2000snostalgia

Most still do, they have an "office" where I often print things I need for work when traveling.

This is still very much a thing, in the US at least.

I remember one that "reset" after each user, so no information was retained.

OR SO I THOUGHT

Oh man i remember visiting japan solo when i was 18 and using the hotel computer in the lobby to research places to go and see each day, how to get to places like akihabara and where to go once there for the best shit.

Printing out a couple of pages of info for the next day ahead. Those were the days. Travel and tourism with maps in your pockets these days really ruins the sense of discovery and adventure that you got before then, I try to avoid using any of that shit but my gf is always pulling out her phone and ruining it xD

A hotel I stayed at a few years ago (pre-pandemic) had a computer there, in a corner, so to speak. Pretty sure I'd go there once a day to browse my preferred forum on the topic of Internet Addiction. I was active enough there, I was eventually offered an opportunity to take over as a mod. But then the mod said they were holding on for sentimental reasons or something and instead told everyone they were shutting down, and told us to download any posts we wanted to keep. I did not do that, thinking I'd just Wayback Machine into it. But I later learned that's not how that works, as the forum was not there in its completeness, ready to be browsed freely. Also, this all before that Netflix documentary that had gone popular, and I also don't recall hearing "touch grass" as an expression back then. Simpler times, it now feels like. Miss 'em. I was already familiar with some of the folks behind the documentary, though. I was familiar with Tristan Harris back when the Center for Humane Tech was Time Well Spent instead. Pretty sure it all started from within Gmail or something, with a slideshow Tristan made on the topic of design and 'hacking' people for attention (e.g. red notification bubbles, as red grabs one's attention)

Worth expanding on, for the younger crowd:

"Like, the library" refers to the 2000s all the way back to the 1980s, when libraries (universities, then public, of course) had computers available (and eventually wifi) for all visitors. Some even offered networks after that point that extended a fair distance from their building, and didn't turn off between open & close.

Wild times. wistful, distant look

Free?