Facile and banal verbal/textual exchanges do not a meaningful communication make.
Perhaps not, but if you apply this standard most people rarely actually communicate with anyone anyway. The fact that most people either have nothing to say or are too inhibited to risk real contact can't be blamed on the Internet -- this is not a new problem.
"Why in the good old days, if you wanted to talk to somebody, you had to walk over to where they was, and make breathing noises at them. 'Talking' was what they call it. Yes, we had some real conversations back then. What'd we talk about? Why, we'd just talk about anything that came into our minds... the weather... livestock... the Good Book... and of course the women folk would gossip and chatter. Yep, things were deeper back then, more personal. Not like what have you today with this new-fangled "Post Office" thing. You won't catch me lickin those "stamp" things, nossir."
I Hate Books. I am proud to be an Epsilon.
on
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· Score: 1
New study! Reading books replaces social interaction! People are spending more and more time "reading" -- that is, sitting in a chair or lying in bed and staring balefully at pieces of paper with ink markings on them. Frighteningly, the more time a person spends reading, the more time they will tend to spend in this deeply antisocial addiction.
Even more disturbingly, "readers" have been organizing themselves into "book-space" gangs called "colleges" and "unversities". The typical "student" can spend literally entire days in unhealthy print absorbed monomania.
Fortunately, a new goverment agency has been organized to combat this menace -- it is my great honor to introduce to you... Guy Montag.
Re:I have net friends whom I've never physically s
on
LonelyNet
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· Score: 1
The funny part is that Sony et al are hoping to crush MP3 by controling audio hardware, forcing a/v component makers to build in pay-for-play SDMI crap (through threat of lawsuit or through outright ownership).
They haven't yet realized that audio hardware is as dead as physical audio media.
The only Hi-fi equipment that will exist 10 years from now are amps, speakers, and headphones.
What a young worker wants is a high-yield (read "stock based") IRA or 401k. Don't be scared off by volatility -- this is your *retirement*. You're not planning on taking this money out next week. All the daytrading street hassle and recession/growth cycle is just noise on that that kind of time scale. Compare compounded returns at 4-ish percent to 20-ish percent. Yikes!
This is before the enormous benefit provided by tax defferral.
Savings accounts are only marginally better than stuffing cash in your mattress.
[carreening into full rant mode...]
The thing I don't understand is this "pension" thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong (I've never been offered one), but a traditional "pension" works something thing like this?
You're applying for a job. Your boss tells you "OK, if you're still working here when you're 65, I'll pay you N dollars a month until you die. But if I fire you before then, you get nothing."
Hey wow, what a sweet deal! Thanks boss, I'll get right to work! I'm staying here for LIFE! Gee, I hope I don't get "laid off" when I'm older! Gosh, the economy's so bad, I sure am lucky to have a nice boss like you to take care of me!
Luckily we (in the USA) don't have to rely *solely* on our boss to support us when we're old -- we have the Federal Government to force us to spend our wages on nuclear weapons -- oh, whoops, I meant "invest in a giant Ponzi scheme" -- wait er... it's "save for our retirement"! Ha ha! That's it. Little slip there.
Yes, the government knows how to save money so much better than us mere "individuals". I'm glad it has our best interests at heart.
Interlibrary loan. Oh, wait, wednesday? Forget it. My advice is to go to the library, find something there's a lot of books about and change your report's subject to that.
The music industry's efforts to control content through strong arming hi-fi hardware companies (or by *being* hi-fi equipment companies) are doomed to failure because...
The hi-fi industry is just as doomed as the record industry. Computers are going to replace everything except amps, headphones, and speakers. Everything else will be software running on portable general-purpose computers.
And guess who controls software...
Sony is scared all right, but not half as scared as they should be.
Free hardware design: The components all exist already: embedded systems cards (with on board scsi, ethernet, vga, memory, the works), cd transports, sealed motorcycle batteries, shock-mount cases, those cute hi-fi compact speakers. What if somebody (an EE student? some mad scientist NRL geek?) hacked out plans for a boombox which ran linux and that could store your entire record collection compressed as MP3s. Which anyone with a screwdriver, a soldering iron, and the ability to follow directions could build in a weekend? And published these plans on the internet along with links to all the component suppliers?
Why isn't this possible? What needs to happen to get me one of these machines? How much would you pay?
Also: It's vitally important that positive reinforcement be given out to balance whatever pillorying we might do. Let's also showcase hardware manufacturers who are especially helpful to the linux movement.
Also, let's not lose our sense of humor. Let us chide and poke fun, not lambast and blacklist.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps not, but if you apply this standard most people rarely actually communicate with anyone anyway. The fact that most people either have nothing to say or are too inhibited to risk real contact can't be blamed on the Internet -- this is not a new problem.
"Why in the good old days, if you wanted to talk to somebody, you had to walk over to where they was, and make breathing noises at them. 'Talking' was what they call it. Yes, we had some real conversations back then. What'd we talk about? Why, we'd just talk about anything that came into our minds... the weather... livestock... the Good Book... and of course the women folk would gossip and chatter. Yep, things were deeper back then, more personal. Not like what have you today with this new-fangled "Post Office" thing. You won't catch me lickin those "stamp" things, nossir."
New study! Reading books replaces social interaction! People are spending more and more time "reading" -- that is, sitting in a chair or lying in bed and staring balefully at pieces of paper with ink markings on them. Frighteningly, the more time a person spends reading, the more time they will tend to spend in this deeply antisocial addiction.
Even more disturbingly, "readers" have been organizing themselves into "book-space" gangs called "colleges" and "unversities". The typical "student" can spend literally entire days in unhealthy print absorbed monomania.
Fortunately, a new goverment agency has been organized to combat this menace -- it is my great honor to introduce to you... Guy Montag.
howdy.
So you'd be wanting to place that bet in Renminbi?
Or in HK dollars?
My bet:
Short term: it looks like the PRC eats HK and Taiwan.
Long term: HK & Taiwan eat the PRC from the inside like some kind of Japanimated transforming fungus parasite monster.
-bonkydog
They haven't yet realized that audio hardware is as dead as physical audio media.
The only Hi-fi equipment that will exist 10 years from now are amps, speakers, and headphones.
-bonkydog
A SAVINGS ACCOUNT? You've got to be joking.
What a young worker wants is a high-yield (read "stock based") IRA or 401k. Don't be scared off by volatility -- this is your *retirement*. You're not planning on taking this money out next week. All the daytrading street hassle and recession/growth cycle is just noise on that that kind of time scale. Compare compounded returns at 4-ish percent to 20-ish percent. Yikes!
This is before the enormous benefit provided by tax defferral.
Savings accounts are only marginally better than stuffing cash in your mattress.
[carreening into full rant mode...]
The thing I don't understand is this "pension" thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong (I've never been offered one), but a traditional "pension" works something thing like this?
You're applying for a job. Your boss tells you "OK, if you're still working here when you're 65, I'll pay you N dollars a month until you die. But if I fire you before then, you get nothing."
Hey wow, what a sweet deal! Thanks boss, I'll get right to work! I'm staying here for LIFE! Gee, I hope I don't get "laid off" when I'm older! Gosh, the economy's so bad, I sure am lucky to have a nice boss like you to take care of me!
Luckily we (in the USA) don't have to rely *solely* on our boss to support us when we're old -- we have the Federal Government to force us to spend our wages on nuclear weapons -- oh, whoops, I meant "invest in a giant Ponzi scheme" -- wait er... it's "save for our retirement"! Ha ha! That's it. Little slip there.
Yes, the government knows how to save money so much better than us mere "individuals". I'm glad it has our best interests at heart.
-bonkydog
Interlibrary loan. Oh, wait, wednesday? Forget it. My advice is to go to the library, find something there's a lot of books about and change your report's subject to that.
-bonkydog
Doesn't matter. When we get tied into the Galactic Internet we'll either have to convert to their protocol or become a Bitnet-like backwater.
-bonkydog
Yeah, but.
The music industry's efforts to control content through strong arming hi-fi hardware companies (or by *being* hi-fi equipment companies) are doomed to failure because...
The hi-fi industry is just as doomed as the record industry. Computers are going to replace everything except amps, headphones, and speakers. Everything else will be software running on portable general-purpose computers.
And guess who controls software...
Sony is scared all right, but not half as scared as they should be.
-bonkydog
"I'm a Javascript." hee.
ah, shut up, you troll.
Hacksploitation: A genre of movies which exploit hacker culture -- by analogy to "Blacksploitation" movies of the seventies (e.g. Super Fly, Shaft).
-bonkydog
On the internet, everyone is a public figure.
-bonkydog
Free hardware design: The components all exist already: embedded systems cards (with on board scsi, ethernet, vga, memory, the works), cd transports, sealed motorcycle batteries, shock-mount cases, those cute hi-fi compact speakers. What if somebody (an EE student? some mad scientist NRL geek?) hacked out plans for a boombox which ran linux and that could store your entire record collection compressed as MP3s. Which anyone with a screwdriver, a soldering iron, and the ability to follow directions could build in a weekend? And published these plans on the internet along with links to all the component suppliers?
Why isn't this possible? What needs to happen to get me one of these machines? How much would you pay?
-bonkydog
Agreed agreed.
Also: It's vitally important that positive reinforcement be given out to balance whatever pillorying we might do. Let's also showcase hardware manufacturers who are especially helpful to the linux movement.
Also, let's not lose our sense of humor. Let us chide and poke fun, not lambast and blacklist.
Let's be friendly and polite.
-bonky
I'm a big fan of Mont Briac, a sheep's milk blue.
Any blue cheese fans out there, y'all should try it.
-bonkydog