I remember the message nets that BBSs once had. Dreamnet, WWIVnet, Fidonet. Through the years 1993-1995, I posted thousands of messages to such networks. I miss them. I could never really get into USENET however.
Recently, I've ran into interesting webboard sites. MrBill's site is a prime example. The software that it's operating it is free, and is powered by PHP. A simple premise--what if one could link webboards together. Implementation wise, this could probably be accomplished through a simple client/server architecture, or even email. (Which is how the nets of yester-yore were handled.)
I have always found mailing-lists cumbersome. Without a good procmail setup and an intelligent mail reader, it's very one dimensional, and hard to keep up with. A webboard net offers the same functionality in a two dimensional form.
I'm also starting to truely appreciate Zsh.
Ruby is neat language.
Grr, tap-to-click on this touchpad has to go...