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Live chat transcript from 9/11

Like everyone else here in Manhattan, I’ve found the five-year anniversary of 9/11 a little more thought-provoking than previous ones. While I hardly want to add to the pile of remember-this blog postings, here’s one that is extremely powerful: A live transcript of the shocked reaction to the World Trade Center attack that took place, that same day, inside New York’s biggest online community.

The community is called ECHO — for “East Coast Hang Out” — and it was founded in 1990; I’ve been a member since 1996. It uses CAUCUS, a really old-school command-line interface, and one of its popular discussion threads is called “Breaking News”. On 9/11, the item was where ECHO users gathered to discuss the attack in real-time. This year, New York magazine reprinted the contents of that thread from 8:47 am to 10:46 am, with permission from the participants. It’s incredibly gripping: A chunk of everyday New Yorkers’ reactions to the horrifying attack, frozen in ASCII. The ECHOids swap information, freak out, mourn, and try to make sense of the attack even as it unfolds.

It’s online at the New York web site. Here are the first few postings:

11-SEP-01 8:47 Stacy Horn
A PLANE JUST CRASHED INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.

11-SEP-01 8:49 Stacy Horn
Oh god. I’m shaking. A plane just went by my window, it was flying WAY too low, and I was thinking, “How ironic,” I wrote about this in my book, and it crashed.

Oh God, people are dead now. Oh god.

11-SEP-01 8:50 Cathy
Where did you hear? I have the Today show on. No bulletin.

11-SEP-01 8:51 Stacy Horn
I SAW IT. It just happened, too soon for radio and TV.

11-SEP-01 8:51 Cathy
There’s the bulletin!!! Oh God!

11-SEP-01 8:51 Stacy Horn
I’m freaking out. I called 911 and it was busy.

11-SEP-01 8:55 Stacy Horn
I didn’t see the hit, I saw the plane go by (TOO LOW) and heard the crash which was AWFUL. Then I stood up and saw the big GAPING hole (I can see the World Trade from where I am.)


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Bio:

I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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Recent Entries

A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”

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“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912

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May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM

From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.

July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S

July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM

My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.

June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM

On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.

June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM

I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives. 

According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable! 

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