Neopets.com changed my life (2019)
annastreetman.com
annastreetman.com
Then one day, a guy coded a program in Python. It was only one with a "modern" style (it used Window XP styles, while most VB6 programs looked like windows 98 programs), and it used threads so it could watch multiple stores instead of having to manage multiple processes.
I must have been 12-13, and I was completely floored with it. I was convinced everyone programming in VB6 was wrong and the future was Python. I eventually self taught myself Python just to write my own cheats, which I eventually sold to others for millions of neopoints. Then my account got frozen and I moved on to other games.
I’m in my mid-30’s now. In high school I learned HTML because I really wanted to customize the styling of my Guild (I think that’s what it was called).
And then built a neopets fan site and forum which taught me basic business (trading links with other fan sites, hiring/managing forum moderators, and eventually sold the fan site during junior year).
The will to customize my MySpace profile was also a driver for learning HTML.
I sometimes think about this in the context of today’s highly controlled platforms that simply don’t make space for users to customize or do anything outside the platform directly.
There is Roblox, which is popular with kids and lets them upload minigames written in Lua.
put it aside for years and eventually became a programmer later in life
My hacks were shit before I had hair on my balls, you know? But I tried. VBasic....when Microsoft didn't suck. XP 4 LYFE...ride or die
Wanna be in my guild bro?
Best, Prototype #52ASB_ADS_ALPHA_A+
Real talk, call me "old" - but it's like "Oh we get to be put on some list?". TLDR: They ruined the fucking internet. The internet sucks now, all those great "magical" experiences - they fucked it up. For all of us. Everyone.
You know there is one way to say a big "fuck you" to all this shit? I mean at least an idea I had?
What if you had physical "RSA" keys, you were part of groups, had to join, etc. Something like this...whatever. And you know how you use the internet? You literally send use data encrypted blogs in blobs. Keys change, ciphers change. Think 56k internet, but not "slow" - just blobbed/packageized.
In theory, you can basically just wrap the whole internet like a privatized radio relay - just much much faster and, global. The internet becomes only a packet relayer. Custom cryptogrphically rotated black box to anyone except keys in theory. Try and surveil that fuck shit mother fuckers.
The internet could at least fucking exist in some form. You could even have this "public" type AI-VERFIER "resigned/hashed packet" that uses some open source community checker that can be this trust based "thing"...auditble that is basically saying there "there is no weird images, etc...or there is no whatever here" and this can be signed. ISP network layer would see something like:
[VERIFIED CHECK] fsdf34234ASDFsdfDataBLOB
Or go "naked" fuckyou_fsdf34234ASDFsdfDataBLOB
In theory, it would at least try and prevent the NSA/INSERT_GOV_TER_ORG_HERE from at least respectfully trying to decrypt the "risky" packets. Blah blah blah. You know, just being kind to everyone I guess. Thanks.
I don't know...just an idea.
EDIT: There are of course other solutions related to end devices and comprised devices. The "simple" solution is offline, air gapped stable enviroments that handle all your decrypted / encrypted devices.
There there are network things, etc. All details - blah blah. But I am just talking shit. Someone should build this.
There is a critical mass of users needed to make this "social network", and turns out (big surprise) most people don't want or care about this technology.
But thanks for the reply. At least someone has a fucking heartbeat and is real. lol
Fast forward to college, I re-implemented my bot as a pet project to learn Python. This time it was much better and included automatic selling of loot, automatic auctioning with feedback based pricing algorithms, and multiple account coordination for using a command and control server. I'm pretty sure I was the most sophisticated botter on the platform at the time. I had a very roundabout way to convert the loot into USD and was making around 7-10$/day completely passively.
Out of college I interviewed at a malware reverse engineering company. When you pass the interviews, they ask you to give a presentation before you get your offer. I chose to do a presentation about the bot (it was interesting from a security perspective)... big mistake. The VP of engineering was suddenly "pulled in to something" and I went home without an offer.
oh and i regret all the duping glitches i found and exposed and stuff im sorry
For me, it was the game Starseige:Tribes (1998), which had a (comparatively) phenomenal client-side scripting scene. I could learn the magic incantation, and now the HUD has a new box with a timer in it, or my character "speaks" new phrases--not intended by the designers--by interrupting existing canned phrases at the right times, etc.
There's something magical when skill-learning happens really close to a personal payoff from it.
I still occasionally have dreams of various Tribes levels.
Same with Descent - I swear there is an alternative universe where my soul is adrift in that space, recently ejected from my ship ..
...but yes, MA[2] has now been "in development" for nearing a decade now, and there is still activity with the original clients/servers most day of the week.
I only played the game for a few months 27 years ago but it has stuck with me. I don't know if I've ever found a game that was that compelling and fun. But then again, I haven't really given any of the modern games a shot and mostly gave up with the FPS genre after team fortress classic fell out of favor
Anyway yeah, 10 polygons per 'mile' seemed about right. The Descent engine, I think, was well exploited in the sense that artistically, few polygons ended up being enough..
I often have flashbacks of the tight, cramped death tunnels and the inevitable race to the Fusion and Gauss Cannons... a colleague once had the Earthshaker warnings in a loop, and it literally immediately changed the room temperature whenever someone called them.
Anyway, apropos classics, in favour. I think these games are pretty much gems.
I like this idea of old internet things coming back to life (thank you Ruffle)
Unless Extreme Potato Counter was sponsored by Big Potato...
Did a cursory search so take all this with a grain of salt, but looking at the timeline of when ads are introduced, then the acquisition, peak users, etc. I’d say most people were playing in a pretty serious corporate sandbox for most of its most relevant years.
Scratch is ABOUT programming. It tells you "here is programming, you can make games and stuff," and that's neat, but it's a little different.