Rural Mississippi: The Land That the Internet Era Forgot (wired.com)

New submitter lesedeuezghe writes with this Wired story by W. Ralph Eubanks about the efforts of the Extension Service to broaden its scope from mostly agricultural information to bringing broadband to rural communities. "In sleepy public libraries, at Rotary breakfasts, and in town halls, he [Assistant Extension Professor Roberto Gallardo] gives PowerPoint presentations that seem calculated to fill rural audiences with healthy awe for the technological sublime. Rather than go easy, he starts with a rapid-fire primer on heady concepts like the Internet of Things, the mobile revolution, cloud computing, digital disruption, and the perpetual increase of processing power. ('It’s exponential, folks. It’s just growing and growing.') The upshot: If you don’t at least try to think digitally, the digital economy will disrupt you. It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust. Then he switches gears and tries to stiffen their spines with confidence. Start a website, he’ll say. Get on social media. See if the place where you live can finally get a high-speed broadband connection—a baseline point of entry into modern economic and civic life."

Comments

PowerPoint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, talk about low standards.

Not the typical hitpiece

[CajunArson]

While obviously written from the typical Southerners-are-stupid-hicks point of view, the story has this interesting quote:

Elderly townspeople, black and white alike, were uneasy about the security and privacy implications of entering the Internet age.

Looks like maybe those backwards southerners aren't quite as stupid as everybody thinks.

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like maybe those backwards southerners aren't quite as stupid as everybody thinks.

Then why would they live in Mississippi?

Because Detroit is cold in the winter...and it looks like a war zone.

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[KGIII]

You've never been to Mississippi, have you? Oh, man... I stopped in the Natchez delta region once, about four years ago, and sat down at a restaurant. Three days later, I finally waddled down to the riverboat casino and took a nap. See, Jackson was a dry county so I more than made up for it by staying right across the street and buying booze and walking back across the street. Which is how I ended up going the wrong way and getting to Natchez. I think I spent like another week in that casino and it was one of the few times in my life that I've managed to put on weight. I didn't keep it...

Anyhow, man... They feed you something special. I also learned when a pee-can becomes a peh-khan. When it finds its way into a pie. The music was awesome, the people were awesome, the food was awesome, and they tell me I had a good time. No, I don't think we should unleash the internet on these folks. They deserve better. Also, I lost my hat. :/

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[PopeRatzo]

You've never been to Mississippi, have you?

Sure I have. I've biked across the state.

See, Jackson was a dry county

There's the problem, right there.

As with all places, there are always pockets of first-rate people (though perhaps not Arizona) and some lovely geography to enjoy. But backwards is backwards.

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[KGIII]

I was a drinking man then. I stomped across the street and bought alcohol. The dude in the lobby told me the county line was right in the center of the highway that ran in front of the hotel. I made a point out of drinking double, just out of spite. I think there ought to be some sort of application that you can get for your phone that tells you if you're in a dry town or dry county or if you'll be going into or through one. That way you can prepare. It should probably be tied into the national emergency system!

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[demonlapin]

Natchez ain't in the Delta, my friend. You were worse off than you thought.

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[chihowa]

I grew up in the south, and I can tell you it is a breeding ground for hate, backward ideas, and a willingness to repress those who "are different".

I've lived all over the country and traveled all over the world and most places that contain people are full of hate and intolerance. The difference lies in how close that hatred is to the surface and whether you agree with the specifics of the intolerance. Right now, you're probably more comfortable because the locals hate the same things that you do ("Southerners", for one).

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[plopez]

This just in:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/09/...

Re:Not the typical hitpiece

[demonlapin]

As the old saying goes, the Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody in Memphis and ends at Catfish Row in Vicksburg. Natchez was just the place for planters who owned vast tracts on the Louisiana side to put their city homes somewhere that wouldn't flood every year.

The tourism site is interesting. Notice that Natchez isn't on the city list on the left. The Trace, despite its fascinating history, never even comes close to the Delta, and they tell people to take a blues trail from Clarksdale (OK, serious blues there) to Tupelo (um, Elvis, I suppose).

Marketing is marketing. History's another.

Re:hehe

[Brett Buck]

Oh, bullshit. I have lived in many areas of the country, and found one important thing - people are the same everywhere.

      And, shut the hell up with the racist crap.

Ruined!

[BenBoy]

Damn it, now you've ruined the control group. Who told them about the internet?

I doubt it will stop depopulation

[dlenmn]

If you don’t at least try to think digitally, the digital economy will disrupt you. It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust.

Unless rural Mississippi has some major perks that I'm unaware of, I'm not sure better internet access will really help those rural areas retain young people. Young people leaving rural areas is not a problem unique to Mississippi. It's happening all over the US, largely due to economic reasons such as the increasing efficiency of agriculture requiring fewer people. (See Rural Flight.) Unfortunately, instead of seeing rural flight as a natural response to economics, some chalk rural depopulation up to incredibly dumb Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, which I'm guessing most slashdoters haven't heard of but which some state legislatures seem to take seriously.

FWIW, I speak as someone who really likes rural areas, but I realize that it's not really compatible with the employment I want. The best I can hope for is living in/near a smallish city and getting enough money to buy a cabin in the woods for weekends.

Re:I doubt it will stop depopulation

[Bing Tsher E]

I live in south central Indiana. I moved here from Minneapolis. Everything is cheaper here. There aren't as many tech jobs but you get by. Without the Internet it would be impossible for me to bear living here. The Internet has flattened the world. You don't have to live in any particular place to be connected. If anything the best deal right now is to move out of the city to some place, with a good net connection, that you like.

Re:I doubt it will stop depopulation

[AmiMoJo]

The internet can attract jobs back to rural areas. In Japan a number of internet based companies have their main operations to rural areas. Cheaper housing and business premesis, a nice environment, and it doesn't really matter where your warehouse is. IIRC one business was a second hand book store, and another was a craft goods company selling through Rakuten.

There are a lot of jobs that could move to rural areas if they had good internet access. A lot of engineering consultancy jobs, for example, are mostly done remotely. An architect might have to travel to clients and sites now and then, but that's true if they live in a city or not, and the rest can be done from an office in a rural area as long as they have fast broadband for file uploads, big email attachments and Skype.

Re:I doubt it will stop depopulation

[dlenmn]

The internet can attract jobs back to rural areas.

Yes, I'm sure that good internet access can attract some jobs back to rural areas. However, I don't believe that the carrying capacity is that high; you're mostly talking about small business and self employed people. In contrast _a lot_ of people are leaving rural areas. A lot of recent job growth has been in the service sector, but that only happens where there's a reasonably high population density.

Re:I doubt it will stop depopulation

[ksheff]

Companies like this: https://www.ruralsourcing.com/

Re:I doubt it will stop depopulation

[luis_a_espinal]

I know I'm generalizing, but let's be real - an anti-education, anti-tech, extremely reactionary way of looking at things dominates rural America, specially in the south. They would never do the same things their Japanese counterparts do cuz the interweebz would bring the gay or something.

And that generalization would be wrong. Farmers have a higher high school graduation rate than the rest of the population and for larger operators, are on parity with the rest of the population for college degrees. Why? Because modern farming uses lots of tech and has done so for quite a while. In the 1980s, farmers were the some of the first ones to get personal computers and later dial up Internet access. Why? To manage their businesses and to check on futures markets. The Ag teacher/FFA advisor in those schools usually had a PC before the math department did. Parents in those areas are not anti-education as their kids will need a good education if they want to take over the family business or do something other than be a clerk at the local gas station or grocery store (well, if the parents are not on public assistance...they don't seem to care if their kids get a good education or not since they can just live off the govt teat like they and their grandparents have done since the 60s. In this case, it is more of a class problem, not a rural vs urban problem and is why MS is so bad on many rankings). If you would have said "conservative way of looking at things", you would have been correct. http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-p...

The fact that people have a higher HS graduation rate means squat if done from the POV that crush critical thinking. Think how many people graduate from HS thinking evolution is the work of the devil. For Christ' fucking sake, just look at Ben Carson, a renown neuro-surgeon claiming that the pyramids were built for storing grain!

Sorry, graduation rates =/= positive stance on education or advancement. Go travel the world, talk to people, see how they talk, see how they think. It will open your goddamned eyes on how backwards we have it in some areas of the US.

Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[King_TJ]

Truth is, the U.S. has a lot of wide open space that's sparsely populated - mostly by farmers or ranchers. These people are usually a lot smarter than most people give them credit for. They have to be, because it's so difficult to make a living that way these days. (You have to do a lot of manual labor, do a lot of number crunching, be versed in sales and marketing, and much more.)

My experience is, many of them are already well aware of the Internet and make use of it (even if it's only via a satellite connection). What they may NOT care about that much are "city slickers" coming in, preaching how their entire way of life will die out if they don't change (EG. conform to their ideas of how to modernize everything in town).

They're already adopting a lot of tech that the outsiders probably know little to nothing about -- but it's specific to their career choice.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[93 Escort Wagon]

The farmers and ranchers of rural America are already well aware of the Extension Service - historically it's been a very useful resource to them. So while it's an open question whether these residents will see this new program as useful to them or not, I doubt they'll be writing it off as coming from a bunch of "city slickers".

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[Firethorn]

What they may NOT care about that much are "city slickers" coming in, preaching how their entire way of life will die out if they don't change

It depends, are the city slickers looking to sell them something, or are they 'merely' doing a presentation that is mostly 'obvious in hindsight'?

You should realize that they're not doing these presentations towards random people. You have to join the rotary clubs and such, the club itself goes out looking for presentations, and the topics are pre-published.

People who show up for this are expecting a presentation on the internet and how it can effect them and what they can do to make things better 'via the internet'. Just like other topics that might include things like 'how to sell to other countries', 'Tax rules to be aware of for businesses', 'energy conservation', 'green energy', etc...

For those that are into rampant 'but conservatives are against being green!', I'll point out that such lectures are generally for how you can save money by doing the upgrades economically. Break-even point for new windows, stuff like that.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[tomhath]

It's a business for those who own prime (valuable) land.

No, it isn't. Conservation Reserve is for marginal land, and it doesn't pay any better than renting to a farmer. Good land goes for higher prices.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[Type44Q]

These people are usually a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.

That depends where you go; farmers and ranchers in the western states (Colorado, Wyoming and Montana come to mind) are definitely a lot more likely to be "with it" than those I supported in Oklahoma (you may hear a lot of shit talked about Arkansas and Missouri; well, Oklahoma made those places look good).

It comes down to culture... or lack thereof.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[marka63]

So farmers don't need to update software in a timely manner? So farmers can't take advantage of the benefits of a high speed connection. That the *only* use of a high speed connection is to get pre-recorded video.

High speed internet is a enabling technology. Anyone who says xxx doesn't need high speed internet really doesn't know the needs of xxx. xxx may not know that they will need high speed internet. They may not needed all the time but there will be times when they do need it.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[KGIII]

Hmm... You don't get out much, do you?

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[AmiMoJo]

While they might not need or want broadband themselves, it is necessary to keep small communities viable. As jobs dry up due to automation people move away. Then services are no longer viable, the local shops are no longer viable so they close and the owners move away too. The local school is then no longer viable and that goes, and so on.

The solution is to replace the lost jobs. Many new jobs that can't be automated involve the internet. For example, a contract software developer needs internet access for communication with clients, research and transferring documents and data. I'm sure many would love to live in quiet rural areas where property is cheap and there is plenty of space, they just need good quality internet to make it possible. And then the farmers can keep sending their kids to the local school, and they won't move away at age 18.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[EzInKy]

I don't watch TV, can't get any reception here in the mountains and cable isn't out this far anyway :^)

I can assure you aren't missing much when it comes to TV. The advertisers got so upset with their commercials being interrupted by programming they decided to popup ads during the shows that were drawing the viewers as well.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[EzInKy]

People aren't saying that "XXX" doesn't benefit from high speed internet. It is well known that, after all, that the demand for porn has been a boon for increasing internet bandwidth. Crop futures on the other hand, maybe not so much.

Re:Not sure it matters, ultimately?

[luis_a_espinal]

Farmers and ranchers do indeed depend on the internet. But you don't really need high speed fiber for what they do; that's reserved for people who want to stream videos all day.

But the article makes some very good points. Think about it, there's no real reason so many "coders" need to live in Silicon Valley. The work could be done just as well from a small town in Mississippi - without the high rent, traffic jams, and water shortages. And I am speaking from first hand experience here. I live in a very rural area of Appalachia, finally got DSL a couple of years ago so now i can work from home. It's about ten miles to the nearest grocery store, but there's only one traffic light to get through and no traffic to speak of (other than the suicidal white tailed deer to watch out for). I don't watch TV, can't get any reception here in the mountains and cable isn't out this far anyway :^)

Uh, there is a real reason to live in the Valley (or in any tech hub.). It is to network and, hopefully, work in the latest shit. Obviously that is not true for all, nor it is a real reason for others who would prefer to live in a more secluded area. But a reason, yep, there is one. Our reasons for living where we live are not entirely objective regardless of what we tell to ourselves.

It's not just Mississippi

[reboot246]

Go anywhere in rural America and you'll find little to no broadband. I travel on my job to all kinds of small towns and cities. Right now I'm in one of them and the internet service is barely above dialup.

The same goes for cell service. There are vast rural areas of this country with really poor service or no service.

Re:It's not just Mississippi

[Anonymous Coward]

umm. ok. Methinks that you have never been to real rural america. That area in particular thinks $10 an hour on a factory line is a good thing and puts you in the higher end of the income spectrum, most people there make around 20-30k a year. A six figure income thus is many multiples of most people in town and is unheard of unless you are an attorney or a doctor.
 
  I am not saying that I am a hot shot, I make a typical salary of a senior infosec professional, I just don't have to report to a cube every day. If my family lived there, we already own land, so all of our disposable income would be spent there. One of Arkansas's big issues is that people with the aptitude for STEM based careers will go to college there and then never return. This is a common theme in rural america.

Re:It's not just Mississippi

[CmdrPorno]

AT&T used to offer hotels a cheapo $15 per month DSL plan. I think it was 512k download. From my experience, a lot of Hampton Inns shared this connection via wifi across the whole hotel.

Re:It's not just Mississippi

[hambone142]

Correct. I live in rural California and my only choices are satellite internet or dial up.

Satellite has a 10 GB cap so it's pretty useless for video.

Re:It's not just Mississippi

[sudon't]

I can verify that. I don't have to go fifteen miles before it's all 2G in every direction for the next one-hundred and fifty miles. I live in a small town on the North Carolina coast. As a truck driver, I have traveled pretty much everywhere, and 2G is the standard outside of the larger cities, if you can get a signal.
As for Mississippi, slow down there, feller. They ain't got to the book learnin' era yet. Mississippi has been dead last in every education metric for a long, long time.

Re:It's not just Mississippi

[ksheff]

You should have moved to Jonesboro. It has decent broadband access and is an hour away from Memphis International Airport.

Tech addicts easily forget

[Anonymous Coward]

that most normal people actually care about things other than tech. For most average people, tech is just a tool. Most do not care about MHz, or GHz or dual- or quad-core or brand name. What's truly shocking to the younger techies in the bubbles of very large cities is that there are a huge number of normal people all throughout society who do not care about the internet and do not waste their time logging onto it - they get up, go to work, get home and care for the kids, then perhaps watch a little TV and then go to bed, all without thinking about the internet.

Facebook and Twitter are not required for day-to-day life. What Bruce/Caitlyn and the Kardashians are up to is simply not important. People who have jobs in small-town America simply do not need LinkedIn, etc. and going onto the net to look for Pizza is idiotic if you live in a town with one pizza place. Who needs Google Earth when you already know all the local roads you need to drive on to do your job and run the errands you need to run for your family?

I am not being a Luddite here, I personally live a life stuffed full of electronics and code and tethered to the web, but I have many friends and relatives who have simply no use to any of it and I am amazed at how internet-centric so many younger people in big cities have become - to the point of becoming completely ignorant of LIFE in the real world. This is at some level toxic to politics and national policy. I recall that when Obamacare was going public and the young "experts" were tasked with helping people in "fly over country" enroll, one of these morons told an older guy in the midwest to enter his e-mail address on a screen and was met with the question "what's e-mail?". This is driving a large cultural divide and that divide is going to become another political wedge.

It is simply an act of supremely ignorant arrogance to assume that everybody is on the net and that anybody who is not is some sort of ignorant backward hick - lot's of people simply know what's important to them and what's not. For every netizen who sees the non-addict as a knuckle-dragging moron (who is almost certainly automatically also assumed to be racist/sexist/homophobe/etc), there's a normal person with a life who sees a shallow, plastic, soulless zombie with an iPad and no original thoughts in his brain. For many, the remote, tabloid nature of the internet and its data-mining advertizing-centric vapid content is simply less important than the real world all around them and their families.

At the end of your life, which will you regret more: the time you spent with your spouse raising your kids, or the time you spent on the web looking at what other people were doing, or were pretending they were doing?/P

Re:Tech addicts easily forget

[luis_a_espinal]

that most normal people actually care about things other than tech. For most average people, tech is just a tool. Most do not care about MHz, or GHz or dual- or quad-core or brand name. What's truly shocking to the younger techies in the bubbles of very large cities is that there are a huge number of normal people all throughout society who do not care about the internet and do not waste their time logging onto it - they get up, go to work, get home and care for the kids, then perhaps watch a little TV and then go to bed, all without thinking about the internet.

Facebook and Twitter are not required for day-to-day life. What Bruce/Caitlyn and the Kardashians are up to is simply not important. People who have jobs in small-town America simply do not need LinkedIn, etc. and going onto the net to look for Pizza is idiotic if you live in a town with one pizza place. Who needs Google Earth when you already know all the local roads you need to drive on to do your job and run the errands you need to run for your family?

I am not being a Luddite here, I personally live a life stuffed full of electronics and code and tethered to the web, but I have many friends and relatives who have simply no use to any of it and I am amazed at how internet-centric so many younger people in big cities have become - to the point of becoming completely ignorant of LIFE in the real world. This is at some level toxic to politics and national policy. I recall that when Obamacare was going public and the young "experts" were tasked with helping people in "fly over country" enroll, one of these morons told an older guy in the midwest to enter his e-mail address on a screen and was met with the question "what's e-mail?". This is driving a large cultural divide and that divide is going to become another political wedge.

It is simply an act of supremely ignorant arrogance to assume that everybody is on the net and that anybody who is not is some sort of ignorant backward hick - lot's of people simply know what's important to them and what's not. For every netizen who sees the non-addict as a knuckle-dragging moron (who is almost certainly automatically also assumed to be racist/sexist/homophobe/etc), there's a normal person with a life who sees a shallow, plastic, soulless zombie with an iPad and no original thoughts in his brain. For many, the remote, tabloid nature of the internet and its data-mining advertizing-centric vapid content is simply less important than the real world all around them and their families.

At the end of your life, which will you regret more: the time you spent with your spouse raising your kids, or the time you spent on the web looking at what other people were doing, or were pretending they were doing?/P

What a sad thing has slashdot become that its posters equate internet access with social media. Internet access is an economic and educational enabler. Regions with poorer internet infrastructure will do worse economically and educationally that regions that have better communication infrastructure. Period. This is not about being on FB all the time.

Countries and regions all over the world recognize this. In Japan where mass urban migration and an aging population are decimating rural towns, there have been very aggressive efforts to counter that trend by providing internet infrastructure (to attract young, well-paid engineers, and their families.) Kamiyama in Tokushima Prefecture is the best example of this. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/b...

Finland is another great example at a national level.

Please turn your geek card at your convenience.

You're always forgetting option #2

[rsilvergun]

which is terrible, abject poverty. China double planted and starved half their population, albeit because everyone was too scared to tell Mao he was wrong. But the point is it's not hard to get people to do stupid things that aren't in their best interests.

You're right about one thing: their entire way of life is going to die. Privately owned farms are few and far between. All you have to do is wait for a dry spell, economic downturn or for junior to get tired of living in the middle of nowhere watching crops grow and you can buy the land out for cheap. And let's face it, we don't need that many people to grow food. Hell, we've got berry picking robots now and they only reason we don't use them is migrants are still cheaper. It's not necessarily a bad thing if we shift the wealth around and have few kids with better upbringings.

Re:You're always forgetting option #2

[KGIII]

Non-operators (landowners who do not themselves farm) owned 29 percent of land in farms in 2007, though that proportion has declined since 1992.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/...

It's an interesting read. Industrial farming does take place but it's not as much as people seem to think nor is it on the rise. I don't usually watch TV but I do go down south a lot. Sometimes, when there, I turn on the TV in the hotel room and find the RFD channel and watch the Farm Report. I watch 'em sell cows and stuff too. No, I have no idea why I find it interesting. I can sit there and watch that shit for hours - oddly, I can't stand normal television for that long.

Re:You're always forgetting option #2

[Mashiki]

It's an interesting read. Industrial farming does take place but it's not as much as people seem to think nor is it on the rise.

Reminds me of some idiots who were protesting in my county about industrial farming and all that. There are very few that do it, and despite the land being available most of it is cut into 200-400 acres and are still family run, long as you're willing to make a run at it even here in the green belt of Ontario, you can pick up 300 acres for 300-400k. At least here 90% of the farms are still family owned, and it's such a big business that there are chicken, turkey, and cattle slaughterhouses that are supported on the people here. Though there was a big downturn oh 20 years ago or so, lot of places that were teetering ended up being foreclosed on lot of the places that did grain silo storage were also shut down.

Obvious answer is obvious

[shiftless]

Because they're too smart to live in whatever urban shithole you reside in, drone. Now get back on the hamster wheel and shut the fuck up.

Re:hehe

[kenai_alpenglow]

"So are you sayiong that a Black American citizen can just show up in some all white village in rural Mississippi, and everyone will shower him or her with gifts? Invite them into their home for a nice dinner? Ignore them?"

Hate to burst your stereotypical statement, but I've seen multiple Black (& other ethnic) folks "just show up" here in MS. They didn't get showered with gifts, but were treated very politely (yep, invited to, and attend local churches)--much better than how I've seen the same color folks treated in other "more enlightened" places. Maybe you better get your news from someone w/o an ax to grind...

typical marketing horseshit

[Gravis Zero]

Internet of Things, the mobile revolution, cloud computing, digital disruption, and the perpetual increase of processing power. ('It’s exponential, folks. It’s just growing and growing.') The upshot: If you don’t at least try to think digitally, the digital economy will disrupt you. It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust. Then he switches gears and tries to stiffen their spines with confidence. Start a website, he’ll say. Get on social media.

the Internet of Things is a security disaster, the "mobile revolution" is a farce, cloud computing is outsourcing to people you shouldn't trust, "digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable, and the "perpetual increase of processing power" is a lie. starting a website is not always necessary and often a burden. social media is a hellscape of volatile idiots.

people don't need to "think digitally", what they need is to think for themselves.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[phantomfive]

"digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable

What is digital disruption? I've never heard of that.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[aaronb1138]

Also, screw starting a website or social media. Rural towns need to band together and hold the faces of big telecom to the f---ing fire.

It's reached the point where it would not be unreasonable for a violent mob to show up with torches and pitchforks at any telecom C-level executive's doorstep. Alas, we've become a society so violence averse that I think the U.S. is relatively easily conquered at this point. We've reached the pacifism which the Japanese attributed to us in the 1940s and then some.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[vemene]

people don't need to "think digitally", what they need is to think for themselves.

Have you *been* to rural Mississippi?

Pigs will not only fly but go on to establish their own Mars colony before rural Mississippians will learn to think for themselves.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[KGIII]

See Amazon and your lack of a local bookstore or lack of as many local or used bookstores. Similar to that, methinks. When digital stuff takes over or otherwise changes something that was entrenched - for better or worse. See also, race to the bottom. I've lost two bookstores locally. I miss them both and hadn't stopped shopping at either of them. In fact, I used to give a gift card to all the students at the local elementary school every Valentine's Day (they make me cards).

I gave them all $10 Mr. Paperback cards - they sold them to me for $5 each and claimed the average redeemer of the cards spent closer to $20 as well as the cards being redeemed at a near 100% rate. They still were unable to remain open. The kids lose out and I've yet found an efficient way to give them all Amazon cards as Amazon collects more information than is needed to buy a book. I can't even get them cards to Barnes and Nobles. That was about 100 miles away but that's not really that far when you're in Maine. They closed too.

I don't want to give them gift cards to Twice Sold Tales (down in Farmington) because they don't really have the infrastructure to deal with a horde of kids coming in over the period of a few days. I've taken to giving them cards to the local bowling alley which has an arcade and whatnot but that's even more costly and they don't give me a discount. It's also not really encouraging the little critters to spend time reading.

I think that's an example of 'digital disruption' but I could be mistaken and it could mean something else entirely. :/

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[KGIII]

I don't know. Try Google.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[thegarbz]

Ironic. You're preaching to people to think for themselves but you're attacking concepts in ways that are marketed and sold to you by a corporation while ignoring the true benefits of the underlying ideas.

"the "mobile revolution" is a farce"
- Posted from my iPhone.

"cloud computing is outsourcing to people you shouldn't trust"
- Who says I need to trust someone? Setup your own cloud.

""digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable"
- being unpredictable is the point. But it's no niche. It affects everything you do if you open your eyes and pay attention.

"and the "perpetual increase of processing power" is a lie"
- It has served us well so far.

"starting a website is not always necessary and often a burden"
- That depends on your target audience. An audience which would be much larger if you started a website.

"social media is a hellscape of volatile idiots."
- Posted by a random person on Slashdot no less.

"what they need is to think for themselves."
- Now this concept I can get behind.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[Big Hairy Ian]

social media is a hellscape of volatile idiots.

If you don't believe him visit http://www.slashdot.org/

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[TigerPlish]

What is digital disruption? I've never heard of that.

Digital Disruption: When clouds / heavy precip overwhelm the Comcast dish (the big ones at their facilities) which feeds your home cable connection, freezing, pixellating and making the show you were watching look like a Cubist work of art.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[pnutjam]

As a parent.. ugh.. Gift cards. You just game a the gift of spending my own $20 at the bookstore... Thanks...

Glad you care about the kids. Have you considered Scholastic books gift cards? I know that's popular with the teachers here and all the schools participate in the scholastic book orders.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[KGIII]

You're welcome! :D Consider it motivation to buy yourself a book. There's only 56 of them in the school, cute little buggers. They invite me to plays and concerts. They can't sing and they act like monsters but I go. I usually take 'em to the above mentioned bowling alley afterwards. It's worth it - they send me cookies, Christmas cards, Valentine's Day cards, and usually Mrs. Turner's 4th grade class makes me some "art." I don't know what it is that they drew but I do hang them up for a while.

Anyhow, I had no idea that Scholastic did gift cards now? I will absolutely, certainly, look into this. There's no way I could get them Amazon cards, I just couldn't do it. I thought about it, long and hard, and decided that I just could not, in good faith, do that to them.

Also, I made sure the kids had enough to buy at least one book. $10 would still do that a couple of years ago. So, spending extra was *snickers* entirely up to you. *nods* I didn't make you do anything. The bookstore loved it and actually sold them to me at half price. Yeah, we had a good con going. I was nice about it. I gave extras so that the teachers could hand out the cards to those who had extra siblings or whatnot.

The nearest department store is down in Farmington and a Wal*Mart. I'm sure as hell not giving the kids gift cards to that store. I'd sooner just give 'em cash.

Sincere thanks. I wonder if they'll give me a discount if I buy enough of them?

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[luis_a_espinal]

Internet of Things, the mobile revolution, cloud computing, digital disruption, and the perpetual increase of processing power. ('It’s exponential, folks. It’s just growing and growing.') The upshot: If you don’t at least try to think digitally, the digital economy will disrupt you. It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust. Then he switches gears and tries to stiffen their spines with confidence. Start a website, he’ll say. Get on social media.

the Internet of Things is a security disaster, the "mobile revolution" is a farce, cloud computing is outsourcing to people you shouldn't trust, "digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable, and the "perpetual increase of processing power" is a lie. starting a website is not always necessary and often a burden. social media is a hellscape of volatile idiots.

people don't need to "think digitally", what they need is to think for themselves.

You almost sounded like you were saying something.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[luis_a_espinal]

"digital disruption" is niche and completely unpredictable

What is digital disruption? I've never heard of that.

The rise of the web, and the near death of publishing. Amazon and the death of the mom-and-pop bookstore. Netflix and the death of Blockbuster Videos. Netflix/Amazon VOD/Hulu and what not, which is bringing Cable to its knees contemplating the real possibility of a-la-carte cable (and/or forcing major TV players like HBO to go digital.) Online banking. Online education. The so-called "share economy" (of which I don't think it is that good of a good thing.)

Should I go on?

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[pnutjam]

I think the gift cards my kids got were something like "good for one book under $5", I'm sure they have some sort of deal for the teachers.

Re:typical marketing horseshit

[KGIII]

I'll get one of the teachers to look into it for me. i'm just a resident upholding my end of the social contract. I'm sure one of them will be happy to take care of it for me. There's something to be said for living in a small community.

Not indicative of "rural" anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's keep this in perspective --

This was a presentation to a Rotary Club, which is generally a conservative, late middle-age to elderly crowd (think "moose lodge", etc). You'd have the same type of audience if you gave this presentation at the Rotary Club of Manhattan.

The "rural" angle in this is a complete red herring used to mock a group you are intolerant of.

Where are the luddites supposed to go?

[blindseer]

Slashdot has posted several articles about people that have fled the internet of things due to the real or perceived health problems that living with technology causes. If we bring the technology everywhere then where can these people go to remove themselves from technology?

I only being halfway serious here. We should offer technology to everyone, but also offer the opportunity to do without.

Re:Where are the luddites supposed to go?

[sudon't]

That's what I'm worried about, albeit for different reasons. I'm afraid that, eventually, I won't be able to buy a coffee maker, a TV, or a refrigerator, that isn't basically spyware.

As for the people who think they're being made ill by electromagnetism, there's a nice little community in West Virginia they might enjoy. But the so-called internet of things isn't going to make much difference in that regard. They - we - are already inundated by electromagnetic fields.

But is it really that bad?

[thewolfkin]

While I have no interest in going to Mississippi for a number of reasons. I question whether there might be value in having places that aren't as connected.

It will drain your town of young people and leave your business in the dust.

while i can imagine this is a real concern. Being untapped in doesn't necessarily have to be the be all end all. It's not necessarily as bad as we the tapped in make it seem.

An aging population generally won't care

[istartedi]

I tried to get my father interested in some tech stuff once. He had retired right around the time DBASE III was in general use, and he used that program to do some stuff for a government contractor. So, it's not like he wasn't capable. He just wasn't interested. He had his checks, his visits to the store, occasional trips to see people, good food, a good house, the remote control, etc. He literally told me he just didn't care about that kind of stuff at his age. If the rural population is mostly elderly that are set in their ways, and they've been planting corn and raising chickens twice as long as the presenter has been alive, in ain't broke. They ain't fixin' it.

I don't think this has much to do with the South. I bet it's an aging population they've got.

Re:An aging population generally won't care

[Bing Tsher E]

My father retired from IBM after 30 years. He was a programmer on the IBM 650 in the late 50's. He spent his whole career working with computers. He still has an older Pentium 1 Thinkpad on his desk that runs Windows 95. He uses the Lotus spreadsheet for his finances. Mom has a newer laptop that is current to keep up with friends and family. Dad has no interest in any of it.

Re:An aging population generally won't care

[ksheff]

The only reason my mom has internet access is for Netflix. Even then, it could go away and she wouldn't really care. It's bundled in with her telephone and cable service. The kids & grandkids use it for accessing work, school, or other stuff when they visit.

Re:Mississippi doesn't need the Internet!

[Falos]

"The bad news is it's a horde of spambots trying to shove porn and pornware in your face at every turn."
"What's the good news?"
"That's also the good news."

Re:hehe

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem....

Mississippi is about the most racist state in the union next to Alabama and South Carolina.

South Carolinian here... Where exactly have you been to in SC? In my part of the state, white people and black people pretty much get along and people don't really care what color your skin is. Case in point: the feds, along with the usual cast of rent-a-mob race baiters, have tried to turn Charleston into a Ferguson/Baltimore-style riot scene twice in the last couple of years, and they failed both times due to the strength of the local community.

Re:hehe

[Brett Buck]

Black people are treated nicer in Mississippi than they are in Detroit.
      You're the worst kind of fool - one who believes his own bullshit.

Re:Mississippi doesn't need the Internet!

[jfdavis668]

The Internet is a series of tubes, and the tubes are filled with cats.

Re:hehe

[kenai_alpenglow]

Yep, and there's absolutely no racism outside of MS, good to know that. Sorry to bust your bubble, but I've been all over this nation, and there are bigots everywhere. And those who shout "racism" the loudest I've found tend to be the most bigoted.

Re:hehe

[KGIII]

Bah, I'm mixed racially and have stomped all over that state - including the back parts. (I love the Natchez area, as mentioned above - the Delta Blues Museum is small, but nice.) I've even stayed at hotels, with an unmarried woman, and she was white... We were treated fine. The upward mobility thing may be true but the white folk, specifically the poor, didn't seem to have much hope of upward mobility either. However, I'm not a local so may have been missing something.

What Mississippi does have... Let's say you're coming from Florida on I-10... You stop at that very first rest area. They proudly tell you all about this water fowl - I forget the name (some crane - maybe?). They tell you how it's near extinct and they're working to preserve it. Then, as you walk through, you see they've managed to kill one and stuff it. Given that it is, after all, Mississippi, I can only presume that they killed it just to put it on display so that they could show you which ones not to kill - in case you were confused.

Also, in their rest areas, they have bathrooms. Above the doors (which are 6' 2" by standard) they say male and female. On those signs they then have Braille. Yup... No Braille anywhere else but on those signs, at more than 6' in the air...

Mississippi has some problems and they may be racists but that was not the immediate problem that I observed. Also, as mentioned above, they sure put on a good feed. Nobody goes hungry in Mississippi. I had a big, I mean very big, black lady tell me that I was going to eat dessert and that I had a few choices. "What are you going to have for dessert? You'll be having ____, ____, or ____." I ate so much that it hurt. I waddled back to the car. I ended up staying for like a week and a half, that time around.

I'm told that I kept trying to find somebody to feed me fish from the Mississippi, even after sticking a finger in it and smelling it, but nobody would help me out. Some parts of my Mississippi Adventure may be a bit fuzzy and my recollections are, in part, based on the retelling from others. I have been there more than once but that was the most eventful time. I keep getting drawn back to the Natchez region. It's nice there. They've got some character.

Re:The internet is collapsing

[KGIII]

Good. If it gets you fucking morons off it then, by all means, kill it faster. I've got enough saved to manage the down time. (And by you fucking morons, I may not mean you specifically.) Quite frankly, the 'net is full - go home. Reading some of the comments on various sites makes me almost pine for the days of hearing the busy signal and then picking yet another BBS to dial into in hopes of finding one available.

Anyhow, no... Probably not you. You can probably stay. You know the type, though. At least, I'm guessing that you do. The tubes are full of cats and the dump trucks have nothing but ads in them. The prediction was right, it is eternal and it has gotten worse.

As an aside, when a new version of Windows drops, you can tell on the various forums. You get a whole bunch of stupid questions about Linux and why isn't it like Windows and how the man pages are hard to read - if they tried, and they don't appear to be willing to write in English or actually use a search engine. The rest of the 'net is like a Windows 10 release, almost daily.

Hmm... I am a grumpy old man, today. Ah well... Get off my lawn or some such.

If the internet dies then, well, hopefully we can rebuild it. Maybe we'll be able to build two. One for passive consumption and a parallel 'net which is non-commercial in nature. I dunno. I have no idea how to fix it, honestly. Any idea I can come up with has flaws. I still think we might need a tiered internet with tests to access certain content types and sandboxing those who are infected with malware. Sure, I won't be able to easily pass a test to post content as a Chinese speaking forum but I'm okay with that. I don't know a damned thing about felines so maybe my cat viewing will be restricted until I learn the basics of cat care. I dunno... That too has flaws.

Re:hehe

[Ol Olsoc]

Challenge accepted. No need to even look at your links. There is Racism in the south. I don't think anyone said there wasn't. There are also gang banging hood rats in the ghetto. If it is racist for me to treat all blacks in the ghetto like thugs, then it is JUST AS FUCKING RACIST for you to imply that all white southerns are racist.

What do you think Dr. King would say about you painting all white southerns as racist? I believe even in the 60s he would have disagreed with that supposition. Personally I hate racists no matter what their color.

What do you think Dr. King would say about you painting all white southerns as racist?

Do you have the quotes where I said all white southerns are racist? That's the problem with the internet. You can't make shit up as easily.

Second challenge, quote where I said anything close to saying that all whites in the south are racists that back to me.

Hell, I was talking specifically about Mississippi, and some activites that occured in the historical record, and are pretty hard to refute, and that is hwat was in the citation links Not once did I say that all white southerns or even all white Mississippians are racist.

Bill Maher has always said that he gets some of his most enthusiastic audiences when he goes down south. In an intyerview with Mike Huckabee, http://egbertowillies.com/2015...

He noted just that in reading off a listing of some of his favorite places to do standup. And they are in the south. And he pulls no punches anywhere, so both humorless conservatives and liberals tend to hate him.

But the image that is projected from down south would make you think that Maher would be lucky to escape with his life if he went down there, given his politics and his mouth. So no- not all Southern people are racist, or social conservatives, or want to secede from the Union, or think that Obama is the Kenyan Devil baby. Or want to establish a theocracy, or teach creationism in science class, or repeal the 16th, 17th and 18th amendments to the constitution. It would be foolish to think that those traits don't exist in quite a few people though. Because it seems that people holding those values are the ones who get elected to political office. Want people to stop thinking the south is full of racists? Do something about it, not declare anyone who dares to think there might be some racial issues there as a racist themselves, even if you have to make shit up.

Re:So what?

[Your.Master]

He didn't say they don't want it, or that they wouldn't benefit from it, he said they don't have it. It's an educational effort.

If the town wants to continue to exist, or have an economy that can support the old people, they should figure out how to. A small town where literally everybody is over 70 doesn't actually work, economically speaking.

Whether this particular effort is useful I don't know.

Re:hehe

[LordWabbit2]

Yeah, and you seem to be rather loud.

Fine

[ThatsNotPudding]

Hate to burst your stereotypical statement, but I've seen multiple Black (& other ethnic) folks "just show up" here in MS. They didn't get showered with gifts, but were treated very politely (yep, invited to, and attend local churches)--much better than how I've seen the same color folks treated in other "more enlightened" places. Maybe you better get your news from someone w/o an ax to grind...

Great to read. Now explain the flag to us.

Re:The internet is collapsing

[pnutjam]

The internet may be chock full of crap and ads, but it's also chock full of the most useful things. People take it for granted. Do you remember selling old stuff pre-craigslist? Taking an ad in the newspaper, trying to give someone directions to your house? All only minor inconveniences now. I might complain that nobody calls on my furniture ad on craigslist, but at least I'm not paying $5 / line for 3 weeks.
The internet has brought so much into our reach. I can learn a new scripting language, today if I want to, without leaving my room. I don't have to go to the library (useless for up to date tech), or hit the bookstore and try to decide which book is suitable.
Can anyone remember researching a new car pre-internet? Magazines, consumer report books, multiple dealers... All simplified by the internet you besmirch.

Re:Mississippi

[PopeRatzo]

Mississippi is a beautiful state!
Mississippi has spacious country living as well as big urbanized cities, if that's what you like.
Mississippi has warm kind people.

That all may be true, but it doesn't change that Mississippi is dead last of all states in education, child poverty and health care. And by "dead last", I mean 50th out of 50. The bottom. Of the barrel.

So if you don't mind stupid, poor and sick, Mississippi is for you.

http://djournal.com/news/missi...

http://msbusiness.com/2014/09/...

http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...

Rural Mississippi not the only place.

[truck_soccer]

You could substitute pretty much any state after the word "rural". Our rural infrastructure in this country is just that. I personally like having areas that are left alone. I think it should stay this way. Where else are all the politically inept paranoids going to live?

Lure them to MySpace

[Dareth]

Lure them to MySpace. They won't know any better. ;)
The "more advanced" are probably still using AOL dial up.

Re:Mississippi doesn't need the Internet!

[plopez]

Gay incest pron in airport bathrooms.

Re:Mississippi

[plopez]

That's what regressive taxation and corrupt one party theocratic laissez faire government gets you.

Subsidies

[dlenmn]

Everything is cheaper here.

I hear this a lot, and while I'll take your word for it that it's true in practice, I'm not convinced it's true in principle. There are a lot of federal and state subsidies to rural areas -- both direct and indirect. E.g. the only reason there's any telecommunications services out there is the Universal Service Fund -- a transfer from urban/suburban to rural areas.

I've seen it argued that the subsidies go the other way: the federal government sends more money per capita in direct subsidies to urban and suburban areas than rural areas. That ignores state subsidies (for schools, roads, etc.), but more importantly, spending per capita is not the right measure. The measure should be the ratio of government subsidies to government tax receipts from an area -- because that covers the implicit subsidies as well. I haven't seen this broken down on a country by county basis, but if you look at a state by state basis, rural states get some serious subsidies. E.g. Mississippi (the state in TFA) gets $2.34 in federal spending for every $1 it pays in tax revenue. It's $1.81 in Indiana. In contrast, it's $0.48 for New Jersey, the most densely populated state, and $0.54 in your home state. (Source) I don't know if you benefit directly from this, but you definitely benefit from others who are subsidized.

In other words I think the cost of living in rural areas is artificially deflated, and if the federal tax code and subsidies get tweaked, there could be a "giant sucking sound" in rural parts of the country.

Re:Subsidies

[Bing Tsher E]

I bought five acres with a 19th century 2 bedroom house on it, only two miles out of a town with one of the state's best small liberal arts colleges in it, for $120k. Out in the yard I can faintly hear the marching band at their football games, and in good weather, the bell in the courthouse. We could have horses in our pasture if I wanted the hassle of keeping horses.

I said $120K up there. And I know there are a lot of properties much cheaper.

Re:Subsidies

[ksheff]

There are lots of factors that make up the spending received vs tax paid. Not all rural states are getting more than what they pay in Federal taxes. Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas are certainly rural states, but receive less than what they pay in taxes. Off the top of my head, what contributes to this spending can be broken down to:

• Military bases
• Other Federal government installations/managed land
• Locations of Federal Contractors (why VA and MD are high on the list)
• Farm Subsidies
• Federally paid retirement income
• Federally paid health care.
• Entitlements / anti-poverty spending
• Indian Reservations
• Disaster aid
• Transportation funding

A large part of the "reduced cost of living" is due to a) cost of housing, b) insurance and c) state & local taxes. Since housing is largely due to supply and demand, some of this spending is actually going to drive that up. Manufactured goods and non-local food costs can be higher due to transportation costs and low sales requiring more markup for retailers to stay in business. Many rural areas have declining and aging populations, so there is a lot of spending for retirement and health care relative to others, but it also drives housing costs down. On the flip side, since there aren't as many kids as there used to be in the 60s/70s in these communities, the demand for newer schools and more teachers is not very high, so local taxes can be low. There is often not a lot of crime, so insurance rates can be lower than more urbanized areas. But this isn't always the case either. There are many communities in the South with a significant portion of the population on public assistance. There isn't a lot of jobs and for some reason instead of moving where there are jobs, these individuals stay put just like their parents and grandparents did.

If some of that spending were to disappear, what you have is more people moving to areas where they could find employment, driving housing prices down even further, some municipalities ceasing to provide services, the cost of some other privately provided services going up, and people who continue to live in those areas driving further to access some services. Depending on what was cut, that may be welcomed by the local governments.

Re:hehe

[Ol Olsoc]

Second challenge accepted.

You imply it throughout this post: http://news.slashdot.org/comme... At the very least you implied that all of Mississippi is racist. http://slashdot.org/comments.p... There you go implying Indiana to be racist. Implying is not saying. You lose Coward.