.-'~~~-. .' '. :~~~-. `. `. \ ~-. . `.; / ~. : .' ;-- `. .' ,' ; ~~--'~ ; ; ; ; `~-~' _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ BAHfile #025 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Title: 'dying nation' Author: stone � � Date: 07-01-95 � � w00p. our twentyfifth file. � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� All text included in BAH issues is for educational purposes only. In no way do we at BAH endorse whatever actions described in our text files. If you're mad because we're running out of ideas, don't come crying to us. [BAH] -\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/- The dying nation (in this part of the country, I guess) is BBSing. I don't mean the thirty-line-four-gigabyte-of-porno-gifs-and-elite-shareware MajorBBSes (see Murmur's file on MBBS'es), I mean actual one-two line hobbyist boards set up by people for fun. They're rare now, for two reasons. One is the Internet, which can only go so far. The other is what I just mentioned, MajorBBSes where eleven-year-olds pay to sit and get flamed and thrown in "jail" by other eleven-year-olds. It's a horrendous mess, and it doesn't look easily correctible. Actually, I don't give a fuck if everyone's moving to the Internet. In my opinion, the best part of a BBS is the message base, and that's something that the Internet CANNOT offer me, since the newsgroups are just so overpopulated and so many messages a day go through them. I can't keep up with THAT, I'm doing the best I can keeping up with the few nets I subscribe to daily. Plus, to my knowledge, there's no QWK mail system for newsgroups, so there's no point. I can see people having interest in IRC, and it's much easier for the warez people to have elite ftp sites, but, still, that really doesn't compare. There's LESS people on BBS nets and message bases, and it really is much better, because of that reason. It's also easier to get warez on a BBS than it is to remember those icky IP addresses, but, people seem to like it that way, oh well. I sit on IRC all day, and the only time I'm off is when I'm setting up a conference, taking a shower, talking to someone, or getting my daily QWK packet off a local board. It's fun. Lamers have moved into the hobbyist boards as well. That's another reason people are moving out of the BBS scene. Like there's less lamers on the Internet or on a MBBS. People come in and ask stupid things, like "where's the warez?" or "why is your ansi ripped off XXX from XXX?" The BBS scene is also being RUINED. There's now a great abundance of '100% Art' boards, which are pretty much always lame with conversations about groups, distros, and members. Message nets are a key part of a BBS, and those are being ruined too. There's a net that Neko carries on his board called 'PhreakNet'. It gets ten messages a day, on a good day. Three of the messages are test messages. ("Can anyone see this!!??!!") The rest are mindless messages about how hard it is now to set up an 800 and how much people will charge to do it. The extent of phreaking on this particular net is setting up illegal 800 numbers, and that's discussed enough already. Plus, almost every board ON the net is one of those '100% Art' boards, or seem like it. I think there's an overabundance with BBS softwares, as well. One time, up high in some ANSI group, someone found a hex editor, and decided to mangle their copy of whatever elite program they were using for their BBS, and made it look entirely different from the software itself. Now, people ADVERTISE mangled softwares in the ads for their BBS. There's no difference. Hell, you can only go so far with a hex editor, I wouldn't go around looking for a board to call and go "Hey, this board's el33t, it's got heavily modified obv/2!@#!@@#$". I guess that's what gets people to call those boards, because usually nothing in the ad looks better, because the ad itself is probably a two hundered line ANSI and, at the end, something like this: BLADES OF HELL [212] PRI-VATE H/P/A/V/C/Q/K/R/A/D/E/L/E/E/T/N/I/G/S sysop: LaMEFuCK 100% ART HeAViLY MoDDeD ReNEGaDE Art * 0 Day Warez * 0 Day Art * ACiD * CiA * iCE * FuCK * NuKE * ElEET NiGGeR * NiGS * H0eZ * NWA * NWO * FiRM * SeX Well, you now have a two hundered and ten line ad for your BBS that nobody's going to be able to call. How much sense does that make? Yet people do it anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid. -\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-/\-\/-