[HN Gopher] Buddy Pond Cloud Desktop
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       Buddy Pond Cloud Desktop
        
       Author : popcalc
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2023-07-13 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (buddypond.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (buddypond.com)
        
       | Thaxll wrote:
       | Reminds me the late 90's with all the 3d DE on Linux and Windows
       | screensaver.
        
       | jeron wrote:
       | built with web assembly. very cool
       | 
       | https://github.com/Marak/buddypond
        
       | BizarroLand wrote:
       | What is this? I'm not sure I understand the point.
        
         | millzlane wrote:
         | You might not be old enough. It's a homage to one of the
         | greatest or worst things on the internet at the time.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#AOL_Desktop
        
           | BizarroLand wrote:
           | I'm old enough, my first PC was a Tandy 386-SX33 and I found
           | my first BBS by looking it up in the yellow pages and dialing
           | it on a self-installed yard sale $1 2400 baud ISA modem, I'm
           | just uncertain as to why this exists or what one would use it
           | for.
           | 
           | Then again, I never installed the AOL desktop, so that might
           | be part of my confusion, that and I don't imagine there are
           | many other people I could use this with in my circle of
           | weirdos.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | (2022)
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | As submitted a year ago by the Author
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31182005
        
       | vogon_laureate wrote:
       | Nicely executed!
        
       | jareklupinski wrote:
       | i spent a while single clicking the icons before i remembered
       | what it was trying to emulate
        
       | hrunt wrote:
       | Ha! That wizard brings back memories.
       | 
       | I remember in the late 90s Microsoft introducing text-to-speech
       | recognition through those characters. I hooked that wizard up to
       | the output from my IRC client. Anytime a message would come to
       | the channel with my name, the wizard would speak the message. Of
       | course, within a few minutes, the entire channel was flooded with
       | people calling me dirty names. Good times.
        
       | millzlane wrote:
       | Surprised to learn that AOL paid volunteer chat admin in free
       | hours before it was $19.99 for unlimited.
       | https://www.wired.com/1999/10/volunteers/
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | > _Gone too were many of the volunteers. Without the hundreds
         | of dollars worth of free hours, more than half left._
         | 
         | an early instance of the general rule: if you're running a
         | social, don't piss off your already woefully underpaid mod
         | team...
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-13 23:00 UTC)