When was the AARoads Forum organized?

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

Hello All,

I haven't heard any history in regards to when the AARoads Forum was organized, so staff (or founders); What was it like throught the initial launch? Were there any sort of finanical set backs? What sort of capital was required? How long did it take to notice that the forum had gained international recognition?

(Anyone can actually answer this question.)

Thanks!

[hotdogPi]

It seems like the forum started on January 17, 2009 (I joined in 2013). However, before the forum started, something called MTR (misc.transport.road on Usenet) was used. I'm not familiar with it, though.

I don't think the forum has "international recognition". It's not that large, and the vast majority of members are from the United States.

[nexus73]

Organized?  This is a cat herding website...LOL!

Actually it is quite well run :-)  Wish I knew the history of how it began and am looking forward to responses from the OG's here.

Rick

[cahwyguy]

However, before the forum started, something called MTR (misc.transport.road on Usenet) was used. I'm not familiar with it, though.

You are making me feel old. Sonny, I remember when we had to lug packets 25 miles through the snow just to get to TIP and then to the NIC, let allow to the network hub or the DNS.

Seriously, Usenet is an old network news system (still available in places), originally based on UUCP connection between point to point sites that would forward articles around. Once NNTP (network news transport protocol) came about, Usenet transitioning onto the Arpanet/Darpanet/Internet (although there were still interfaces to separate FIDO sites and some UUCP only sites). I know I was setting up Usenet at my employer, quad!, back in 1983-1984, where were were being served off either ucla! or sdcrdcf! I forget if there was a roads group before the "great renaming"; I know that misc.transport.road was there by 1996 or so, when I started posting my highway lists to ca.general and misc.transport.road.

Everything started going downhill once AOL got on Usenet.

Seriously, as the web grew, Usenet started to slide downhill, although you can still get to it (I use http://astraweb.com/, and Thunderbird as my newsreader). Some groups are still good; most have devolved to spam and pron, although arguably they were that in the first place. But as the web grew, usenet was replaced by the groups.google.com interface and BBS. The AAroads forum is a glorified web-based BBS setup, which has pretty much been here since the original revamp into AAroads (I don't remember the date of that, because I was too busy with www.cahighways.org).

I'll note: for history folks, the Usenet is one reason you have perl. Larry Wall, the author of perl, was better known for a newsreader called rn back in Usenet days. Larry, his BIL Mark, his other BIL Jon, and I all carpooled together to SDC in those days. Larry had to come up with a configuration management reporting system to support the TCSEC (Orange Book) A1 requirements, and work both in Santa Monica and Paoli PA. So he decided to adapt Usenet news to allow article synchronization and update. He tried to use sed and awk for the reports, but they didn't have the capability to walk through files at that time, and thus perl was born. I was the first user of perl, adapting it to support development of a data dictionary for an A1 network system. So perl's lineage is Usenet and the TCSEC.

[kphoger]

NIC

You had NICs?  Lucky.  We had to make our own.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

However, before the forum started, something called MTR (misc.transport.road on Usenet) was used. I'm not familiar with it, though.

You are making me feel old. Sonny, I remember when we had to lug packets 25 miles through the snow just to get to TIP and then to the NIC, let allow to the network hub or the DNS.

Seriously, Usenet is an old network news system (still available in places), originally based on UUCP connection between point to point sites that would forward articles around. Once NNTP (network news transport protocol) came about, Usenet transitioning onto the Arpanet/Darpanet/Internet (although there were still interfaces to separate FIDO sites and some UUCP only sites). I know I was setting up Usenet at my employer, quad!, back in 1983-1984, where were were being served off either ucla! or sdcrdcf! I forget if there was a roads group before the "great renaming"; I know that misc.transport.road was there by 1996 or so, when I started posting my highway lists to ca.general and misc.transport.road.

Everything started going downhill once AOL got on Usenet.

Seriously, as the web grew, Usenet started to slide downhill, although you can still get to it (I use http://astraweb.com/, and Thunderbird as my newsreader). Some groups are still good; most have devolved to spam and pron, although arguably they were that in the first place. But as the web grew, usenet was replaced by the groups.google.com interface and BBS. The AAroads forum is a glorified web-based BBS setup, which has pretty much been here since the original revamp into AAroads (I don't remember the date of that, because I was too busy with www.cahighways.org).

I'll note: for history folks, the Usenet is one reason you have perl. Larry Wall, the author of perl, was better known for a newsreader called rn back in Usenet days. Larry, his BIL Mark, his other BIL Jon, and I all carpooled together to SDC in those days. Larry had to come up with a configuration management reporting system to support the TCSEC (Orange Book) A1 requirements, and work both in Santa Monica and Paoli PA. So he decided to adapt Usenet news to allow article synchronization and update. He tried to use sed and awk for the reports, but they didn't have the capability to walk through files at that time, and thus perl was born. I was the first user of perl, adapting it to support development of a data dictionary for an A1 network system. So perl's lineage is Usenet and the TCSEC.

So, basically this site stems from a bunch of AOL era sites and finally became its own site in a nutshell, correct? I was born in '99, so I'm not quite that old. But, I love the retro era electronics I'm just not too in tune with AOL.

[kkt]

You are making me feel old. Sonny, I remember when we had to lug packets 25 miles through the snow just to get to TIP and then to the NIC, let allow to the network hub or the DNS.

You had TIPs??  We had to make do with IMPs.  And we had to whistle our signal at 110 baud into our modem's acoustic coupler.

[inkyatari]

I was actually on M.T.R way back when for a while.  I wasn't a regular poster there.  I recognize a few names here from those days, and one I'm glad to not see on here, whose initials are C. R.

[kkt]

However, before the forum started, something called MTR (misc.transport.road on Usenet) was used. I'm not familiar with it, though.

You are making me feel old. Sonny, I remember when we had to lug packets 25 miles through the snow just to get to TIP and then to the NIC, let allow to the network hub or the DNS.

Seriously, Usenet is an old network news system (still available in places), originally based on UUCP connection between point to point sites that would forward articles around. Once NNTP (network news transport protocol) came about, Usenet transitioning onto the Arpanet/Darpanet/Internet (although there were still interfaces to separate FIDO sites and some UUCP only sites). I know I was setting up Usenet at my employer, quad!, back in 1983-1984, where were were being served off either ucla! or sdcrdcf! I forget if there was a roads group before the "great renaming"; I know that misc.transport.road was there by 1996 or so, when I started posting my highway lists to ca.general and misc.transport.road.

Everything started going downhill once AOL got on Usenet.

Seriously, as the web grew, Usenet started to slide downhill, although you can still get to it (I use http://astraweb.com/, and Thunderbird as my newsreader). Some groups are still good; most have devolved to spam and pron, although arguably they were that in the first place. But as the web grew, usenet was replaced by the groups.google.com interface and BBS. The AAroads forum is a glorified web-based BBS setup, which has pretty much been here since the original revamp into AAroads (I don't remember the date of that, because I was too busy with www.cahighways.org).

I'll note: for history folks, the Usenet is one reason you have perl. Larry Wall, the author of perl, was better known for a newsreader called rn back in Usenet days. Larry, his BIL Mark, his other BIL Jon, and I all carpooled together to SDC in those days. Larry had to come up with a configuration management reporting system to support the TCSEC (Orange Book) A1 requirements, and work both in Santa Monica and Paoli PA. So he decided to adapt Usenet news to allow article synchronization and update. He tried to use sed and awk for the reports, but they didn't have the capability to walk through files at that time, and thus perl was born. I was the first user of perl, adapting it to support development of a data dictionary for an A1 network system. So perl's lineage is Usenet and the TCSEC.

So, basically this site stems from a bunch of AOL era sites and finally became its own site in a nutshell, correct? I was born in '99, so I'm not quite that old. But, I love the retro era electronics I'm just not too in tune with AOL.

Well, not really AOL because AOL was famous for being a walled garden that didn't interact with the internet at all.  At first, not even sending mail back and forth.  AOL thought they were helping their middle-class customers by protecting them from all the crazy academics and students out there who might be subversive or tell dirty jokes or offend their advertisers.

Also AOL was a johnny-come-lately compared to Usenet.

[cahwyguy]

Sigh. Children.

There were many running jokes on Usenet. One of which was that the net started going downhill once AOL got a connection to Usenet and allowed its members to post to the various newsgroup, prompting a marked degregation of quality. Mind you, this was 1993. Here's a reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/2tmvl9/what_is_eternal_september/

Once upon time, back when the heaven was new, the only new people coming to the Internet and making nuisance of themselves due to their incompetence were the university freshmen. Every September there would be lots of idiots around, but by the end of the month everything was normal again when the new students learnt to behave themselves.

Then AOL offered Internet access to everyone.

That particular September never ended.

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[—]GrinningPariah 34 points 2 years ago

What /u/wwwwolf said, but also it's used in a similar way on lots of programming/hacker/geek forums, because they experience the same yearly influx of new people. Hacker News, for example, is heading toward Eternal September I think.

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[—]socalso 54 points 2 years ago*

Cole Stryker talks about this in his book Epic Win For Anonymous, but I'll try to summarize. Back in the day, access to Usenet was prohibitively expensive for most people, so the culture of Usenet was made up of technologically literate enthusiasts of independent means - adults. However, universities offered students free access to Usenet. So every September, newly enrolled freshmen with perhaps their first exposure to the internet would jump onto Usenet and noob it all the hell up in there. They either got wise to the culture of the place and stopped being fucktards, or they drifted away as more interesting pursuits came along, like drinking and screwing.

The Eternal September was basically the death of Usenet culture. In 1993 or so, America Online gave its entire userbase free Usenet access. This created a tsunami of newfags which swept away the last vestiges of a coherent Usenet culture - there simply weren't enough oldfags around to keep the newfags in-line with gentle trolling. The signal-to-noise ratio went incredibly lopsided, permanently deafening everyone and causing anybody with self-respect to GTFO.

So, apply this to any closed-community that suddenly finds itself invaded by hordes of ignorant noobs who know nothing of the culture they're trampling over. That's the Eternal September phenomenon.

[cahwyguy]

NIC

You had NICs?  Lucky.  We had to make our own.

Actually, I'm friends with the fellow who typed the first message across Telnet and crashed the NIC due to a buffer overflow after LO . Although I didn't have classes from Dr. Kleinrock, I was friends with many of the folks who were doing the early RFCs and protocols. I think I was first on the Internet in 1978 or so, when I got access to SF-LOVERS.

[texaskdog]

1926

[corco]

Here’s the medium-length version. The history of the forum really follows two parallel tracks, which came to an explosive head at some point in 2010. I will use the remainder of this post to elaborate on that.

Beginning in the 1970s, automakers began to see a growth opportunity into a new market segment. Following the 1973 oil crisis, American car manufacturers began to explore opportunities to develop smaller, more efficient vehicles that accomplished the same purpose as the land barges that were 1970s American cars. The quintessential family hauler – the full size station wagon – began to be perceived as a frivolous excess, and multiple car companies began exploring ways to create a vehicle that could do everything a station wagon could in a smaller, more efficient package.

By the late 1970s, the Chrysler Corporation had begun to develop what would come to be known as the “minivan.” The minivan would be similar to a station wagon in many ways – seating seven, with a boxy shaped that could serve many other practical functions. The difference was that the minivan was shorter, lighter, and more fuel-efficient.

In 1984, Chrysler introduced the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, which pioneered the minivan segment. The Dodge Caravan was the upmarket, sporty minivan – the one you bought to show you were successful. The Plymouth Voyager was the bargain van – available with fewer features with less money. If it were a person, the Plymouth Voyager would definitely have had an inferiority complex. If you were a little bit older, you would remember that everybody who was anybody had a Chrysler minivan in late 80s and early 90s suburban America. These vehicles were the epitome of practicality – small enough to easily drive, good on fuel, capable of hauling kids and dogs and plywood all at once. They rendered the station wagon obsolete.

As the economy strengthened and fuel prices fell in the mid-1990s, the demand for minivans began to wane. They began to acquire the same reputation as the station wagon once had – as a stodgy vehicle for suburban soccer moms. People wanted more. Large Sport Utility Vehicles began to take over the landscape, and the minivan was relegated to a second-tier status, for those in lower economic classes.

This was not good for the Chrysler Corporation, who began to lose money and eventually sought a partner for merger – the Daimler-Benz Corporation. While marketed as a “merger of equals” this merger was really a grab by Daimler-Benz to get access to Chrysler’s capital and the Jeep marque.

Shortly thereafter, by both a combination of a declining desire for passenger cars and a lack of interest by Chrysler’s new corporate overlords in investing in the Plymouth marque, Plymouth was phased out in 2001. With that, the Plymouth Voyager died. While the Voyager name would continue on with Chrysler for a couple more years (several more years in Europe), the body of the North American Voyager would die, leaving the soul of an aging, shitty, bargain basement minivan with an inferiority complex floating around the skies, looking for a home.

Additionally, in the mid-1990s, the internet became something that people other than Al Gore and Harvard had access to. With the launch of Netscape Navigator, the internet became accessible to most folks. As with anything with great potential, it was quickly realized that people wanted to do one thing and only one thing on the internet – use it as a great clearinghouse upon which to share porn.

Using the second, broader definition of porn- “television programs, magazine, books, etc. that are regarded as emphasizing the sensuous or sensational aspects of a nonsexual subject and stimulating a compulsive interest in their audience,” a select subset of elite internet users decided to share a bunch of pictures of road signs to stimulate compulsive interest in their audience. Eventually, these folks found each other on something called “Usenet” and a great clearinghouse upon which to share road porn was formed.

As the 90s came to an end and the 2000s began, the quality of Usenet began to take a decline. The outside world began to see “road porn” as just “porn” and so that was bad. New people stopped coming, and eventually what was once the world’s greatest road porn community turned into just a few dudes slinging shit at each other.

Where there was a gap in leadership, the angry and estranged soul of the 2001 Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity. The quality of the community had degraded below the quality level of the cheapest minivan in the country. It arose from the ashes and blackmailed couple of the cooler folks into letting it start a forum on their website, and a forum was started.

In those dark ages, there were just a few people. There was a lot of talk about really dumb stuff, and a movement away from any kind of substantive conversation on anything useful. The 2001 Plymouth Voyager, as serviceable a minivan it may have been, was a poor leader. It had no idea what quality was – and it wanted to be the king. The Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity to finally be the proverbial Chrysler Town & Country. It thought that it could handle a V6 engine and craved that power, not realizing that the chassis in a Town & Country has extra stability to accommodate the added weight and power.

As happens when one tries to do something it is not capable of, the Plymouth Voyager very quickly imploded. Everybody else picked up the pieces, shipped the dead soul of the van off to China to be repurposed as lawn furniture, and the forum lived happily ever after.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

Here's the medium-length version. The history of the forum really follows two parallel tracks, which came to an explosive head at some point in 2010. I will use the remainder of this post to elaborate on that.

Beginning in the 1970s, automakers began to see a growth opportunity into a new market segment. Following the 1973 oil crisis, American car manufacturers began to explore opportunities to develop smaller, more efficient vehicles that accomplished the same purpose as the land barges that were 1970s American cars. The quintessential family hauler — the full size station wagon — began to be perceived as a frivolous excess, and multiple car companies began exploring ways to create a vehicle that could do everything a station wagon could in a smaller, more efficient package.

By the late 1970s, the Chrysler Corporation had begun to develop what would come to be known as the "minivan."  The minivan would be similar to a station wagon in many ways — seating seven, with a boxy shaped that could serve many other practical functions. The difference was that the minivan was shorter, lighter, and more fuel-efficient.

In 1984, Chrysler introduced the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, which pioneered the minivan segment. The Dodge Caravan was the upmarket, sporty minivan — the one you bought to show you were successful. The Plymouth Voyager was the bargain van — available with fewer features with less money. If it were a person, the Plymouth Voyager would definitely have had an inferiority complex. If you were a little bit older, you would remember that everybody who was anybody had a Chrysler minivan in late 80s and early 90s suburban America. These vehicles were the epitome of practicality — small enough to easily drive, good on fuel, capable of hauling kids and dogs and plywood all at once. They rendered the station wagon obsolete.

As the economy strengthened and fuel prices fell in the mid-1990s, the demand for minivans began to wane. They began to acquire the same reputation as the station wagon once had — as a stodgy vehicle for suburban soccer moms. People wanted more. Large Sport Utility Vehicles began to take over the landscape, and the minivan was relegated to a second-tier status, for those in lower economic classes.

This was not good for the Chrysler Corporation, who began to lose money and eventually sought a partner for merger — the Daimler-Benz Corporation. While marketed as a "merger of equals"  this merger was really a grab by Daimler-Benz to get access to Chrysler's capital and the Jeep marque.

Shortly thereafter, by both a combination of a declining desire for passenger cars and a lack of interest by Chrysler's new corporate overlords in investing in the Plymouth marque, Plymouth was phased out in 2001. With that, the Plymouth Voyager died. While the Voyager name would continue on with Chrysler for a couple more years (several more years in Europe), the body of the North American Voyager would die, leaving the soul of an aging, shitty, bargain basement minivan with an inferiority complex floating around the skies, looking for a home.

Additionally, in the mid-1990s, the internet became something that people other than Al Gore and Harvard had access to. With the launch of Netscape Navigator, the internet became accessible to most folks. As with anything with great potential, it was quickly realized that people wanted to do one thing and only one thing on the internet — use it as a great clearinghouse upon which to share porn.

Using the second, broader definition of porn- "television programs, magazine, books, etc. that are regarded as emphasizing the sensuous or sensational aspects of a nonsexual subject and stimulating a compulsive interest in their audience,"  a select subset of elite internet users decided to share a bunch of pictures of road signs to stimulate compulsive interest in their audience. Eventually, these folks found each other on something called "Usenet"  and a great clearinghouse upon which to share road porn was formed.

As the 90s came to an end and the 2000s began, the quality of Usenet began to take a decline. The outside world began to see "road porn"  as just "porn"  and so that was bad. New people stopped coming, and eventually what was once the world's greatest road porn community turned into just a few dudes slinging shit at each other.

Where there was a gap in leadership, the angry and estranged soul of the 2001 Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity. The quality of the community had degraded below the quality level of the cheapest minivan in the country. It arose from the ashes and blackmailed couple of the cooler folks into letting it start a forum on their website, and a forum was started.

In those dark ages, there were just a few people. There was a lot of talk about really dumb stuff, and a movement away from any kind of substantive conversation on anything useful. The 2001 Plymouth Voyager, as serviceable a minivan it may have been, was a poor leader. It had no idea what quality was — and it wanted to be the king. The Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity to finally be the proverbial Chrysler Town & Country. It thought that it could handle a V6 engine and craved that power, not realizing that the chassis in a Town & Country has extra stability to accommodate the added weight and power.

As happens when one tries to do something it is not capable of, the Plymouth Voyager very quickly imploded. Everybody else picked up the pieces, shipped the dead soul of the van off to China to be repurposed as lawn furniture, and the forum lived happily ever after.

So, the forum started out of the back of a Minivan along side the porn industry (like my life), but instead of dying out it out lasted most of our dads' in bed. correct?

[corco]

No. You didn't read it literally enough. I described exactly what happened.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

No. You didn't read it literally enough. I described exactly what happened.

Ok, I'll give it another read. I didn't have to be a clown, but I wanted to be! 

[EDIT]: Ok, I do see the coorilation with everything mentioned.

Thanks!

[jeffandnicole]

No. You didn't read it literally enough. I described exactly what happened.

Boobs.

[kkt]

NIC

You had NICs?  Lucky.  We had to make our own.

Actually, I'm friends with the fellow who typed the first message across Telnet and crashed the NIC due to a buffer overflow after LO . Although I didn't have classes from Dr. Kleinrock, I was friends with many of the folks who were doing the early RFCs and protocols. I think I was first on the Internet in 1978 or so, when I got access to SF-LOVERS.

Charley Kline?  Do you know him well?  Would he sign an autograph for me?

[Takumi]

Here's the medium-length version. The history of the forum really follows two parallel tracks, which came to an explosive head at some point in 2010. I will use the remainder of this post to elaborate on that.

Beginning in the 1970s, automakers began to see a growth opportunity into a new market segment. Following the 1973 oil crisis, American car manufacturers began to explore opportunities to develop smaller, more efficient vehicles that accomplished the same purpose as the land barges that were 1970s American cars. The quintessential family hauler — the full size station wagon — began to be perceived as a frivolous excess, and multiple car companies began exploring ways to create a vehicle that could do everything a station wagon could in a smaller, more efficient package.

By the late 1970s, the Chrysler Corporation had begun to develop what would come to be known as the "minivan."  The minivan would be similar to a station wagon in many ways — seating seven, with a boxy shaped that could serve many other practical functions. The difference was that the minivan was shorter, lighter, and more fuel-efficient.

In 1984, Chrysler introduced the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, which pioneered the minivan segment. The Dodge Caravan was the upmarket, sporty minivan — the one you bought to show you were successful. The Plymouth Voyager was the bargain van — available with fewer features with less money. If it were a person, the Plymouth Voyager would definitely have had an inferiority complex. If you were a little bit older, you would remember that everybody who was anybody had a Chrysler minivan in late 80s and early 90s suburban America. These vehicles were the epitome of practicality — small enough to easily drive, good on fuel, capable of hauling kids and dogs and plywood all at once. They rendered the station wagon obsolete.

As the economy strengthened and fuel prices fell in the mid-1990s, the demand for minivans began to wane. They began to acquire the same reputation as the station wagon once had — as a stodgy vehicle for suburban soccer moms. People wanted more. Large Sport Utility Vehicles began to take over the landscape, and the minivan was relegated to a second-tier status, for those in lower economic classes.

This was not good for the Chrysler Corporation, who began to lose money and eventually sought a partner for merger — the Daimler-Benz Corporation. While marketed as a "merger of equals"  this merger was really a grab by Daimler-Benz to get access to Chrysler's capital and the Jeep marque.

Shortly thereafter, by both a combination of a declining desire for passenger cars and a lack of interest by Chrysler's new corporate overlords in investing in the Plymouth marque, Plymouth was phased out in 2001. With that, the Plymouth Voyager died. While the Voyager name would continue on with Chrysler for a couple more years (several more years in Europe), the body of the North American Voyager would die, leaving the soul of an aging, shitty, bargain basement minivan with an inferiority complex floating around the skies, looking for a home.

Additionally, in the mid-1990s, the internet became something that people other than Al Gore and Harvard had access to. With the launch of Netscape Navigator, the internet became accessible to most folks. As with anything with great potential, it was quickly realized that people wanted to do one thing and only one thing on the internet — use it as a great clearinghouse upon which to share porn.

Using the second, broader definition of porn- "television programs, magazine, books, etc. that are regarded as emphasizing the sensuous or sensational aspects of a nonsexual subject and stimulating a compulsive interest in their audience,"  a select subset of elite internet users decided to share a bunch of pictures of road signs to stimulate compulsive interest in their audience. Eventually, these folks found each other on something called "Usenet"  and a great clearinghouse upon which to share road porn was formed.

As the 90s came to an end and the 2000s began, the quality of Usenet began to take a decline. The outside world began to see "road porn"  as just "porn"  and so that was bad. New people stopped coming, and eventually what was once the world's greatest road porn community turned into just a few dudes slinging shit at each other.

Where there was a gap in leadership, the angry and estranged soul of the 2001 Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity. The quality of the community had degraded below the quality level of the cheapest minivan in the country. It arose from the ashes and blackmailed couple of the cooler folks into letting it start a forum on their website, and a forum was started.

In those dark ages, there were just a few people. There was a lot of talk about really dumb stuff, and a movement away from any kind of substantive conversation on anything useful. The 2001 Plymouth Voyager, as serviceable a minivan it may have been, was a poor leader. It had no idea what quality was — and it wanted to be the king. The Plymouth Voyager saw an opportunity to finally be the proverbial Chrysler Town & Country. It thought that it could handle a V6 engine and craved that power, not realizing that the chassis in a Town & Country has extra stability to accommodate the added weight and power.

As happens when one tries to do something it is not capable of, the Plymouth Voyager very quickly imploded. Everybody else picked up the pieces, shipped the dead soul of the van off to China to be repurposed as lawn furniture, and the forum lived happily ever after.

(Must...resist...making...Alanland...references...)

[vdeane]

I thought Voyager was named after the Star Trek series?

In any case, no history of the forum is complete without mentioning such epic threads as "Guess the Highway" and "Voyager's Cosmic B'bar".

[freebrickproductions]

^And the one thread that starts with A?

[noelbotevera]

Never understood "Voyager's Cosmic B'bar", but considering the forum was full of 20+ year old people prior to this, I'm guessing it's filed under the "porn" drawer.

But, basically the forum started back in January 2009, under two admins: V'Ger and Alex. Alex's account exists to this day, but V'Ger's was terminated in June of 2009. Alex brought the forum into today's iteration in July of 2009. Basically, V'Ger got mad for whatever reason, and banned Alex, and Alex did the same (I think it was an argument where V'Ger made random people or friends admins and created random boards). The forum entered a dark age, but eventually Alex and some others (agentsteel53, rickmastfan67, so on and so forth) was able to revive the forum.

That's about it for the AARoads forum of today, but the origins are in 1995.

[cahwyguy]

Charley Kline?  Do you know him well?  Would he sign an autograph for me?

We were at UCLA together. I don't seem him face-to-face that often, but we talk on Facebook all the time. There's a large cohort of folks who were in the UCLA CS department and the UCLA Computer Club who regularly interact over there.

[CtrlAltDel]

(Must...resist...making...Alanland...references...)

I don't. 

[hbelkins]

(Must...resist...making...Alanland...references...)

I don't. 

No, I didn't get it either.