Pakistan’s internet slows to uncomfortable levels, allegedly due to new China-style firewall Industry group Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT (P@SHA) last week accused the Pakistan government late last week of implementing a China-style internet firewall – a claim the nation's IT minister denied over the weekend. In a statement condemning the "hastily implemented" national firewall, the industry group …
The 'at' character might have been a cool symbol of the newfangled Internet and whizzy email in the mid-90s, but it was already at cheesy bandwagon-jumping-a-bit-too-late stage by the turn of the millennium.
Can't believe that it's still being used as a 'hip' tech symbol in an era where kids mostly don't even use email.
"Can't believe that it's still being used as a 'hip' tech symbol in an era where kids mostly don't even use email"
They mostly don't use email only if they are unemployed, or have menial jobs like being barista's. I have yet to see a real profitable company, high-tech or otherwise, where email wasn't the communication of record.
Then, to clarify, add "for personal use" or "by choice" to the end of that. (*)
Yes, I'm well aware that it's still widely used for business and other stuff, but while email definitely *was* cool and fun when the Internet first broke through- and I'm old enough to remember that and first used it back then!- I don't think anyone's considered it that for a long time, not even myself.
And, more importantly, the "@" symbol went from briefly cool to dorky, overused cybercliché faster than *that*. In hindsight, it was probably around the time it became detached from email or even the Internet specifically and started getting slapped on anything and everything (e.g. this product with an incredibly of-its-time name).
The example that always stuck in my head for some reason was a short-lived vehicle for comedians Hale & Pace in the late 90s. The title- reflecting the fact they'd recently moved from ITV was... "h&p@bbc".
As far as I'm aware- I never actually watched it- it had nothing to do with the Internet, someone just decided to call it that, despite its clunky, bandwagon-jumping awfulness. It pretty much killed off any remaining feeling from me that either the "@" symbol *or* Hale and Pace were still cool.
(*) Yes, I'm sure here that someone will point out that *their* best friend's fourteen-year-old niece still uses it. And then it'll turn out that email is having a hipster-style comeback among Gen-Z/Gen-Alpha, and then we'll all feel really old (**) when it turns out they're doing so because it's *so* old-fashioned and retro and before-their-time that it's a novelty.
(**) Uh... you're old. And if you remember Butthead saying that first time round circa thirty years ago then.... you're old. Huh huh huh.
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