tag/geekery

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from yousenet

2014.08.30
WARNING: this post is not very interesting to anyone except weirdly geeky stalkers of me.

Usenet used to be really central to my online life... before the web really got into gear, it was a great set of forums over myriad topics, and it was cool to have so many different forums all with the same interface, one that the poster could choose. (Especially compared to web-forums, where every forum requires a new login and uses a slightly different interface.)

Years ago I used Google groups to do some basic metering of how much I posted to Usenet. Today, cleaning out an old HD (including a snagged snapshot of my old cs.tufts.edu account home folder) I found a copy of my ".posted" file, a list of references to Usenet posts I made. I crunched some numbers and came up with the following...

Here's how much I posted per year:
1995615
1996570
19971048
1998959
19991149
2000453


Here are the groups I posted to most often. (I posted to 441 unique groups, 193 only once, and 65 only twice.)
rec.games.video.classic1167
tufts.general752
comp.sys.palmtops.pilot354
alt.fan.cecil-adams308
alt.folklore.computers267
rec.games.video.nintendo258
alt.games.wing-commander150
alt.tv.commercials139
alt.comp.sys.palmtops.pilot137
tufts.tuftsconnect124
alt.hackers102
rec.arts.sf.written89
rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc64
comp.sys.palmtops61
alt.peeves60


Finally, here were the threads I participated in the most:
What does Micro$oft do Well ? alt.folklore.computers 46
Tufts Lifeline Taxi tufts.general 45
Tufts on NPR tufts.general 40
Worried about IDSA killing emulation? rec.games.video.classic 23
What did Nintendo do that Atari couldn't? rec.games.video.classic 19
Defending Emulation / some ROMS. rec.games.video.classic 17
Just missing immortality, defining a life well-lived rec.arts.sf.written 17
Reorganization RFD has been submitted rec.games.video.classic 14
Just Wondering... tufts.general 13
Primary Source tufts.general 12
So quiet tufts.general 12
Landware Go Type Pro keyboard comments comp.sys.palmtops.pilot 12
whats your favorite classic system (cannot include arcade emulators) rec.games.video.classic 12
The string of lights down the hill tufts.general 11
Dont buy Palm: Retarded OS with 4K memo limit comp.sys.palmtops.pilot 11
tuftsconnect tufts.general 10
Atari VS. ??? rec.games.video.classic 10
Gameboy vs 2600: The Ultimate Classic System? rec.games.video.classic 10
It seems odd to me how few of these I remember, and odd to look things up on Google Groups, and see discussion that once meant kind of a lot to me.

Anyway, here is the raw .posted file, the full data analysis, and the node script I wrote to crunch it.