For me, it was that the Internet never forgets and that you should never enter your real name. In my opinion, both of these rules are now completely ignored.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    42 days ago

    Modems also make noises when connected. However, the noise of them connecting is more distinctive because they go through a handshake where you can hear distinct tones, but then negotiate a higher baud rate involving modulation of many different frequencies, at which point to the human ear it is indistinguishable from white noise (a sort of loud hissing). If you pick up the phone while the modem is connected at a higher baud rate (post the handshake), you’ll hear the hissing, and then eventually you picking up the phone will have caused too many errors for the connection to be sustained (due to introducing noise on the line), causing both ends to hang up. You’ll then hear the normal tone you hear when the called party has hung up the line.

    • @toynbee
      link
      14 hours ago

      Decades ago, I saw a (one of many) "you might be a geek / nerd if … " list (referencing “you might be a redneck”). As of this moment, the only one I remember is “you leave the modem speaker on after connecting because you think it sounds like the ocean - the perfect sound for surfing the web!”