N Things I Miss About IRC

mIRCIf you cut your cyber-teeth on MySpace and Facebook, you probably won’t recognize the face of Khaled Mardam-Bay. For millions (yes, millions) of us, though, he is the Zuckerberg of the 20th century (that’s where the IRC generation comes from), and IRC is where we took our first cyber-steps. You may want to hit Google and do some digital archeology to find out about IRC in general and mIRC in particular. Meanwhile, I just want to list down all the things that IRC meant to us, the generation that was exhilarated when we upgraded from a Hercules to a CGA monitor. So join me as I reminisce about life online in the last decade… after the nag screen. Read more “N Things I Miss About IRC”

We are toads

ImagePaulo Coelho's book 'The Alchemist' has been the top favorite of the Pakistan Network on Facebook for a few months now. It is not surprising, as the story has a lot of things in common with the mystic/symbolic fairy tales that my generation (or at least a subset of my generation) was brought up on. This post, though is about Paulo's blog, which is usually filled with though-provoking positive content (and these days, we can surely use all the positivity we can get). A couple of days ago, I read an interesting observation on Paulo's blog about toads, that reminded me of this nation called Pakistan (and it had nothing to do with toads being green). He says:

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Sneaky Facebook Applications

'What kind of tattoo would you get and where?' – this is the question automatically asked my the 'My Questions' Facebook application on my behalf. I just noticed it when somebody answered it. Needless to say, I immediately removed the application. Since Facebook applications usually get access to your friends, they can very easily impersonate you. I have NO interest in other people's body mod preferences. Leave my profile alone!