Neither honestly, but if I had to choose, chips. The tortilla chips that is. (Unless you're british and mean pommes frites, in which case those!)

Traditional or electronic music?

hi! welcome, teatime! hope you have a great time here.

I'll begin:

Name: Lian
Country: Germany, Europe
People I'd like to meet: I like making connections to all kinds of people. Anyone is welcome!
Topics I'd like to talk about: Other than our common interest, the retro web, I am also up for or talking about your hobbies or mine (linguistics, retro tech, music, languages, world-building, writing, fan-fiction, ...), deeper topics, our day to day lives, relationships, friendships, and anything that might be shared only with a sixth grade diary. Honestly I'm up for anything!

Hey there!

As many people on this site will also probably share an interest in traditional and more personal methods of communication, I have been thinking about organizing a penpals' ring for physical mail: in other words, people sending each other actual letters as communication, becoming friends, chatting about their lives, or even customizing their little letters with stickers and drawings!


The obvious problem of course is sharing one's physical mailing address publicly: for one nobody wants to doxx oneself, some people also live with their parents and/or in unsafe situations and cannot receive mail, and some others might feel queasy with the idea in general.
I don't know how to absolutely solve any of these issues, but I have ideas as how to limit these problems and I have come up with this club as a result.

Guideline 1) If possible, get a post office box ("Postfach" in DACH countries) to receive mail in. It's usually pretty cheap. With a post office box, nobody knows your home address, only the anonymous number.
Guideline 2) Either way, with or without a post box, do not post your address publicly in the forum. Anyone can see it that way. Instead, post an introduction like detailed below and wait for people to contact you in private; you can then choose whether you give out your address to them.
Guideline 3) Consider who requests your contact info. If it is a very new member without much information attached, or anyone who gives you bad vibes, think twice before sharing your address. It's always okay to say no.

I'd recommend following the format below to post an introduction in this topic's replies; and then just wait for people to hit you up:

Name: Elliot Example

Country/Region: Example Country, Europe

Topics I'd like to talk about: I want to chat about video games, anime and floristics. Serious emotional topics make me sad, so not those please.

People I'd like to meet: I prefer to talk to adults only because I feel uncomfortable talking to minors. I'm excited to meet people from countries outside Europe too!

So, TL; DR: Post a reply in this thread if you're up for penpaling with people on this forum using the introduction format above, and then just wait for people to hit you up! Happy penpaling! =)

Depends on the food, but generally mustard.

Do you prefer e-mail or physical mail?

Pro tip: ask older people you know (45-65) whether they still have dusty old devices somewhere in a box or in the basement. My dad gave me both a Sony Diskman ESR and a portable tape player just like that.

Now that I think about it, I agree with you all. Ordering food, groceries and clothes online is a big time saver - plus you can get things you wouldn't be able to get locally!

I'd also add to it that the sheer availability of information these days is great; simply the amount of webpages and entertainment options. I prefer the design and usability of old websites, but on the other hand, having resources like Wikipedia, Memory Alpha, the Web Archive, various news aggregators, and so on, just makes the internet much richer than it used to be.

Honestly, I wish we could combine the richness of information and technological advancement with the user experience and design language of old. How cool would it be if we had a video hosting site that was designed skeuomorphically like a Blockbuster store? What if instead of a soulless "metaverse" or toxic social media sites, we had our own little virtual rooms which we could decorate and walk to others' places to for social media, somewhat like Second Life but as a web-based social media service? What if we could get all the information like on Wikipedia, but in a virtual library with a cute mascot as a helper?

Well, I might be simple in this way.

That's why I don't embed anything from other sites on my site. They could change it to spyware, ads or a straight up virus any time.

Personally I think the idea is kinda cute but at the same time I feel like these themselves were the first part of the downfall with their proprietary protocols and clients, the beginning of spyware, corporate control over messaging, paid services and so on. They were the first behemoths usurping the messaging market for themselves, limiting interactibility, accessibility and custom clients.
If I want to do "retro" messaging, I go to chatrooms, or use XMPP or IRC. They're free and open source and much closer in spirit to what most of us are here for I feel.

Can we maybe limit the shoutbox to only the things actually posted in the shoutbox?
Right now the reply and topic notifications clog up the chat making it difficult to follow a conversation, plus we can already see what's new via the "show unread posts" links.

Hey there,

I realize this might be odd, but I actually do enjoy going to work right now. I have started a new job last Tuesday, and I feel like generally my life has gotten more organized, I get up at a healthy time instead of in the afternoons, I talk to my colleagues, and just being able to say "I'll be at work tomorrow" makes me feel like such an adult, haha.

I get free coffee, free lunch, an office for myself, and I get paid.

Of course I'm not abandoning my thoughts when it comes to opposing wage labour, but just for me, my own little life here right now, I am somewhat happier with my situation than being unemployed.

One important thing I learned was to not end a coding session with open issues. That'll make it much harder to get motivation next time.

I think that generally it should be kept as it was. Forums are open-access by design, and I think if you share something here that a bad actor should not see, then you should not have posted it in a public forum anyway. Anyone dedicated could make a throwaway account anyway with minimal effort to stalk you anyway.

I think that reading posts and getting a vibe for the community on the other hand is an important part of the signup decision for new members though. Locking down the forum in my opinion will hinder our growth.

I mostly choose based on gameplay that I like (for example in Smash Donkey Kong, Bowser and Ridley), but in games where I have to choose based on aesthetics I usually either choose androgynous smaller characters like Toad, Shy Guy and so on, or the characters who I feel are played rarely by mainstream people, to stand out.