{"id":132,"date":"2006-07-25T01:03:31","date_gmt":"2006-07-25T08:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=132"},"modified":"2006-09-03T22:42:24","modified_gmt":"2006-09-04T05:42:24","slug":"word-slinging-in-the-rain-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/132\/word-slinging-in-the-rain-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Word-slinging in the Rain — or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the blog . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

None of this is new to me — except for the parts that are.<\/p>\n

I’ve been writing on the nets since before there were nets. Since BBS systems — I ran two of them at different times of my life. Since CompuServe was a time-share system called MicroNet that charged $3.00 an hour for half-duplex transmission at 300 baud.<\/p>\n

(Think about that! “Baud” is Bits of Audio Data. My first modem had an acoustic coupler that attached to a phone receiver and transmitted data with actual, annoyingly audible sound. It raced along at 300 bits per second, which sounds slow but is actually about half-again faster than a really fast typist. The connection through which I am by now continuously enthralled is only about 10,000 times faster than that.)<\/p>\n

I’ve been writing on the nets since the time when you would log on, suck down everything you wanted to look at as fast as you could, read and respond off-line, then log back on to blast back your own contributions without wasting a second. I’ve been writing on the nets since waiting up for the “off-peak” hours represented a substantial savings.<\/p>\n

The funny things is, when the technology was that grossly inadequate, that obscenely expensive, I was writing maybe 8,000 words a day, seven days a week. And as lousy as everything was, it was a whole lot better than working on a 900 pound IBM Selectric typewriter.<\/p>\n

I can barely believe the things I did in those days. With my trusty soldering gun, I built myself a little NULL modem that I could configure on the fly, so I could liberate access wherever I found a temporarily mute dumb terminal. I was young and possessed at the time of a multi-faceted morality, and I tended to think of electrical power and underutilized bandwidth as mine to appropriate.<\/p>\n

I wrote through generation after generation of computer hardware and network topography, avidly connecting machines that were never meant to be connected and connecting my own computers to a topology that was still called Arpanet when I first started playing with it.<\/p>\n

I worked in Usenet for years, and I Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

None of this is new to me — except for the parts that are. I’ve been writing on the nets since before there were nets. Since BBS systems — I ran two of them at different times of my life. Since CompuServe was a time-share system called MicroNet that charged $3.00 an hour for half-duplex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-enduring-interest","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1517,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1517\/the-question-how-do-you-write-so-much-the-answer-i-dont\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":0},"title":"The question: How do you write so much? The answer: I don’t . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Lani Anglin asked me in email about my \"blogging regimen.\" That would almost seem to imply a plan or a schedule, and I don't do things that way. So I ignored that idea and responded to her second remark: \"I'm curious to know how you crank out so many freakin'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":821,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/821\/the-s-p-is-up-over-16-in-2006\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":1},"title":"The S & P Is Up Over 16% In 2006!","author":"Jeff Brown","date":"December 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the last half century or so the S & P has averaged, give or take, about 8% growth annually. Pretty impressive. A lot of folks are very impressed, especially those who've invested into vehicles tied to the S & P index. They did better than ok this year, don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1678,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1678\/prometheus-unbound-books-are-dead-but-ideas-are-forevermore-unchained-from-the-tyranny-and-avarice-of-atoms\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":2},"title":"Prometheus unbound: Books are dead, but ideas are forevermore unchained from the tyranny and avarice of atoms","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Godin:Five hundred year old technology (books) is just too slow for the Net. The act of printing, storing and shipping millions of books takes too long for a secret to ever be in a book again.More.Books are souvenirs. No one is going to read Potter online, even if it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":676,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/676\/a-bloodhound-thanksgiving\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":3},"title":"A Bloodhound Thanksgiving . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Todd Tarson posted his Thanksgiving regimen, and I can identify with it even though our days will be very different. There is nothing I would rather do than work, so I just shoehorn it in where I can. Cathy watches the parades, so she won't mind me sitting at my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2125,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2125\/running-with-the-hounds-and-picking-up-the-pace-introducing-geno-petro\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":4},"title":"Picking up the pace: Introducing Geno Petro","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Today we're adding another writer to our line-up, but we're also revealing the secret subterranean agenda of The Odysseus Medal competition. Every time I turn around, there is someone accusing me of underhanded methods. I was seeking to get rich at $6.17 a month as an Amazon Affiliate. The Odysseus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15040,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15040\/some-black-real-estate-humor-for-friday-we-have-to-destroy-the-village-to-save-it-no-save-it-first-then-destroy-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":5},"title":"Some black real estate humor for Friday: We have to destroy the village to save it? No, save it first, then destroy it.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of real estate headlines from the you-have-to-laugh section of the news-nets: From the New York Times, when a bank is too big to fail, you have to rescue it so you can sue it later. Missing, for some reason, from the list of parties to be sued: Barney\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}