Post #1179092

2026-04-14 12:50 UTC

Tomorrow I&#39;m turning 50 years old. That&#39;s so old that once, when I was a child, I couldn&#39;t remember who played David Banner on the Incredible Hulk TV show, so my parents told me to call the library and ask for the reference desk. The librarian who took the call said &quot;Wasn&#39;t it Bill Bixby?&quot; without even having to look a thing up. So yeah, &quot;the internet&quot; has always been with us, it just used to be other people. I guess it still kinda is. But it used to be, too.

Replies (8)

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com 2026-04-14 12:52

These days, if you try to call a reference desk at a library... you still can. I don't know what the point of that anecdote was. My understanding is that this is the expected behavior of someone my age and I'm trying to blend in. "Back in my day" stories for old people are like stripes on zebras. Confuses predators. They can't pick us out of a crowd.

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@NicolaElle@chaosfem.tw 2026-04-14 14:15

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com Happy early birthday! 🎂

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@technothrasher@universeodon.com 2026-04-14 15:20

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com I recently called a librarian in Kansas looking for help retrieving a speech my great uncle made in 1950 on urban renewal in Kansas City. She was so happy that somebody was interested in her dusty old offline documents. It definitely reminded me of the old days of picking up the telephone to find info by talking to people. Oh, and Jack McGee used to make me so angry. Why couldn't he just let it be?

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@MCDuncanLab@mstdn.social 2026-04-14 15:57

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com Happy Birthday! As a birthday present, you can get a shingles vaccine!!

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@nitinkhanna@mastodon.social 2026-04-14 16:35

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com All the would-be librarians today spend Thursday nights playing Trivia at their local pub?

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@CppGuy@infosec.space 2026-04-14 16:41

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com Wow — that's very old indeed! I hope your fifties teach you as much as mine did. There's a lot I miss about the glory days, but I wouldn't go back to the impoverished understanding I had back then. And happy birthday for tomorrow. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!

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@wbpeckham@techhub.social 2026-04-15 03:10

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com I truly believe that librarians used to be information ninjas. Don't look now, but I think they still are.

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@AllTheAmpersands@tabletop.social 2026-04-16 05:57

@signalstation@raggedfeathers.com Happy birthday, from the Internet of some era.

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