So we’ve already covered that I’m a pack-rat where data is concerned. It’s easier to keep track of than boxes of paper, and backup tapes and the equipment to read them can fit in one box…
Yesterday I exchanged Lunar New Year greetings with Hoo Kok Mun — one of my favorite student workers at TU who grew to be a good friend. He went back to Singapore after graduation, is married with grown kids and has a great life with his own IT consultancy.
In the course of doing some research on U.S. internet fiber maps late last night (for a future post), I was digging through old text files in MBOX (unix email) format, and ran across a collection of emails with Hoo Kok Mun from 13 Dec 1994 through 11 Nov 1995. The first one was letting me know that Singapore had just opened up Internet to the public, and was curious if any of his VAX VMS mail backup files from graduation were still around…trying to find email addresses for folks.
Somewhere around 1993 or 94, I remarked to Professor Steve Jones that thanks to the Internet this was the first generation of kids who, when going off to college could still keep in daily touch with their friends from home, wherever they went to school. Between email and the unix talk protocol (primitive realtime chat), they didn’t have the requirement for “catching up” on all the details during Christmas break. Thanks to social media that’s only multiplied…
