I would have liked to see those images. Maybe someone out there saved them and can send them to you.
Today is my Birthday (yes, 9/11). And so far, it has been pretty somber day too... just like it was 5 years ago. (boy, I sound like Eeyore...).
Andrew Hohnstein
· 3 years ago
I enjoy reading your thoughts, Robert. Things have definitely changed. I commented to my wife last night while watching a bit of the 9/11 documentary (the one by the French filmmakers)... "Do you remember what life was like before 9/11?" We likened it to being a kid oblivious to the evils of the world. And then, we remembered what we had both been doing that day when it happened.
Nicole Simon
· 3 years ago
I think this is one of the defining moments for our generation - and with a similar impact like Princess Dianas death. Although I dont understand that one.
9/11 to me was when the internet was slow to not working at all, I remember where I sat and when I got a call from a friend who told me about it. I tried to get to *the* german news site (spiegel) and it only worked out a few times - they had made a low end version of it to get the site out at all.
Today, the internet is the first place we go. And even normal family members do. After the thing in London recently I got a call from a family member to see if I was alright - the person did not know exactly when I got back from the states and was worried becuase I had not blogged yet.
I havent read the wired article yet, but I think we have seen since then which affect blogging (with pictures and videos) can have about such events. And I think it is a good effect - event though I would love if the reasons where different. :(
Big Al
· 3 years ago
It's 8:49AM here on the East Coast. I think that's just about the time the first plane hit.
It was also a beautiful crisp morning, just like today.
I was at my office and watched the news unfold on the internet - USA today, CNN, etc - and then found a small TV in the office closet, and we watched until the towers fell.
The phones at the office were silent. I don't think that we had a business call all day. People were sobbing. I was the boss and told everyone that they could go home if they wanted.
I went home, opened a bottle of vodka and watched in a horrified stupor for the rest of the day. One of my most vivid memories was the clips of people jumping out of the towers to their death.
Man that sucked. This is really a dark day in our history.
cp1302ger
· 3 years ago
as i have heard a lot today - i mourn for the world of 9/10 as much as for the souls of 9/11
Phil Rack
· 3 years ago
Children have a wonderful way of expressing their feelings and thoughts even when they don't have the vocabulary yet to say what they want to say. My own nephew, who was four at the time drew a picture of a plane flying towards the second tower. In his drawing, he included a mother clutching her baby and a cowboy trying to use a rope to lasso the plane and stop it from flying into the tower. I hope my brother kept that drawing.
Tomi Itkonen
· 3 years ago
IMO, the erasing thing is something most people don't recognize soon enough. Simply put, there are sites and services currently which are not online 3 years from now.
So, remember to back up your important data. That catchyname.com won't necessarily be showing your photos or postings or poems in the future any more. Naturally, we all Scoble readers back up already - we are pros after all. ;)
I would comment on 9/11 also, but there simply are no words to express it.
Just deep silence.
mOdd1
· 3 years ago
It was really sad to see so many common people die on their ways to their jobs, working, etc. But please, remember also everyday all the casualties of common people, working people, in Iraq and Afghanistan, killed by "western" fire. Up to now, we´ve killed up to 41650 innocent people (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/), thats exactly 14 times a 9/11!!!!
Ross Popoff-Walker
· 3 years ago
That was a really beautiful post -- Thank you. And while you might have a healthy attitude about your lost posts, I think it's a big deal -- the impermanence of blogs is a real problem. 99% of mosts posts don't need to stick around very long, but ones should be around forever.
Chris J. Breisch
· 3 years ago
Funny. I have no desire whatsoever to erase my memories of that day. Didn't we all promise ourselves that we would "never forget"?
I guess "never" doesn't mean what it used to, does it, Robert?
@8 That was unncessary. Leave it to the tin foil hat crowd. But, one wonders how many innocents would have CONTINUTED to have been killed under the previous regimes? Inquiring minds want to know.
Good post, Robert. I would disagree with you on one point. We should NEVER erase that day from our memories. If we do, we are all go back to Sept 10th naive thinking.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Chris: when I say I want to erase those images from my mind, it's mostly a wish that it never would have happened in the first place. But, now that it has happened, I'll never forget the brave people who's lives were taken. Not sure if that comes across in ASCII, but hope it does.
LayZ
· 3 years ago
@15. I think we all wish it would have never happened. But yet, that's the type of thinking that got us into the situation in the first place: everyone (our govt. mainly) wishing this terrorism problem and OBL would just go away.
mOdd1
· 3 years ago
Im sorry i bring this up, i know it´s not the subject of the post, but anyways, #14, is it much better off a regime than to introduce a never ending civil war in a ethnical diverse country? Did you know that in Congo theres a even worse regime but noone cares about them? oh, yeah, theres no oil there... Its really funny and disturbing to see the US media from outside of the country... Sorry scoble, it is over now... i´ll never forget the morning of 911-2001.. Its a horror movie so harsh we wish we never have rented...
Alberto S. Lopez
· 3 years ago
Robert,
Thank you for sharing your memories and it sucks that your posts from that day are gone.
I think this is a great lesson to learn for Bloggers everywhere: In trying to learn from past history, are you making sure that what you write today is safe, that you have a local, archived copy that YOU can RESTORE? Without depending on sys admins on some remote server somewhere?
Good rule of thumb: Write posts in your text editor of choice, save them locally and THEN post them. Every so often, burn a cd/dvd of your local blog posts directory and store it off-site, like in a bank safety-deposit box for safe keeping...
Just my two cents...
cbuck
· 3 years ago
I was sitting in a hotel room in Japan, finishing up a long day, and had the tv on mute in the background, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the smoking building after the first plane hit. I had several IM's going, and as people from my company started rolling into the office CA time, they were not yet aware of what was happening, and there I was -- on the other side of the planet -- updating them with CNN and BBC (much better coverage) updates.
A co-worker still has our IM log saved from that morning.
Brooklyn Kitchen
· 3 years ago
We were in California on September 11th, scheduled to fly back to the East Coast that very morning.
Because phone service was jammed, we sent e-mails to our friends in NYC, asking if they were okay.
I have long since deleted their responses, but I printed them out and still have them tucked away in the book I was reading at the time. I also wrote a long story about how I felt and what I did that day, and not having anybody to read it, I sent it to Bill Griffith, the cartoonist who writes and draws Zippy the Pinhead. I have no idea why I sent it to him.
But even if I had to paper record, I still wouldn't forget that day. If you were old enough to understand what was happening, you can't just delete it from your mind with the push of a button. It's burned solidly into the flesh and blood of our brains, and more durable and real than any man-made records.
Mihir Gandhi
· 3 years ago
Five years ago, if there was Google Earth and Live Earth, we would be using it to see live feeds from NY - not cnn or bbc.
Peace to the souls who died on 9/11 - it marked the beginning of a new era of international terrorism.
Ed Kuryluk
· 3 years ago
Over the weekend, I felt my memory of the Twin Towers pre-9/11 had been erased. Until I kicked around wikipedia and WiredNewYork.com.
I recently accepted a new job in the World Financial Center (across the street from the WTC site). Through interviews and pre-employment meetings I've walked by the site many times. Astonishingly, I couldn't remember where things were. Truthfully, I hadn't been to the WTC since the late 80's, but I had been there many times, and in the towers a few times. So last night I started "remembering" pre-9/11 with the help of the internet.
But, we lost more than buildings that day. The people we lost can never be replaced, and certainly we can't erase that. My thoughts, tears and prayers today are for the heros we lost that morning and the loved ones who mourn them. God Bless America.
Mike
· 3 years ago
That morning I was still thinking of the events of the previous Friday, when my company (Teaching Network) laid off more than half of their staff including me. I slept late and woke up when Fedex knocked on my door around 9AM to deliver my CodeWarrior update. At that time I turned on the TV and saw what was happning.
TAG
· 3 years ago
Setup your own server and post everything you want.
Create backups daily on home PC and burn 2 backup DVDs every 3-6 months with all content and place them in bank deposit box.
Robert, sometimes even if the Wayback machine doesn't have something, it'll still be on Yahoo, if not google cache. I've had the strangest luck there.
As for 9/11, as terrible as that day was, the things that happened that day did not define the future as much as the things that happened on 9/12. It's not the actions of terrorists that control a free country, but rather the will of the people and the choices of their government. Our destiny lies in our own hands.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Rob, thanks, that's one of them (in retrospect, if there's an image that should be kept it's that one). The other two were black and white showing the towers coming down and the sun frowning.
It's sad and strange how much has changed since then. I was at an autism conference, held at a synagogue in Albuquerque. The TV was in the prayer room. We all stood in front of that TV watching. Then we went back to the conference room. The presenters asked if we should continue. Nobody could answer, really. We were as stunned and overwhelmed as the kids we were there too talk about. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Robert.
becs
· 3 years ago
This has been an interesting post to read and to also read the comments left by others, thankyou.
Its sad that you lost your blog records. Maybe for the future backup you could sub to your own RSS and make a database of your posts.
Just to add to the scenarios, I will never forget 9/11 either. I come from England, UK. It was lunchtime and I turned on the news just watching the headlines and the breaking news came in. I had just move into my flat and I was alone waiting for my friend to move in the next couple of days. I watched the TV avidly and was just shocked when I saw those towers collapse. Totally unexpected and very upsetting, knowing that many of those people had not escaped. I watched the news all day waiting for the latest news of what was happening.
A couple of days later we heard that my family doctor had lost his son in the attacks. He had been out there working for one of the big banking firms Morgan Stanley.
In memory to Ollie Bennett.
Mark
· 3 years ago
I'm actually shocked that nobody has a copy of your posts tucked away somewhere, especially considering all the stories I've heard of people trying to delete their blogs, and others still having access to the content - or even reposting it. Perhaps those posts and pictures will turn up...
Stephen
· 3 years ago
I am looking into using Blurb.com's blog -> book service to preserve my blog. There are memories in there I want to keep and share. (http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook)
Steven G. Atkinson
· 3 years ago
I guess it's been a good idea that I have been doing monthly archives of my post.
Darin Codon
· 3 years ago
I will leave my 9/11 history here. It begins with me waking up early to clear foliage for an ederly woman and rushing to a Kansas City Internet Cafe to hear the words of Condoleeza Rice. Rice gave the most incredible speech of which I had watched the day before on CSPAN. The speech was called "The Transparent Nation" and was addressing the Europeon press on our Star Wars tests in Alaska. Condeleeza explained that we in America are free. That we had nothing to hide thus we were sharing what our 9/11 excersizes were about. I miss the transparent nation - the speech - the ideas - a brilliant black woman speaking so elloquointly in a time of peace. The fear in our hearts is similiar after we found out what was going on so no need to elaborate.Today my only transparency is a lack of Spell check. But, seeing the media today; I miss Rice and I miss her transparent nation.
LayZ
· 3 years ago
"a brilliant black woman speaking so elloquointly" (sic)"
Just curious, what does her race have to do with anything?
Wesley Parish
· 3 years ago
FWLIW, 9/11 2001 wasn't such a shock to me. This sort of thing happens to hundreds of people weekly, all around the world, and nobody thinks to remember them.
The day that I still have vivid memories of, was watching the fall of Saigon on TV, seeing people fighting to board the last remaining choppers lifting off from the US Embassy, the desperate people beseiging the Embassy compounds, the Marines with their service-issue assault rifles standing guard, the choppers landing on the US Navy carriers, then being lightened, smashed up then thrown off the flight deck to make room for yet more people ...
"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going."
Thus Spake Zarathustra
raincoaster
· 3 years ago
I'm DYING to see what Scoble will do to you, spammer.
Daniel Larson
· 3 years ago
Blogs are forever archived in the NewsGator online archive...
Michael Bernstein
· 3 years ago
Robert, this isn't anything new. You've always been incredibly cavalier about preserving the record of your words and those of your commenters. There seems little incentive for me to post any comments on your weblog that require time and thought to compose, since I know that the shelf-life is essentially limited by your next move to a different host, provider, or technology, whether for the weblog itself or the comments.
Your pat answer each time is that you're not a technologist and can't get an export or can't get the data to import or... Well, it's always something, isn't it?
Which is bullshit, because just about each time I tell you that all you have to do is post a request for help, and the LazyWeb will almost certainly provide a solution. Strangely, you've never *ever* followed up on this.
So, I am left with the conclusion that it must actually suit you to have many of these old conversations vanish.
Robert Scoble
· 3 years ago
Michael: OK, can you get comments back that have been removed by an entity I don't control?
I'm fairly certain I won't have those problems with WOrdpress.com.
Michael Bernstein
· 3 years ago
Jeez. My point wasn't about comments being removed by an entity you don't control, it was about you abandoning comments and posts without making any attempt to retreive them.
As an example: If nothing else would have worked (ie. you couldn't get an export of the data), comments that were left on Haloscan attached to your posts could have been screen-scraped with a few scripts and some elbow-grease *before* you left the service.
No-one but you decided to stop using that comment system. No one but you could have known you would do it. No one but you could have asked for help in retrieving the data before it was gone.
audrey jarvis
· 2 years ago
i just clearly remember not quite what happened around me when it happened, but i remember being home early from school because they let out early due to the events, and i was like in 5th or 6th grade. when we all got home, my 3 brothers and i, my parents were laying my my oldest brothers room, and we would try to come out to go downstairs to get something to eat, and we would get viciously yelled at for exiting our room. even after like, 2 weeks, if we asked to go out and play, they wouldnt let us unless we were with them, kinda like terrorists were after us indiviually. but i guess i can see where they were coming from. i didnt really realize how many people died and how big of a thing is was until just recently. and honestly it makes me feel bad that i never felt like it was a big deal until i saw the list of names that just kept going and going and going... so as of now i am creating a powerpoint as a tribute to remember all those that died on that tragic day.
All Comments
Today is my Birthday (yes, 9/11). And so far, it has been pretty somber day too... just like it was 5 years ago. (boy, I sound like Eeyore...).
9/11 to me was when the internet was slow to not working at all, I remember where I sat and when I got a call from a friend who told me about it. I tried to get to *the* german news site (spiegel) and it only worked out a few times - they had made a low end version of it to get the site out at all.
Today, the internet is the first place we go. And even normal family members do. After the thing in London recently I got a call from a family member to see if I was alright - the person did not know exactly when I got back from the states and was worried becuase I had not blogged yet.
I havent read the wired article yet, but I think we have seen since then which affect blogging (with pictures and videos) can have about such events. And I think it is a good effect - event though I would love if the reasons where different. :(
It was also a beautiful crisp morning, just like today.
I was at my office and watched the news unfold on the internet - USA today, CNN, etc - and then found a small TV in the office closet, and we watched until the towers fell.
The phones at the office were silent. I don't think that we had a business call all day. People were sobbing. I was the boss and told everyone that they could go home if they wanted.
I went home, opened a bottle of vodka and watched in a horrified stupor for the rest of the day. One of my most vivid memories was the clips of people jumping out of the towers to their death.
Man that sucked. This is really a dark day in our history.
So, remember to back up your important data. That catchyname.com won't necessarily be showing your photos or postings or poems in the future any more. Naturally, we all Scoble readers back up already - we are pros after all. ;)
I would comment on 9/11 also, but there simply are no words to express it.
Just deep silence.
I guess "never" doesn't mean what it used to, does it, Robert?
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Good post, Robert. I would disagree with you on one point. We should NEVER erase that day from our memories. If we do, we are all go back to Sept 10th naive thinking.
Sorry scoble, it is over now... i´ll never forget the morning of 911-2001.. Its a horror movie so harsh we wish we never have rented...
Thank you for sharing your memories and it sucks that your posts from that day are gone.
I think this is a great lesson to learn for Bloggers everywhere: In trying to learn from past history, are you making sure that what you write today is safe, that you have a local, archived copy that YOU can RESTORE? Without depending on sys admins on some remote server somewhere?
Good rule of thumb: Write posts in your text editor of choice, save them locally and THEN post them. Every so often, burn a cd/dvd of your local blog posts directory and store it off-site, like in a bank safety-deposit box for safe keeping...
Just my two cents...
A co-worker still has our IM log saved from that morning.
Because phone service was jammed, we sent e-mails to our friends in NYC, asking if they were okay.
I have long since deleted their responses, but I printed them out and still have them tucked away in the book I was reading at the time. I also wrote a long story about how I felt and what I did that day, and not having anybody to read it, I sent it to Bill Griffith, the cartoonist who writes and draws Zippy the Pinhead. I have no idea why I sent it to him.
But even if I had to paper record, I still wouldn't forget that day. If you were old enough to understand what was happening, you can't just delete it from your mind with the push of a button. It's burned solidly into the flesh and blood of our brains, and more durable and real than any man-made records.
Peace to the souls who died on 9/11 - it marked the beginning of a new era of international terrorism.
I recently accepted a new job in the World Financial Center (across the street from the WTC site). Through interviews and pre-employment meetings I've walked by the site many times. Astonishingly, I couldn't remember where things were. Truthfully, I hadn't been to the WTC since the late 80's, but I had been there many times, and in the towers a few times. So last night I started "remembering" pre-9/11 with the help of the internet.
But, we lost more than buildings that day. The people we lost can never be replaced, and certainly we can't erase that. My thoughts, tears and prayers today are for the heros we lost that morning and the loved ones who mourn them. God Bless America.
Create backups daily on home PC and burn 2 backup DVDs every 3-6 months with all content and place them in bank deposit box.
http://rob.crabapples.net/archive/2001_09_09_de...
www.hhangel.worpree.com
As for 9/11, as terrible as that day was, the things that happened that day did not define the future as much as the things that happened on 9/12. It's not the actions of terrorists that control a free country, but rather the will of the people and the choices of their government. Our destiny lies in our own hands.
It would look a bit like this:
http://tailrank.com/2006-09-04
Steve Irwin dying was huge news..... the biggest meme since we've launched Tailrank..... I suspect that another 9/11 would look the same.
Kevin
http://integrationcoach.wordpress.com/2006/09/0...
May we find peace within ourselves today,
Stacy
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Robert.
Its sad that you lost your blog records. Maybe for the future backup you could sub to your own RSS and make a database of your posts.
Just to add to the scenarios, I will never forget 9/11 either. I come from England, UK. It was lunchtime and I turned on the news just watching the headlines and the breaking news came in. I had just move into my flat and I was alone waiting for my friend to move in the next couple of days. I watched the TV avidly and was just shocked when I saw those towers collapse. Totally unexpected and very upsetting, knowing that many of those people had not escaped. I watched the news all day waiting for the latest news of what was happening.
A couple of days later we heard that my family doctor had lost his son in the attacks. He had been out there working for one of the big banking firms Morgan Stanley.
In memory to Ollie Bennett.
Rice gave the most incredible speech of which I had watched the day before on CSPAN. The speech was called "The Transparent Nation" and was addressing the Europeon press on our Star Wars tests in Alaska. Condeleeza explained that we in America are free. That we had nothing to hide thus we were sharing what our 9/11 excersizes were about.
I miss the transparent nation - the speech - the ideas - a brilliant black woman speaking so elloquointly in a time of peace. The fear in our hearts is similiar after we found out what was going on so no need to elaborate.Today my only transparency is a lack of Spell check.
But, seeing the media today; I miss Rice and I miss her transparent nation.
Just curious, what does her race have to do with anything?
The day that I still have vivid memories of, was watching the fall of Saigon on TV, seeing people fighting to board the last remaining choppers lifting off from the US Embassy, the desperate people beseiging the Embassy compounds, the Marines with their service-issue assault rifles standing guard, the choppers landing on the US Navy carriers, then being lightened, smashed up then thrown off the flight deck to make room for yet more people ...
"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going."
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Your pat answer each time is that you're not a technologist and can't get an export or can't get the data to import or... Well, it's always something, isn't it?
Which is bullshit, because just about each time I tell you that all you have to do is post a request for help, and the LazyWeb will almost certainly provide a solution. Strangely, you've never *ever* followed up on this.
So, I am left with the conclusion that it must actually suit you to have many of these old conversations vanish.
I'm fairly certain I won't have those problems with WOrdpress.com.
As an example: If nothing else would have worked (ie. you couldn't get an export of the data), comments that were left on Haloscan attached to your posts could have been screen-scraped with a few scripts and some elbow-grease *before* you left the service.
No-one but you decided to stop using that comment system. No one but you could have known you would do it. No one but you could have asked for help in retrieving the data before it was gone.