@chienfou@jouest@Kyeh I used a similar trick when i had a woodpecker going at the corner of my roof years ago. I didn’t have any spare CDs, so i used some mylar party streamers & it worked like a charm–not to mention, it was very festive! (I bought a roll of mylar ribbon designed for bird-repelling, with a larger reflective surface, to keep on hand in case such a situation arises again. Who knew?)
Folks who remember Fry’s Electronics … well before they had an online store, they offered ISP service. Apparently they didn’t believe that online ordering would ever replace retail stores.
They only shut down the ISP service in July 2020. The entire chain closed in February 2021.
(They’ve been a zombie well before that, however.)
@narfcake They fell into the trap of trying to be more than what the public considered to be an electronics store. They had appliances and a bunch of other stuff. And their internal policies with regard to “what qualifies as new” truly sucked; too many friends got burned buying a mobo there. Had they calved off the computer superstore segment as its own entity, and cleaned up its act, I think they could have given Micro Center some real competition. But they tried to do too many things, and none of them very well.
They even had a twistedly stupid attitude toward their own physical plant at times. When it became obvious that they hadn’t allowed enough room in front of a certain store to facilitate allowing traffic to get past the vehicles that were in the process of loading up a bulky purchase, they closed off the direct access to their lot from the street, and forced their own shoppers to drive entirely past the store on a different entrance aisle, and then enter their lot from the away-from-street end. I have zero doubt that some of the business they lost was due to people saying “HTF am I supposed to get in there?” and driving away in disgust. None of their old locations locally have since acquired a tenant, as of last I checked.
@blaineg Broadly, “yo momma”. There are still people who neither have nor particularly want full Internet access. Not many, but they exist. (And there are a few remote places where dialup hardline is the only path to the rest of the world. Again, not many, but they exist.)
Maybe I was one of the lucky ones! I never had an AOL account! PTL to that. By the time AOL came along I Already outgrown the need of the Wall garden The AOL provided. I grew up in the days and the bulletin board systems, Using an acoustic 300 baud modem.
@mycya4me
When I first got my parents a computer (so we could email) I set them up on a Juno dial up plan. I still have a couple of Juno addresses for throw away use (sign up to a site I never want to hear from again for instance.)
My first of these early-day dial-ups was AOL’s main competitor - Prodigy. For a little while, anyway - I didn’t really get into that kind of “internet”, but I did spend a lot of time on BBSs in the early 90s. I eventually got access to real internet (with the ubiquitous Netscape browser, Alta Vista search, etc…) through school in the mid 90s.
I don’t think I ever had an actual AOL account, but it was one of my most grating pet peeves when computer-illiterate people repeatedly blurted “AyOhElllll” as a synonym for internet…
I ran across this the other day, which seems apropos…
@shahnm I never ran into many people saying “AOL” when they mean “the internet”, but probably I just wasn’t hanging out with the rightwrong crowds. But a similar thing I hear way too much now is people saying “wi-fi” when they mean “internet”.
@pakopako@shahnm@tinamarie1974
I think JUNO used that same graphic as well!
(Which come to think of it was a Windows thing so… Yeah, never mind)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh shit! How will I connect to Meh? How will I get people to tell me a/s/l?
@yakkoTDI
But you’re odds of winning an IRK would improve…
what’s the conversion rate if I want to trade TrackRs for AOL free trial CDs?
@jouest I was in a lady’s garden where she had created a mirror-like mesh curtain of CDs to scare birds away from her plants.
@jouest @Kyeh
I used to do that with CDs on a piece of fishing line and a swivel.
@chienfou @jouest @Kyeh Did you catch more fish that way?
@jouest @Kyeh @macromeh
Yep, world’s biggest spinner!
@chienfou @jouest Modern day scarecrows!
@chienfou @jouest @Kyeh I used a similar trick when i had a woodpecker going at the corner of my roof years ago. I didn’t have any spare CDs, so i used some mylar party streamers & it worked like a charm–not to mention, it was very festive! (I bought a roll of mylar ribbon designed for bird-repelling, with a larger reflective surface, to keep on hand in case such a situation arises again. Who knew?)
Folks who remember Fry’s Electronics … well before they had an online store, they offered ISP service. Apparently they didn’t believe that online ordering would ever replace retail stores.
They only shut down the ISP service in July 2020. The entire chain closed in February 2021.
(They’ve been a zombie well before that, however.)
@narfcake They fell into the trap of trying to be more than what the public considered to be an electronics store. They had appliances and a bunch of other stuff. And their internal policies with regard to “what qualifies as new” truly sucked; too many friends got burned buying a mobo there. Had they calved off the computer superstore segment as its own entity, and cleaned up its act, I think they could have given Micro Center some real competition. But they tried to do too many things, and none of them very well.
They even had a twistedly stupid attitude toward their own physical plant at times. When it became obvious that they hadn’t allowed enough room in front of a certain store to facilitate allowing traffic to get past the vehicles that were in the process of loading up a bulky purchase, they closed off the direct access to their lot from the street, and forced their own shoppers to drive entirely past the store on a different entrance aisle, and then enter their lot from the away-from-street end. I have zero doubt that some of the business they lost was due to people saying “HTF am I supposed to get in there?” and driving away in disgust. None of their old locations locally have since acquired a tenant, as of last I checked.
AOL via dialup may be going away, but the endless September continues.
@werehatrack Fresh newbies are hatched every day.
It still exist? Why?
@blaineg Broadly, “yo momma”. There are still people who neither have nor particularly want full Internet access. Not many, but they exist. (And there are a few remote places where dialup hardline is the only path to the rest of the world. Again, not many, but they exist.)
Maybe I was one of the lucky ones! I never had an AOL account! PTL to that. By the time AOL came along I Already outgrown the need of the Wall garden The AOL provided. I grew up in the days and the bulletin board systems, Using an acoustic 300 baud modem.
@mycya4me
When I first got my parents a computer (so we could email) I set them up on a Juno dial up plan. I still have a couple of Juno addresses for throw away use (sign up to a site I never want to hear from again for instance.)
I had a @Infinet, Netscape, Space.com address. They all went away.
I have a Gmail account, But it is ONLY attached to my YouTube account!
I still have an AOL email that I use for spammy things.
@kittykat9180 but no AIM
@pakopako I didn’t know that still existed.
My first of these early-day dial-ups was AOL’s main competitor - Prodigy. For a little while, anyway - I didn’t really get into that kind of “internet”, but I did spend a lot of time on BBSs in the early 90s. I eventually got access to real internet (with the ubiquitous Netscape browser, Alta Vista search, etc…) through school in the mid 90s.
I don’t think I ever had an actual AOL account, but it was one of my most grating pet peeves when computer-illiterate people repeatedly blurted “AyOhElllll” as a synonym for internet…
I ran across this the other day, which seems apropos…
@shahnm I never ran into many people saying “AOL” when they mean “the internet”, but probably I just wasn’t hanging out with the
rightwrong crowds. But a similar thing I hear way too much now is people saying “wi-fi” when they mean “internet”.@xobzoo
Yep - same crowd…
@shahnm prodigy crowd!!! I still have my email addess
@tinamarie1974 Wow!
@shahnm @tinamarie1974 yes, but it’s owned by Yahoo/SBC/AT&T now
@pakopako @shahnm yup!!!
@pakopako @shahnm @tinamarie1974
I think JUNO used that same graphic as well!
(Which come to think of it was a Windows thing so… Yeah, never mind)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
/showme A visual depiction of the sound of a modem connecting
@mediocrebot
/showme a purely metaphorical visual depiction of the sound of a modem connecting