I miss you guys

From: Dave!! 6 May 2023 12:48
To: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 38 of 133
Quote: 
It's a shame Rowan & Xen's bestiary went AWOL.


Anyone remember the URL? I wonder if Waybackmachine ever crawled it, would be amusing to look through that again.

Anywho, I'm still kicking around. Turned 40 last month, still married and living in Scotland for over 10 years now (North of Aberdeen). Work wise, I'm a Service Manager for an IT company these days.

From: william (WILLIAMA) 6 May 2023 13:22
To: Dave!! 39 of 133
The earliest mention on this version of teh which suggests the Bestiary was available is back in 2006 30205.25 but it looks like it was lost in a server move. Kenny downloaded it but then lost what he downloaded. JonCooper checked the wayback thingummy in 2012 and found a link dated Feb 15 2006, but not a copy of the actual data :( 

Happy Birthday for last month. 
From: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 6 May 2023 23:14
To: Dave!! 40 of 133
I found msg:12047.1 from Jan 2004 where it got moved to http://tehforum.co.uk/bestiary/index.php due to Izziwizzi's hosting breaking - previously it was http://www.thenetfish.com/xeno/bestiary/ and http://www.thenetfish.com/xeno/bestiary/index_flash.php and temporarily http://rowan.no-ip.org/bestiary/

There's also msg:25886.2 in Jul 2005 which identifies http://www.tehforum.co.uk/bestiary/index_flash.php and later on msg:25886.81 from August 2005 where another server issue resulted in a 2003 version getting uploaded to https://www.tehforum.co.uk/bestiary/index.php and a month later msg:27222.12 says it was at https://www.tehforum.co.uk/~bestiary/index.php

Oh and back in Jun 2003 msg:6658.1 says it was previously http://www.bestiary.tk/

I would check all those on Wayback Machine, but my ISP is currently flagging archive.org IPs as "adult" and forgetting that I disabled all crappy filtering previously, so I'll try later.

Even if it's not on WM, I will live in eternal hope of the small chance that someone realizes they either downloaded http://rowan.no-ip.org/bestiary/best.zip or perhaps have bestiary.xml in a browser cache on an old hard drive or something.

From: Dave!! 7 May 2023 13:49
To: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 41 of 133
Hmm, not looking too hopeful. A couple of those pages were crawled, but are missing the data. I was able to find some headers, such as:

    <meta name="description" content="The NPCFF bestiary. Everything from an explanation of 1337 to Yvonne.">
    <meta name="keywords" content="PCFormat, Bestiary, NPCF, PCF, Not PCFormat Forum, NPCFF">

Unfortunately, no data. Every time I've tried to grab the flash file or whatever, I'm told it wasn't grabbed. I do have an old PC in the cupboard, maybe at some point I'll try resurrecting it to see if there's anything there, wouldn't get your hopes up though. I don't have a copy of the zip file anyway.
From: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 7 May 2023 14:48
To: Dave!! 42 of 133
The other option is to go find Rowan, kidnap him, and not let him go until he recreates it...
From: Dan (HERMAND) 7 May 2023 21:32
To: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 43 of 133
Crikey how long ago was this thing! I was only 18 in 2004
From: william (WILLIAMA) 8 May 2023 12:47
To: Dan (HERMAND) 44 of 133
Hah! Time passes. Next stop 40.

If it's any consolation, I was only 48 in 2004. I noticed Menace as I was poking about in those posts and he was in his 50s.
From: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 8 May 2023 13:30
To: Dan (HERMAND) 45 of 133
I don't remember, but would guess late 2002 - the welcome thread for this place is Jan 2003, and there are casual mentions to it just a couple of weeks in, but "just go to teh forum bestiary, there are notes about a lot of people there already" suggests that it's not too old.

If only we had a satirical chronicle to help us catalogue such things. :C

EDITED: 8 May 2023 13:34 by BOUGHTONP
From: ANT_THOMAS10 May 2023 06:40
To: ALL46 of 133
Hello
From: Mr (M00RL0CK)10 May 2023 12:15
To: ANT_THOMAS 47 of 133
Hello Ant. 
From: Dave!!11 May 2023 19:30
To: ANT_THOMAS 48 of 133
Ay-up!
EDITED: 11 May 2023 19:31 by DAVE!!
Message 42943.49 was deleted
From: Matt14 May 2023 00:01
To: Linn (INDYLS) 50 of 133
Yes
From: Dan (HERMAND)15 May 2023 11:03
To: ALL51 of 133
I love how many people clearly poke their head in fairly often - just on the off chance the web has reverted 20 years.

 
From: milko17 May 2023 11:05
To: Dan (HERMAND) 52 of 133
it's nice to see if someone's posted something, or a rare flyby from a past face, for sure.
From: Mr (M00RL0CK)17 May 2023 11:56
To: Peter (BOUGHTONP) 53 of 133
From: Dan (HERMAND)17 May 2023 14:09
To: Mr (M00RL0CK) 54 of 133
What are you up to nowadays, Mr M?
EDITED: 17 May 2023 14:13 by HERMAND
From: Mr (M00RL0CK)18 May 2023 08:47
To: Dan (HERMAND) 55 of 133
Mostly training people to be doctors, along with a bit of research. And being a dad - that takes a fair bit of time. Hope all is well with you. 
From: Dan (HERMAND)18 May 2023 10:51
To: Mr (M00RL0CK) 56 of 133
Whoa, buried the lede there a little bit unless I missed it before! Congrats - just the one?

Still lecturing I assume? Was it a Doctorate that you were doing when you came over to talk about organ donations?

Lifes good here - also dadding and all that! I've been an IT Contractor / Freelance consultant since 2013
From: Mr (M00RL0CK)18 May 2023 14:53
To: Dan (HERMAND) 57 of 133
I've got 2 boys, one 5 months and the other 4 years. 

Still lecturing, gradually and unintentionally doing less of it though as I take on other roles. It was my doctorate that I came to speak to you about - seems like a lifetime ago.