A reader writes:
I'd like to begin a grant process, said grant being to excavate the ruins I recently found at
http://www.dansdata.com/personal/index.html
I've been keeping a lazy eye on your site for a while now, never realizing that it was literally built over the top of an older civilization. It was fascinating to briefly visit, and compare the modern versus ancient artwork and architecture.
_
[yes, this correspondent's name is an underscore. I would have rendered it "_", but that looks like some kind of emoticon]
I started Dan's Data in late 1998. That small collection of earlier Web pages started in 1997, and couch-surfed for hosting on a semi-random series of servers, ending up on dansdata.com in 2002.
Back in the Nineties, this sort of thing was topical humour:
There are still a few things of interest in my old personal pages, even if you're not interested in sixteen-year-old IT journalism, globular felines or my sad story about a dead cat.
The sparkler-bomb page, for instance, becomes popular in early July every year. The pictures on that page and this one are all video-grabs, because it was so long ago that I didn't own a digital camera yet. Here's some video, though:
And then there's the nitrous oxide pages (see also), my old R/C toys, and my original interaction with Harmonic Energy Products and their...
..."EMPower Modulator" universal electronic magic Good For What Ails You device. (Years later, I got a chance to look inside one, and found pretty much what you'd expect from these sorts of products.)
A big part of the evidence for the Modulator's effectiveness in curing everything from allergies to rainy days came from an electrodiagnostic device called the "Omega Acubase", an enthusiast about which was not at all happy with me.
Harmonic Products tossed a few more of these legal cotton-balls at me and others. This gave me my first experience of lawsuit threats from cranks, various others of which I have been delighted to receive, and/or talk about, over the years.
I think my little list of quotes has stood up quite well, too.
16 October 2012 at 7:59 pm
Thanks for the memories. I remember when all the personal pages were added to Dan's Data, and had a chuckle or two at some of the more...alternative...content. I've revisited it from time-to-time for research purposes. It's great to see others have started to discover it, too.
16 October 2012 at 11:33 pm
Being a long-term net denizen, once skilled in the use of Archie and Veronica, I have been following DD since shortly after startup. I have always found it well done and a good read. It would be a shame if it disappeared, if not only for the loss of accumulated knowledge and good sense, but for reference and, yes, history and a view of how things have changed. In addition you encourage people to think, a rare thing. Keep it up, and thanks.