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Net Toxic Custard newsletter

The end of Toxic Custard

Before blogging and the web, there was email and Usenet and FTP sites. Just over 29 years ago I started writing online, sending out literal undergraduate humour to mates at Monash University and beyond mostly via email, under the truly ridiculous name “Toxic Custard“. It got into the student newspaper, then in 1996 it went  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter

Welcome to the year 2015

Welcome to the year 2015. Sounds so futuristic, doesn’t it. A while ago, last century, I wrote a short story called The Year 2031, about a space mission to Venus, published in 19 weekly parts in 1998 as part of my (still going) Toxic Custard weekly email newsletter. Back in 1998, the year 2031 seemed  ... [More]

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Geek

Automatic for the people

Those of you who read the blog regularly might know that it started in my university days in 1990, with a twice-weekly email called the “Toxic Custard Workshop Files“. You can still subscribe to it, via YahooGroups — it’s got about 650 members. I never quite imagined when I sent the first edition that it  ... [More]

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Net Retrospectives

It was twenty years ago today

Twenty years ago today, I posted my first online writing

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Net Politics and activism Retrospectives

Ancient political history

Trivia for you: Back in prehistoric times, when most of you had never heard of the Internet and barely anybody used the Web, and way before Twitter and Facebook, I blogged the 1996 Federal election campaign. Several times a week I’d add something new, including a spoof leader debate transcript, a Hippy Party manifesto, Ron  ... [More]

Categories
Culture Net

Toxic Custard?

When you throw two random words together, the likelihood of someone coming up with the same combination is, I think, fairly low. A great way to think up a dot com name, I reckon. Which is why I did a double-take when I saw this: (Originally here, but now only visible in the Google cache.)  ... [More]