[marvin]

Haha, wow. I read bash.org in my youth, and this exchange (among others) have stuck with me, such that I'd remember if someone pointed it out. I'm sure the quote has idly flowed through my head at some point too, when I've been on a random walk philosophizing or something. Clame to fame indeed :D

Funny seeing you here more than a decade later. Wonder how many other of those random encounters could happen with the people on HN. I remember stumbling across Brian Lozier from The Massassi Temple here last year, for instance.

[mercer]

Well hello there fellow Massassi Temple member!

It's already kind of weird to regularly get comments from or interact with geek 'celebrities' both big and small, (saurik, Alan Kay, etc.). Sometimes it bleeds over into the real world where I mention so and so said something to me about whatever topic we're on, and then I have to explain that it was a comment on a badly-styled website and try not to out myself at the same time.

But even weirder is how likely it is that many people that I used to know from various internet places (Massassi Temple, Something Awful, TTLG, IRC channels) are also active here. Not to mention that I know for sure that some techies I know are on here too.

I think what makes it feel weird is that HN is both relatively well-known and small at the same time. The places I frequented growing up were obscure enough that I wouldn't know anyone from 'somewhere else', whereas a site like Reddit is so pervasive that any comment I post gets lost in the noise (probably half of the thirty-something-and-under crowd I know is on Reddit).

EDIT: I think the weirdest 'celebrity' encounter I had was the time I had dinner guy who created CSS Zen Garden. That website was one of the resources that got me started on my web developer career.

[marvin]

Incidentally, The Massassi Temple and Jedi Knight level building/modding is what got me started with software engineering. COG programming both introduced me to programming and revealed my affinity for it :)

At the time, there were no peers in my life to challenge me intellectually, or even interested in many of the same things I was, so this community was a godsend that kept me sane through middle school. If I'd been born even five years earlier, that phase of my life would have been even more of a chore than it was in the first place.

No one at the time was discussing the Internet and computer games' role in socialization, friendship and becoming a well-rounded citizen!

[mercer]

Same here. While I've been programming since I was eight or so, working on a mod/total conversion for Thief and building levels for Jedi Knight was what got me properly on that track.

I don't miss the days of JED/JKEdit though. All those crashes and 'leaks' in the geometry... The Unreal Editor was a lot better, but even there these things would regularly happen.

[mrbuttons454]

Another fellow Massassi alum checking in. Not only did that get me started in programming, but it also piqued my interest in Linux. My time there was a huge positive influence on my life.