pulled a random date out of thin air. Kind of you to try and correct me though.

[St Enodoc]

But if the weather is anything like it's been here today, you'll certainly need the long johns!

 

Jim

An essential part of my "on-call" gear when I worked in Scotland.

[Edwardian]

As I mentioned, I managed to make limited progress on the Drill Hall on Sunday afternoon ....

[Hroth]

Are you going to have a glorious stained glass window in that huge opening, complete with regimental crests, etc?

[Hroth]

That’s the general adoption of Sir Tim’s www address format.

The internet goes way back before then. It was just ****ing awkward to use.

I remember going on a Unix course at Liverpool University back then.  Whacking great big HP workstations running HPUX, costing thousands, with the power and capability of a modern netbook computer.  We used Lynx, Gopher and Veronica to explore the internet, even then infested with questionable content...  Not that we looked.  Honest!

 

One day, we were shown the latest in internet technology, the Mosaic Web Browser. 

Slow, buggy and completely bogged down the newest workstation in the cluster.

 

Everything was awkward to use on the internet back then!

[drmditch]

Hope the house sale goes properly, and you are delivered from the perils of chains,delayed searches,reluctant banks etc.

 

Do I understand that you are not physically moving? If you are I wish you a 'good packing'. I've still got some boxes to unpack four years on (and that's outside the Railway Room).

[sem34090]

He's been moved for a few years now, but it's taken this long to try and get the house sold! Although I've never lived in a house that's been ours to sell, I sympathise all the same.

[Edwardian]

Are you going to have a glorious stained glass window in that huge opening, complete with regimental crests, etc?

 

Well, I am going to try!

Edited December 4, 2018 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Regularity

 

I’m not at all sure that it’s meaningful to talk about ‘the internet’ existing any time before widespread adoption of IPv4. Yes, there were data networks that had some of the characteristics of what has become ‘the internet’, and some used early versions on IP, but that isn’t quite the same thing.

 

And, yes, they were very ‘user-unfriendly’. I remember using JANET in about 1978/79, and although I can’t remember what protocol it used, or even whether it was packet-switched at that stage, I can remember that it was frustratingly difficult and barely functional. I think the US military were way ahead of that, but I bet theirs wasn’t easy to use either!

 

Kevin

[Edwardian]

It seems absurd to claim Black Dog so close to what should be the end of the situation that has been the most pressing cause of anxiety and stress in our lives for some years, but today I feel exhausted and utterly glum. Some strange reaction? Guilt at not living my life as well as I should during a protracted period of difficulty? I can only speculate, as I cannot identify any cause operating on my conscious mind.  

 

Truth is, the family has been in survival mode since the credit crunch - ten tough years - and I am no longer the man I was a decade ago.    

 

Must shake it off.  Strangely I do not feel unmotivated where modelling is concerned.  I'd like to think I could for once finish work at a reasonable time and do some! You cannot be whittling away at your nerves when engaged in whittling away at a stick!

[Nearholmer]

Edwardian

 

I think you should forgive yourself feeling ‘dogged’ at the moment.

 

It is, after all, a moment of high stress, even if different in mind from what has happened before, and if your personal ‘extreme stress reaction’ is to feel ‘dogged’ under stress, it’s likely to happen.

 

We each react to extreme stress, that is stuff that affects us big-time, but over which we have no control, in different ways: anger; fretful, but pointless activity; hyper-activity until exhausted; gloom; freezing as in ‘rabbit in the headlights’; pretending it isn’t happening and failing to take sensible actions to rameliorate; deliberate intoxication into oblivion; insane gambling; refuge in delusion; you can add to the list of alternatives!

 

Personally, I think that anyone who claims that they cope well with heavy stress is either a fibber, or unable to recognise their response to it.

 

Not sure that helps; probably not, but it’s a roundabout way of saying ‘you aren’t the only one’.

 

Kevin

[Edwardian]

Edwardian

 

I think you should forgive yourself feeling ‘dogged’ at the moment.

 

It is, after all, a moment of high stress, even if different in mind from what has happened before, and if your personal ‘extreme stress reaction’ is to feel ‘dogged’ under stress, it’s likely to happen.

 

We each react to extreme stress, that is stuff that affects us big-time, but over which we have no control, in different ways: anger; fretful, but pointless activity; hyper-activity until exhausted; gloom; freezing as in ‘rabbit in the headlights’; pretending it isn’t happening and failing to take sensible actions to rameliorate; deliberate intoxication into oblivion; insane gambling; refuge in delusion; you can add to the list of alternatives!

 

Personally, I think that anyone who claims that they cope well with heavy stress is either a fibber, or unable to recognise their response to it.

 

Not sure that helps; probably not, but it’s a roundabout way of saying ‘you aren’t the only one’.

 

Kevin

 

Thanks, Kevin, and it is precisely at times like this that is helpful to be reminded that there are causes for these effects and of the fact that one's experiences are far from unique and that one is not, therefore, alone. 

[DonB]

Is the above double duplication a feature of the recent Server Update on this site?

 

Your window with stained glass.... I assume that the prototype was intended to be viewed from the inside, so reversed in the exterior photos above

.

I tried to do something similar for shop window, by printing the image onto plastic sheet sold as "Printable" for use with the classroom overhead projectors.

I found that results from ink jet printers smudged very easily and needed "fixing" with a matte spray. Didn't have a laser printer to compare.  

[Guy Rixon]

As I mentioned, I managed to make limited progress on the Drill Hall on Sunday afternoon ....

 

If that's "limited", "full" progress is going to be awesome!

[Guy Rixon]

The stone bits of the drill-hall window would be fun to print in 3D. I am guessing that the shapes could be generated by elegant geometry that could be coded directly. The glass and leading would presumably print well on an ink-jet printer.

[Guy Rixon]

Regularity

 

I’m not at all sure that it’s meaningful to talk about ‘the internet’ existing any time before widespread adoption of IPv4. Yes, there were data networks that had some of the characteristics of what has become ‘the internet’, and some used early versions on IP, but that isn’t quite the same thing.

 

And, yes, they were very ‘user-unfriendly’. I remember using JANET in about 1978/79, and although I can’t remember what protocol it used, or even whether it was packet-switched at that stage, I can remember that it was frustratingly difficult and barely functional. I think the US military were way ahead of that, but I bet theirs wasn’t easy to use either!

 

Kevin

I started to use JANET in 1986. It was definitely packet-switched then, but the JANET IP-service didn't start until later. "Red Book" protocols ruled. JANET was OK to use by the standards of the time, but we noticed that it was harder to use that the DECnet WAN we were connecting from.

 

In the spring of 1987, I sent my first email over the actual, public Internet. At that stage, almost all the nodes were in the USA and most of them were in universities. Peering and access arrangements were almost non-existent, so the "public" internet was, practically, a misnomer. To get an email from DECnet through JANET to an Internet node at an American observatory was ridiculously difficult. The email address at NRAO had to be garnished with all the routing information - essentially a list of every MTA in the chain - and it was about 300 characters long. The email got through, but IIRC my colleague wasn't able to reply by email and had to send back a fax.

 

Certainly the WWW was a great gain in ease of use, but the bigger step was connection of British Academia to the Internet so we could actually email.

[Regularity]

It was a joke. I pulled a random date out of thin air. Kind of you to try and correct me though.

But it led to lots of interesting anecdotes.

[Caley Jim]

But it led to lots of interesting anecdotes.

That's the thing here on CA.  Someone makes a throw away remark and before you know where we are we're off on another journey!  I used to have a poster on my study wall which said 'Happiness is not a station you arrive at but a manner of travelling'.  Substitute CA for happiness!

 

I fully agree with Kevin on the Back Dog issue.  When I was in dental practice I often found a bit of modelling as a useful 'escape' from the pressures and then was better able to rationalise things. 

 

Jim

[Martin S-C]

Its about keeping yourself busy. If your hands are doing something your mind gets focussed on that task. The best thing to do in a bout of depression is literaly anything, so as to keep your mind from dwelling on the things you need to avoid dwelling on.

 

When I am feeling a bit down I just grab an RTR wagon and weather it. Or build one of my big stash of POWsides kits. It really helps.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Hroth]

I started to use JANET in 1986. It was definitely packet-switched then, but the JANET IP-service didn't start until later. "Red Book" protocols ruled. JANET was OK to use by the standards of the time, but we noticed that it was harder to use that the DECnet WAN we were connecting from.

 

In the spring of 1987, I sent my first email over the actual, public Internet. At that stage, almost all the nodes were in the USA and most of them were in universities. Peering and access arrangements were almost non-existent, so the "public" internet was, practically, a misnomer. To get an email from DECnet through JANET to an Internet node at an American observatory was ridiculously difficult. The email address at NRAO had to be garnished with all the routing information - essentially a list of every MTA in the chain - and it was about 300 characters long. The email got through, but IIRC my colleague wasn't able to reply by email and had to send back a fax.

 

Certainly the WWW was a great gain in ease of use, but the bigger step was connection of British Academia to the Internet so we could actually email.

Thankfully, I was only a bystander, as it were and didn't have to worry about delving into JANET.

 

Was that the "bang" notation, everything separated by a ! commencing with your local node...?

[DonB]

In 1986 our offices had a COMPUTER,-- it said so on the door of the compound housing the main frame unit-- entirely for the company's accounts department. We used to joke (if that's the right word!) that it's arrival resulted in departure of Three lady comptometer operators and arrival of Two electricians to keep it running. I recall plug-in boards, complete with valves,  being removed and exchanged every time I went past it. 

[brack]

Enough of this prehistoric networking stuff,

 

Back to the drill hall. Will it have a real drill in it?

 

[Nearholmer]

Guy

 

Having just read the Wikipedia history of JANET, what I used must have been ‘pre-JANET’, although i’d Swear it was called that. It allowed (sometimes!) access from that famed seat of learning (not!) Croydon College of D&T to computing facilities at, iirc, UCL. Precise access times had to be pre-booked, then a connection established (as I say, I can’t remember how), then initiation of a “run”. I was a mere student, so it was a case of using it for the sake of using it, rather than anything very serious, and when we got a PET (iirc) at work c1980 I started to use that instead, initially moving work that we did using programmable calculators onto it. The office had a single-purpose analogue computer gathering dust on top of a cupboard, that having been used before the programmables.

 

Kevin