Josh Wieder

Remember BBS? Remember the Well? The first BBS was the Community Memory BBS, and its first post is printed in memoriam below (this was posted in 1973, nearly 40 years ago), entered via a teletype machine stored inside a cardboard box with holes cut out for your hands and stored in the back of a record store. The moniker used by the typist, Dr Benway, is a recurring character in the novels of William S Burroughs - leading some of us to believe (with good humor and high spirits) that since its inception, the network as social medium has always veered a bit subversively. From here we have gone to Twitter and Facebook users coordinating the overthrow of governments, in sudden paroxysms of sweeping change and violence. Perhaps there is a bit of that encoded somewhere in this early missive. ***** IEF XQPRSTQXL SYSPRINT OFFSET INTERRUPT ***** APPLIESTO: ALL BOOGIES, BEANERS, BOLOS & BOZOS ...... DOC BENWAY HERE .......... NURSE, SLIP ME ANOTHER AMPULE OF LAUDANUM .......

We're all grown ups here. Can we agree to never say "app" in polite conversation ever again? I have trouble conceiving of another term that is more likely to make you look like a buffoon ("Social Media Guru" is a close second). Let's all have a bit of dignity and speak like we were taught to do so in schools and not marketing meetings. ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)