Hybrid1486 577 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Remember the old website? It's still sitting there, generally unused by the league for about three years now. Today, it largely serves as a time capsule for a simpler era, when Scotty and Brooks were bosses, Zimmers was an insufferable douche who couldn't manage a team, and a boss center named Alex Stoyanovich was rightfully picked ten spots ahead of some scrub in the S16 Entry Draft. What made it so special? Why did we leave? What's become of it these days? Let's take a look at the VHL's first home, http://z11.invisionfree.com/vhl/index.php The Golden Age InvisionFree was pretty familiar to everybody. It had succeeded ProBoards as the standard host for sim leagues by that point, and had (really, still has) enough functionality to do everything a league needs from their site. You had your forums, sub-forums, permission masks, team logos...really, all that a sim league needs. Sure, there was no instant messaging, but now there's kind of a nostalgia for the days when you had to sit there and wait for a PM from someone. There was a certain suspense to it that you just don't get from seeing the little quote bubble next to a name in the IM system. In the end, though, it just wasn't special enough. Aside from the nostalgia of it all, there was more functionality to be found elsewhere. The switch to a newer board had its proponents, myself being among them. I wanted to see the IM system in use, and I liked the added posting features the newer board brought. It was a foregone conclusion that we were going to make the switch eventually. The only thing really holding it up was the one-and-only David Knight, the man who could never seem to act on anything in a timely manner. Of course, before Knight ever got around to getting the switch rolling, the limitations of a free host gave us the push before we were ready. 216 Roman Andreev (Artist Depiction) One day, at some point in either September or early October 2011, an old user named 23qwerty (who has an account on this site that hasn't been active since March) was posting the games for reasons I can't remember. Jardy must have been playing FarmVille, who the fuck knows. Anyways, what is important is that one of the games he posted occupied topic 65536 (the link to it is dead now, but I remember the event very well). That game posted fine, but the next topic, as well as all subsequent topics, were simply empty posts. In fact, all the replies to said topics were empty posts. Why did that happen? Well, without knowing any facts on anything, it seemed that Invision used a 16-digit binary coding for new topics. Since there are only two options for each digit in binary, using 16 digits gives you a maximum total of 216, or 65,536 possibilities. Of course, everybody freaked out and had no idea what to do. Invision was able to fix the problem, but we had no timetable on that and we were closing in on the playoffs. At that point, we prematurely moved all of our games over to the new site, and left our original home to the ages. Invision eventually did fix the issue, but by the time that happened we had already settled in. Get Your Kitchen Sets Now So what does the board look like today? Well, without anybody policing new accounts, it now resembles the internet's answer to a ghost town: a spam factory. Interestingly, pretty much all of the new threads advertise kitchen sales. Apparently, there's something about hockey that makes people want to buy kitchen appliances. Even more interestingly, most of these ads tout sales occurring in England, which obviously means that Alfie is behind it all, desperately trying to ensnare nostalgic VHLers like myself in his deceitful web of cabinet and wood stove salesmanship. More to the point, we do keep the link to this site up there, in case some lost relic of the old days like Chris Julien or Patrick Palmer wants to rejoin the league today. It also serves as a storehouse for the legendary dating escapades of RJ Stafford, a lengthy discussion on the abacus, and really everything from the first four years of the VHL...everything that shaped the best sim league that has ever been into what it is today. Victor and Frank 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar 283 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Ah, nostalgia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senior Admin Will 4,660 Posted September 26, 2014 Senior Admin Share Posted September 26, 2014 It's actually 2^16-1 because 2^16 would be a 1 followed by 16 0's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Victor 10,844 Posted September 26, 2014 Admin Share Posted September 26, 2014 Glorious. Business really picked up for our kitchen making shop in the past year. The move from the first to second site was nice and peaceful on the whole, the second move left a bad taste though. There was some good shit there which is as good as lost forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Higgins 3,618 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Good shit? That site crashed like once a month lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Victor 10,844 Posted September 26, 2014 Admin Share Posted September 26, 2014 Posts, obviously. Threads and shenanigans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probably not noah 346 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 A lot of lost archival stuff which suuuuuuuucckkkkkkkkkksssss balls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Higgins 3,618 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 We could have it but it's not worth paying to host it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hybrid1486 577 Posted September 26, 2014 Author Share Posted September 26, 2014 It's actually 2^16-1 because 2^16 would be a 1 followed by 16 0's 1016= 10000000000000000 216-1= 65535 Victor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senior Admin Will 4,660 Posted September 26, 2014 Senior Admin Share Posted September 26, 2014 (edited) 1016= 10000000000000000 216-1= 65535 Lol, no, 2^16-1 = 65535 which equals 1111111111111111 in binary (note 16 ones) 2^16 = 65536 which equals 10000000000000000 in binary, which is 17 digits Edited September 26, 2014 by Draper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hybrid1486 577 Posted September 26, 2014 Author Share Posted September 26, 2014 Lol, no, 2^16-1 = 65535 which equals 1111111111111111 in binary (note 16 ones) 2^16 = 65536 which equals 10000000000000000 in binary, which is 17 digits Oh, you're talking binary, I was just talking math lol Will and Victor 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senior Admin Will 4,660 Posted September 26, 2014 Senior Admin Share Posted September 26, 2014 Now that I'm done being a smartass, I shall grade this for youz. Content: 3/3 Good article about the previous websites. I actually made an account on the inivisionfree one at one point and did some creeping. I think the current forum is perfect. Grammar: 2/2 Nothing to report, captain. Appearance: 1/1 Looks good. Overall: 6/6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Da Trifecta 1,896 Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Claimed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senior Admin Will 4,660 Posted January 18, 2016 Senior Admin Share Posted January 18, 2016 Claimed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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