Baud and Arador

Few things give you a more visceral feeling for what bandwidth really is than a little program called Software Update. Software Update, on a tetchy dial-up connection that peaks out at 28 kilo-baud, makes you wonder if it might be quicker to just reverse-engineer OS X 10.2.1 and use what you know of 10.2.8 to code and compile your own home-brew version. True, I'd have to learn how to code in Linux Darwin. True, I'd probably need to get some more hardware. Hey, I might even have to build it myself, making the microprocessers out of common household items and kitchen supplies. I still think it'd probably be faster.

Fortunately, what I mostly want to do is play a game that can be succesfully managed through telnet. I guess this must be what people call the "Old' internet- where you are almost painfully aware of file-sizes. Kilo-bytes take on an assumed air of primal importance. I have become like a wolf sniffing at the north wind, trying to pin down intangible clues. Or perhaps the appropriate metaphor is a reed boat on the ocean, or even a wizard calling down occult powers. Whatever it is, it has to be arcane and tinged with danger.

There's a burning pride, here, burning all the brighter because it could as easily be shame- could as easily be despair. I'm defying maistream ideas of whatr is 'cool' and what is 'fun'. I've declared my brotherhood with nerds and geeks and so on many a time, but with my text-based MUSHing I'm going beyond even their boundaries. I'm not playing a videogame. Hell, I'm not even playing a picture game.

But even that is running slow.

Music: The Fight Club soundtrack by the Dust Brothers