how long has this site been going ?

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=21118

Last connected 1970!!!

Here's a hint:

System.currentTimeMillis() returns the difference, measured in milliseconds, between the current time and midnight, January 1, 1970 UTC.

In other words, if this date there never has been set you probably will get 1970.

There were very few registered players in 1970. I would have been one of those but I could not find anyone to provide me with an internet connection for my punch card computer.

Oi! Don't insult 70's tech - this is what I wrote RoRoRo with.

Where did you find an 11" floppy reader?

To answer the original question, it looks like March 5 or 6, 2002 are the leading candidates. For instance, go to game #1 with

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1

which started on March 5, whose players (with player id's 17 and 23) registered on March 6, 2002

Also note, the "player" with player id #1, "SYSTEM"

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=1

also regsistered March 6, 2002, though with the Last Connect date of the infamous January 1, 1970.

The lowest numbered player id, is #6, also registered on March 6, 2002:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=6

Richard himself registered on March 6:

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=1002

does this mean there's going to be a trivia game?

I never realised I actually registered on the site when it was less than 10 days functional...

Hjallti: How did you hear about LG, when it was only 10 days old? Can you share anything with us about how the site grew?

I can't really remember. Either I searched (no not google, but altavista I guess) or someone told me at ItsYourTurn where I used to play most of my games before I came to this site.

It has always been a nice rather small community and the gomoku and reversi tournaments and championships were fun in the beginning. Afterwards they got much harder since the world top in both of this games seems to have found there way to this site.

I guess I used to play here and on IYT for a while but the timepressure at IYT together with its expansion made me prefer this site. I still have the feeling to know most people here (which is of course untrue as fact but nice as a feeling). I might even try an athropolical comment on this...

((( filosophical sidekick:

I think humans (as a specific kind of ape) actually long to belong to a safe group, which might be reached in a 'village' situation (and I mean a small village). When you loose the feeling of knowing and be known by the majority the village becomes a town, a city, a metropole...

I think certainly in the western world in real life we lost that village situation. (A tribal major (I think from a Fiji island) once was invitated to visit a Australian city, and apart from discribing a staircase a 'stone tree' he told that people talked about their neighbours as if they were living not next door, but a couple of islands away). And this might loss might explain why virtual communities like facebook and also most forms of extremism are so popular.

)))

Anyway Littlegolem has always been a village, with a distant God (Richard M) making the decisions and keeping the site up with new wonders (GWG, Wyps, Oski, empathy) and additions. And I think personal I feel at home (in some sense) here.