Ask HN: Who Wants a Penpal?
Surely I'm not the only lonely computer nerd here :)
If you're interesting in finding a penpal, post in this thread with the following format:
alias:
interests:
language(s):
link to something you think is cool:
contact info:
Man, I miss this aspect about ICQ (and the internet from the late 90's). Everyone I met online was awesome and from some far away cool place. And if they were anywhere near you - like, let's say, half a day's worth of driving near you - then they were totally down to meet in person!
The era just prior was even better IMO. BBSes were the best - bulletin board systems. Basically they were locally hosted servers, mostly ran on dial up connections. So they were almost entirely local, and usually with no more than one or two people on at the same time - though some hosts went crazy. I remember one guy had a 16 line connection! Games, chat, file sharing, and all of the best parts of the internet, with none of what it's turned into. And all 100% local. 'Hey guys up for a BBQ this weekend?' was a thing.
It also had a way better sex ratio, for reasons I don't really understand in hindsight. It was at least ~30% female. Many a match was made on those sites, not just hookup stuff, but people actually forming real relationships.
My go to game on our local BBS was Legend of the Red Dragon.
I spent far too many hours playing Trade Wars. It's really a game that I think would probably do well with a reboot. Such amazing depth, room for unlimited players, and such a great strategic layer.
There was also that one game where you went deep down into some dungeon, and had the option of taking various drugs for buffs while also dealing with side effects. It was weird, and fun.
BBSes certainly lacked the global reach.
Being local was an advantage. As a 15 year old kid, I met so many people from BBSes in real life who were much older than me, but we had all the same reference points because we were all local. The older folks took care of the younger folks because we were all part of the same community.
And contrary to what people might think, BBSes weren't full of neckbeards. There were people from all walks of life (lawyers, doctors, people with families, singles, men, women, kids like me). For something so "techie" it was unexpectedly diverse.
I remember my BBS days fondly. I wish we had something similar that was local (and no, not like Next Door which is full of busybodies and complainers)
> I wish we had something similar that was local (and no, not like Next Door which is full of busybodies and complainers)
I wonder if it's possible now or if that kind of experience simply belongs to a bygone era. Next Door should in theory be what you're looking for, but it seems like now that everyone's online instead of just early adopters, the current state of Next Door is just what you get with a location-based community that anyone can join.
It's about having a curated community.
In the early days, BBSes were frequented by cognoscenti because not everyone had modems. There was a natural curation mechanism which kept the quality high. There was also moderation -- BBS systems like WildCat allowed sysops to appoint moderators.
Quora in the early days was a community of curious people, and many were startup founders and well-known people in the valley. It went downhill when it tried to growth hack, which attracted a flurry of low quality answers that made it devolve into a Yahoo Answers.
The problem with Next Door is that it is democratization without curation. It doesn't have to be this way. HN for instance is democratization with curation (thanks to the efforts of @dang), and it works very well.
I think it was more about the community than the curation. I remember on one quite large BBS there was a guy who was a complete troll and ass - his username was Nihilist. It turned out he was a young adult with some sort of a degenerative, and terminal, muscular disorder. Modern times would definitely call him "toxic" or whatever, but he was just another part of the community, and when he passed, it was a somber day. It felt much more like a family. And in your family, even your crazy uncle is still always a part of the family.
The first internet based BBSs, which now enabled people to login via telnet and could host magnitudes greater number of users, really started to lose alot of that community aspect of the local systems.
dang certainly does a great job moderating HN, but I'll venture to say it would still have a far more open-minded and intellectually curious vibe than Next Door even if it were left unmoderated.
I think the problem with Next Door is that traits like these (which HN tends to aggregate) are rare in the general population. To get the vibe you want, you'd probably need to curate to the point that you'd be blocking like 70% of people or more. And that has its own issues, since it would then feel like some kind of closed elitist club—which also definitely wasn't the atmosphere in the internet's early days.
I disagree. Unmoderated HN would have become 4chan at this point.
RIP ICQ. I met met quite a few long distance chat friends on there. Never met anyone in person from there, though.
In my area, we had the Cleveland Freenet with an IRC server. Met a lot of friends in real life from there—I believe they also had periodic picnic meetups but I never went to one of those. Briefly dated someone in HS after we met in an IRC channel, and one of my real life friends met his future wife on a freenet in neighboring state that we could access.
I also had a personal site that a random girl my age a few states over found. She emailed me and we started corresponding for years over email, AOL/AIM and hand written letters. We still do on occasion. We met in person about 13 years after we first emailed.
How do you see ICQ being different to something like Discord these days? I joined the internet at the tail end of ICQ just before things like MSN Messenger started becoming a mainstay for my immediate group, so am curious.
ICQ had two groups:
- Your immediate friends who you personally knew and exchanged ICQ numbers with to add each other. You couldn't just find them... you needed to know their numbers.
- Everyone else you "found" by searching / randomly connecting with when they / you set your status to "Free to Chat" as opposed to just "Online".
Features:
- Until the MSN Messenger / AOL IM years, ICQ was p2p - both parties needed to be online in order for conversations to take place. So, in a way there was a more skin in the game in order for it to work. Conversations meant more.
Community:
- It being the early days of the internet, it felt more special - ICQ, BBS, IRC, and web forums is how people found each other. There was no Reddit, even Digg came much later.
I met my wife on ICQ. There were a bunch of filters you could apply to random chat function (age / location / etc) and then you could just randomly chat with someone. I met a lot of people that way.
met my wife from another country on a free penpal website some 25 years ago. wasn't a dating site, just sign up with your email, write a short introduction, and wait for someone to write you.
I know it’s not the same thing but I had a blog for 7 years, I always tell people to email if they want to engage and had hundreds of exchanges with people from all over that were nothing but a delight. It’s still possible to have great digital interactions, it just takes a bit of effort.
Although I was a bit too young, but the haydays of ICQ and Yahoo Group chats were mesmerizing. It was kinda remarkable how I never thought “a comment has a financial motive behind it” like I do while scrolling through Twitter or Reddit. Or maybe I just grew up.
In the late 90s my brother and I drove our Volvos 3 states away(yes separately, with handheld radios and a gazetteer) to a Volvo only meetup and track day that we found online, really just to put faces to usernames. It was awesome. #turbobricks
I don't understand why this is being downvoted, but I had a similar experience meeting some people from an online community that I'd been a part of - drove 300 clicks to meet them and they looked nothing like I'd imagined them to be! It was a very cool time - we just called each other by our handles because that felt more natural than using the real names.
My handle was more embarrassing out loud than it was on the internet :).
My handle was more embarrassing out loud
hah, i had a similar experience. originally i spelt my nick "embe", but once i heard someone on an in person meeting pronounce it with a stress on the first e, and a short low stress second e, that sounded totally wrong, so i changed the spelling to "embee" to get them to pronounce it right.
LOL I know why, Im a salty old hacker that leaves tons of mean comments on hacker news. KARMA.
My experience was with gamefaqs. The regional boards, where I lived was small enough for one but had a lot of active users. Made quite a few friends and it helped me get my first provisional job
Those really were the days. Met a few people online back then that I would have called real friends, but I didn't even know their real name.
Couple of things:
1. I wrote countless of times on my site that I love emailing with people so if you want to engage in conversation my email is public and it’s also in my profile here
2. I’m also more than happy to send actual mail. Like handwritten on paper. If you like that send me an email and I’ll give you an address.
3. If you like the concept of having penpals this app is worth checking out https://slowly.app/
Slowly looks interesting, thanks!
Edit: crashes on my phone, can't sign up :(
Ah bummer. They do have a web version though if I’m not mistaken.
alias: J.
interests: mathematics, cooking/recipes, culture/arts
languages: Please write to me in any language from anywhere!! And please send math papers!! I'm trying to learn as many languages as I can right now. My current focus is French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German – then Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Korean, Arabic, and Haitian Creole. I'm going to focus op top-30 most spoken-by-people, then top 30 most spoken-by-countries, then a survey of languages without any incentive (Navajo, Irish, Greek, Hawaiian, Latin, Sanskrit, in general, Classical Languages, Medieval Languages, Modern Languages). I started this journey in August 2023 knowing only N1 Japanese.
link to something you think is cool: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3027072 I would so love to do whole Erdős wanderer thing and focus on publishing papers in different countries with different people in different languages. I like the whole peripatetic element of thinking and living and working and dreaming.
link to something that does not exist: I am building a 'tiny' LLM that is taking a novel approach to language translation. It is incredibly nice to continue this research because I have begun to actually understand more people now and I feel less lonely. It is getting better, but I am absolutely not in any hurry to capitalize on it. I can send you samples of its output by hand in parallel to my own manual translation.
Contact: Write me an email, and we can exchange mailing addresses!
> info[U+0040]odomojuli[U+002E]com
Note: I really love postcards, postage, lettering and hand-made art prints. If you have any appreciation for these things, please let me know – it can take a bit of effort.
How's it going learning many languages at once? Are you conversational with all of them?
Absolutely not! I think if I focused on maybe, one language I could see adopting basic proficiency and fluency by the US State Dept's rubric in like... 44-ish weeks, some languages 66+.
What is helping is that this is training my ear and tongue, it's becoming more comfortable to transition between grammars and pronunciations.
What’s your process or weekly schedule for learning so many languages at once? What resources do you use or how do you approach a language?
I wonder if mods would be interested in hosting a official IRC channel for the site. Though now that I look back on my own memories of IRC, the amount of drama is probably not worth the hassle for the them hah. Perhaps an unofficial channel would still be nice.
There's one on Libera, but it's more of a feed
alias: leononame
Interests: politics, literature, music, film and to some degree art (would love to be in touch with someone who's interested in painting and can make me understand it better) and programming I love cooking as well and I guess I can be interested for anything related to technology.
Languages: German, English, Spanish. Anything else via Google translate
Something that's cool: I recently watched the movie "Drive My Car", very strong recommendations to watch.
Contact info: me[squiggly a]lho[dot]io
I'm a lonely computer nerd, and yet despite having made a lot of friends on the internet in my youth, I'm no longer willing to do so. The internet has gotten too weird and polarized, and quite frankly I don't like the people who share my interests. Most nerds are living in fantasy worlds, not just part-time.
The problem is one of degrees - Anyone you notice on a big site is likely posting very often - "Terminally online" is the word. The more niche you go, they are alternatively deeper into their own fantasy worlds. I haven't figured out how to arrange coincidence; Repeated coincidental meetings have long been studied to be the basis of friendship, and intentionally going to "meetups" where the attendance is common but not fixed is the best way to foster that.
Online matchmaking has been the biggest problem here - You are guaranteed a game, but you'll never run into the same people twice. Once upon a time you had localish communities form around servers that were low-ping to them, which really worked well - You were likely to run into the same people, and they were likely to be nearby but not so close that you'd have run into them anyway.
Unless you're living in the middle of nowhere and the only people you're close to are the ones you have nothing in common with. Besides superficial characteristics like ethnicity and language. These threads are a blessing for some of us.
Alias: X
Interests: creative (video/board) game design/dev (e.g. tiny games exploring philosophical and societal topics), food (including pizza/breadmaking, cheesemaking and fermentation), travelling, nature, camping, hiking, hacking, unique and creative anime/manga/books, whittling, gardening (no dig, regenerative), Ted Chiang, Victorian travelogues and relaxation.
Language(s): English
Link to something you think is cool:
- https://neal.fun/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tatami_Galaxy
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Malay_Archipelago
Contact info: hn-penpal.dingy454@simplelogin.com
Thank you for making this post. I always love chatting with people.
Alias: artisanspam
Interests: Philosophy pertaining to both political theory and how to live “the good life,” cycling, violin, piano, jazz, PC gaming, design of the built environment (city design, interior design, landscaping) and how it shapes you, meditation, Buddhism (from a secular perspective)
Language(s): English
Link to something you think is cool: Pertaining to built-environment design, I find this YouTube channel interesting: https://youtube.com/@nevertoosmall
Contact info: in bio.
alias: rito
interests: Programming Languages, Mathematics, poetry, art (paintings mainly), books (interesting non fiction like Simon Singh, novels by authors like Marquez, Greg Egan, Neal Stephenson), Philosophy, mysticism, anything that tickles my brains, really
languages: English, Bengali
link to something I think is cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorio
contact info: mail on profile, @<last word of scientific name of humans>_rg_telegraph on Telegram (remove <>)
Those interested in postcards, check out this site - https://www.postcrossing.com/
This has been around for many years. Though it is mostly for sending postcards, you can still make penpal friends through the site. I have sent handwritten letters to people from the site. I am not that active anymore, but still keep in touch with a couple of people I met on the site.
Highly recommended
> contact info: mail in profile
I don't think it is actually. Lot of shared interests here though
Email is for the mods only. you'd have to add it to About.
I'll start :3
Dumb question; what are far centre politics? Surely by definition centrist politics can't be far - far just puts them as left or right.
That's not a dumb question! If anything, my wording was dumb :) The more usual term is "radical centrism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism). I would say someone like Richard Hanana or rationalists like Scott Alexander have a centrism that is much more radical than someone who merely doesn't have strong political opinions. For a more parodial take on radical centrism, jreg's youtube channel talks about it a lot. He's an anticentrist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58IOy41snKU
This makes much more sense now; thank you!
I actually love this definition!
A "centrist" when talking about a layperson might suggest them having an amorphous, indifferent position.
In our here local politics, a "centrist" politician is strongly assumed to be a political prostitute, a puppet in search of a generous master.
I take a "far centrist" to mean compromise-seeking in a deliberate way, which is a fun concept to consider.
My circles, centrist politics just mean "complex" case-by-case politics.
By this definition, most reasonable people are centrist. We are forced to pick a team to get the numbers but our positions can and do differ from the party line.
To ensure any piece of text is "far center" (= unbiased), check out https://biasscanner.org - if text you paste in does not change after pressing the green button, it's unbiased, otherwise biased sentenced are highlighted in yellow, and hovering over them gives you an explanation, about which of 27 bias types was discovered.
I think of far-centerist as extremely unideological. To me, ideologies are systematically organized collections of ideas, often hierarchically, with core ideas (or assumptions) given a paramount or supreme position. They almost all provide a certain level of insight and huge errors, because no system of ideas describes the world in a complete or fully accurate way. So, a far-centrist in my view is open to using ideas from whatever ideology, or some that associate with no ideology, for what they're worth.
If by far center, you mean unbiased, well, we're all biased to some degree. Actually it's very hard not to be quite biased in some way, whether ideologically or stylistically, or any of the more gross forms of bias most of us have to wrestle with, being human.
A bias scanner can be useful in identifying bias, but you can be ideological and non-biased, in which case, you're just using the bias scanner to reduce your bias. That's a good thing to do, but I'd call it, a kind of self-moderation, which might attenuate partisanship but for sure isn't necessarily centrist at all.
That looks like an urbit name, right? I've been wanting to try it out and have access to a small amount of currency. What do you suggest?
Yep! It's actually free to get a ship: https://redhorizon.com/
Feel free to email me using the email address from my post and I can show you some good apps, introduce you to people, etc. It's fun.
alias:BouncingSoul interests: OpenWater/longDistance Swimming,PunkRock, History language: English, German link: https://inforo1300.wordpress.com/ contact info:vljlqhxpdqq@wxwd.lr (ceasar +3)
alias: zevra interests: analyzing and watching people, computer networking, technical theatre, an academic interest in fraud and deception, spiritual beliefs and societal conventions and rules specifically how they effect individuals and populations, lots of other things I can't remember right now. language(s): english link to something you think is cool: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/deviance-in-the-dark contact info: zevra-contact-5@darken.space
alias: hxii
interests: programming, productivity, adhd, stoicism, video and computer games, organization, music, travel, technology, the small web and pretty much anything else.
languages: English, Python, Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, maybe Lua
cool stuff: https://unethical.info/2024/01/24/hacking-my-air-purifier/
contact: ten.kahsulg@luap reversed or @MrPaul on Telegram
alias: clestro
interests: Classic rock, psychology, cybersecurity, privacy, hacking, startups, Linux, FOSS, onebag, skateboarding, playing guitar/bass, bouldering, vinyl records, muscle cars, magic tricks, improv, standup comedy, nyc/bay area.
language(s): English
link to something you think is cool: https://kill-the-newsletter.com/
contact info: clestro12@outlook.com (will disable once spam starts to come in)
alias: aogposton
interests: North Korea people, Authoritarian governments, productivity, catholicism, poetry, art, music, robotics, politics, exercise
languages: English (native), Korean (advanced), c, c++, javascript/typscript, php, python
link: https://apply.opentech.fund
contact info: https://x.com/aogposton
alias: alternis
interests: Mathematics, First-Order Logic, Computability, Computer Science, Systems Programming, Finite Element Modelling/Analysis,
Languages: English, French (But my french is only ok)
Link to something you find interesting: https://ersei.net/en/blog/fuse-root
Contact Info: alternis(DOT)0x{11111111 in hex}@gmail.com
good idea, here's mine:
I think this would work better as a Discord server.
If you make one, I'd join it. I've found Discord less satisfying - lots of superficial chat, rather than longform, thoughtful communication. I haven't used it a ton, though. Any servers you recommend?
Ya this is an interesting idea. Id join.
alias: will
interests: programming, websites, games, painting and drawing, movies, long walks, making things with people, niche communities, design.
language(s): english
link to something you think is cool: https://thehtml.review/ People are so dang creative.
contact info: in bio
alias: fuero interests: board games, computer games, languages languages: english, german link to something you think is cool: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI contact info: fuero.56
Hi, wow, are you me? Would love to chat. Sadly I can't find any contact info or am too stupid to see it. :-/ If you like, find me on telegram, user name as above.
I'm pretty sure it's a Signal ID.
interests: privacy, security, computers, rpg/ttrpg, tabletop games, programming, electronics, music festivals
language(s): English, Polish, Un poco Español
link to something you think is cool: disroot.org
contact info: penpal.axis093@aleeas.com (will be removed after some time or if I get too much spam)
It's just damn cool to see how many ways there are to obfuscate email addresses
alias: whatindaheck
interests: outdoors, cycling, movies, armchair politics, fabrics
language(s): en
link to something you think is cool: yamatomichi.com - awesome hiking gear
contact info: blot.detector318@mailer.me (will disable once spam starts flooding in)
interesting, penpal is a stranger you are familiar with, it is different to how folks talk here. while, it is one type of communication channel, has pros and cons...
alias: codingclaws
interests: piano, React, SwiftUI
languages: English, European Portuguese, JavaScript, Swift
contact info: site and email in profile
How does everyone here feel about IRC?
The #startups channel is a great place to meet indie makers who build stuff and are interested in technology.
which IRC network? there are several
libera.chat
hell yeah I love community
alias: jah
interests: essentially every branch of philosophy, hacking/infosec, startups, cooking unusual meals, literature, math, theories of intelligence, sharing life stories, listening to smart people talk
language(s): English and a little bit of French (still learning)
link: http://www.hutter1.net/ait.htm (I like AIT a lot)
info: вцудды0ч@gmail.com (English but typed with Russian keyboard)
That's a real good way to filter out not only spam but also low effort mail. Kudos that's so very innovative and intriguing tbh
What is the last character? 'c' or 'ch'?
'ч' reads like 'ch', but I think you've decoded it the wrong way.
So, you think it is based on physical layout of keys, and not character mapping? I am thinking of that, too.
Reading these short self-descriptions makes me weirdly disappointed in my own life. You know, undergrad while living with parents while being a repressing queer while having crippling ADHD.
You have lots of time.
You do you. Don't worry about these things. Just work on yourself one day at a time.
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/life_is_like_a_box_of_chocola...
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