Not too many do. Journalism and publishing face a lot of the same problems. Most people don't see a future for hard cover books. There's a lot they (publishers) could do to get more people to buy and read them (many of the very same things that newspapers might try) and very few people have ever bought my books in hard copy or online form.
Brian, I don't read the Record. My wife subscribes to the NYTimes (she's a reporter), but I get my news online, and sometimes from TV and magazines and have for some years now. I believe from what I've read that the Record, a good paper with a good record, has been struggling with circulation and advertising in recent years. I'm not predicting the death of papers, though I suspect they will not exist too much longer in this form, which will be a shame.
I don't agree that genetics/techology is less interesting or relevant to most people than what's happening in parts of the Carolinas. If you're talking about the need for local news, then of course you're quite right. And you raise a good question, which I'd love to see people try and answer. If you had to give up Slashdot or your local paper, which would you give up?
I think this is an amazingly smart post...slashdot at its best, and every paper editor ought to read it. It directly and indirectly, IMHO, captures what is off about papers and offers some directions they could take that would make them valuable again, at least to me..
I've written often..ad nauseum, in fact, about the outlet the Net has offered for people who are being driven nuts by values in schools and society, and who use computing to find people who are like them, thus learning that they are not alone, and remaining sane. It's a lot of the point I was trying to make in "geeks". Even if you're not floating out in the Atlantic, smart and different people often feel isolated where they are..Now they can find people to keep from "turning insane in a society that can't (or won't) accept you.
What he (or she) said...And stranger...
on
LonelyNet
·
· Score: 1
...is the idea that old forms of culture -- newspapers, commercial TV -- are a means to judge human interaction. Is shopping at a mall more human than shopping online? I suspect this is, in fact, part of the now fairly long struggle of these institutions to ward off the effects of the Net, like villagers in Transylvania holding up crosses to keep Dracula away.
Disorienting and Infuriating
on
LonelyNet
·
· Score: 1
I read a post like this and then look at the Stanford study and it's just disorienting..Don't they talk to people like rabitd? I hope a thousand people post stories like this here, and I'll be responsible for printing these posts out and delivering them to Stanford. This illustrates to me why places like this give people achance to tell their own stories and not be "described."
Phone is a great analogy
on
LonelyNet
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· Score: 1
The phone takes people away from f2f contact as well..does that not count as human interaction? And what about the time ON the phone, as pb suggests?
This is, I think,a very important point
on
LonelyNet
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· Score: 2
Think of the ways in which people use the Net to connect: kids to parents kids to other kids kids to grandparents friends to friends workers to colleagues people with culture
Even business models like EBay and Deja.com require interaction between retailers and customer..e-mails, reviews, etc. Everybody I know on the Net, at any age, connects with people online. I think the problem here is that the people doing this kind of study don't see this kind of contact as with humans.
But on Senior Net on AOL, the elderly are pouring onto the Net. In fact, older Americans are statistically the fastest growing group of people on the Net and Web. They check in with grandkids, mail their own children, connect with one another. This study is wacky to me...older people are prime example of a group that uses the Net to connect with other people.
Interesting post. I work more than 60 hours a week, and like Jon, it's cause I love it, not cause I'm forced to. Yet it's also true that many people just don't get paid for the work they do. It isn't exploitation, yet it does put pressure on many people who don't really want to work that hard. Or does it?
Definitely agree that I missed these two..These posts are great..Remember, I never claimed to name them all..Just get the conversation started..Be interesting to see what we end up with at the end of the day..
Since this column mentioned me, I thought I ought to say why I haven't written about the VA takeover. The answer is pretty simple..nothing has happened yet that would offer anything to write about. Nobody on/. has been corrupted or interfered with, and to declare one's honesty and self-righteousness would be..well, self righteous and self-serving. The proof is in the evolution of the site, not in pious declarations. I've had sorry experiences with takeovers and mergers, from CBS News to Hotwired, and have never had trouble leaving. But I'm far from thinking that way. Rob (and Jeff and others) have created a brilliant, pioneering site with several missions I love and believe in. They are the best people I have worked for in my writing life, and I have complete confidence in them. Robin Miller is all sorts of interesting things, but corrupt isn't one of them.Nothing would make him happier than storming off in a huff and going for a ride on his boat. I think Jay's declaration that Slashdot is doomed, and that the geek community has suffered a grevious blow is a bit knee-jerk, even premature (I asked him what's the difference between a "self-appointed" crusader and other kinds). The content on/. this week looks pretty strong to me. If Rob or anyone else here felt compromised, he'd be gone in a flash, taking a horde of people with him. It's not hard these days to find websites to start, write for or go to. But that would be an incredibly dumb thing for VA Linux to provoke, as the site would quickly become fairly worthless. The people who put this site together had a great idea, and were helped by an enormous and impassioned community that is still very much here and very much engaged. They are entitled to whatever money and rewards they get out of this. As for me, I don't own stock in anything..Andover, VA Linux or any other place. I'm deleriously unattached. My own feeling is that it's way too early to make thunderous declarations about Slashdot's being doomed or saved. We'll see. But when the time comes for pompous pronouncements, I'll be lst in line..
I think this is a great and interesting post, though I don't completely agree with it. The Net is a tool that makes a number of different ideologies possible. Standing on a street corner ranting isn't the same as going online and having access to all sorts of people all over the world. That's the ideological part of the Net and has been from the first. But the technology is definitely a tool.
Dummies like me don't know this, and it's essential that this kind of info get out, I think. This was incredibly helpful to me, and useful, and thanks for it, Jurgen.
Anybody but me heard of Jonathan Postel and the Internet Society and all the work they did designing the Net protocols to keep them open and free? E-mail me, I can steer you to lots of books and articles.
The U.S. congress, which has passed not one but two decency acts..RIAA which has filed scores of lawsuits to shut down college music sites...MPA, which is looking for geeks to lock up for using DVD source code, the ABA, suing to shut down websites that provide legal info for free that lawyers charged thousands for..I could go on for quite awhile.
The head of the Justice Department's MS legal team said in several interviews that he believes the trial will begin setting Internet law regarding corporate practices. I disagree. I think the government and the judiciary are definitely and quite openly moving to set some Net law, as seems inevitable.
I don't think there are any set of rules that could run the Net..But some understandings..the OS license, for example..do have impact. And people who write software are going, like it or not, to determine how the Net is used. I don't think it's matter of issuing rules. I think it's writing software with a particular purpose and consciousness, just as the people who designed the Net in the lst place did. Don't underestimate yourself. As a programmer you can do things someone like me can't even imagine.
I don't ever see a leader of the Net, or a leader of geeks..Incompatible, I think..But that doesn't mean people can't gather on some broad principles..And no, absolutely not..OS is a choice, not a religion.
Interesting that Greg wants to join the ranks of the "antiKatz" (what an interesting term) because he disagrees with a column I've written. Can't we just disagree? Ideas are intensely personalized here..I don't think it's healthy. This isn't a fear tactic. This is a real issue, whether one agrees with me or not. Privacy has always been considered a fundamental human freedom and a lot of people - by no means just me -- are worried about it's erosion. I feel corporations are getting too big and are too poorly unmonitored. If that belief sparks an "antiKatz" I'll be happy to go down...
Slashdot Mirror
Not too many do. Journalism and publishing face a lot of the same problems. Most people don't see a future for hard cover books. There's a lot they (publishers) could do to get more people to buy and read them (many of the very same things that newspapers might try) and very few people have ever bought my books in hard copy or online form.
Brian, I don't read the Record. My wife subscribes to the NYTimes (she's a reporter), but I get my news online, and sometimes from TV and magazines and have for some years now.
I believe from what I've read that the Record, a good paper with a good record, has been struggling with circulation and advertising in recent years. I'm not predicting the death of papers, though I suspect they will not exist too much longer in this form, which will be a shame.
Muck, I'm curious as to why you wouldn't feel at ease reading local news online. Also are free coupons available on the Web?
This is another incredibly smart, useful and specific post that might be very useful to paper editors.
I don't agree that genetics/techology is less interesting or relevant to most people than what's happening in parts of the Carolinas. If you're talking about the need for local news, then of course you're quite right. And you raise a good question, which I'd love to see people try and answer. If you had to give up Slashdot or your local paper, which would you give up?
I think this is an amazingly smart post...slashdot at its best, and every paper editor ought to read it. It directly and indirectly, IMHO, captures what is off about papers and offers some directions they could take that would make them valuable again, at least to me..
I've written often..ad nauseum, in fact, about the outlet the Net has offered for people who are being driven nuts by values in schools and society, and who use computing to find people who are like them, thus learning that they are not alone, and remaining sane. It's a lot of the point I was trying to make in "geeks". Even if you're not floating out in the Atlantic, smart and different people often feel isolated where they are..Now they can find people to keep from "turning insane in a society that can't (or won't) accept you.
...is the idea that old forms of culture -- newspapers, commercial TV -- are a means to judge human interaction. Is shopping at a mall more human than shopping online? I suspect this is, in fact, part of the now fairly long struggle of these institutions to ward off the effects of the Net, like villagers in Transylvania holding up crosses to keep Dracula away.
I read a post like this and then look at the Stanford study and it's just disorienting..Don't they talk to people like rabitd? I hope a thousand people post stories like this here, and I'll be responsible for printing these posts out and delivering them to Stanford. This illustrates to me why places like this give people achance to tell their own stories and not be "described."
The phone takes people away from f2f contact as well..does that not count as human interaction? And what about the time ON the phone, as pb suggests?
Think of the ways in which people use the Net to connect:
kids to parents
kids to other kids
kids to grandparents
friends to friends
workers to colleagues
people with culture
Even business models like EBay and Deja.com require interaction between retailers and customer..e-mails, reviews, etc.
Everybody I know on the Net, at any age, connects with people online. I think the problem here is that the people doing this kind of study don't see this kind of contact as with humans.
But on Senior Net on AOL, the elderly are pouring onto the Net. In fact, older Americans are statistically the fastest growing group of people on the Net and Web. They check in with grandkids, mail their own children, connect with one another. This study is wacky to me...older people are prime example of a group that uses the Net to connect with other people.
Interesting post. I work more than 60 hours a week, and like Jon, it's cause I love it, not cause I'm forced to. Yet it's also true that many people just don't get paid for the work they do. It isn't exploitation, yet it does put pressure on many people who don't really want to work that hard. Or does it?
Definitely agree that I missed these two..These posts are great..Remember, I never claimed to name them all..Just get the conversation started..Be interesting to see what we end up with at the end of the day..
Since this column mentioned me, I thought I ought to say why I haven't written about the VA takeover. The answer is pretty simple..nothing has happened yet that would offer anything to write about. Nobody on /. has been corrupted or interfered with, and to declare one's honesty and self-righteousness would be..well, self righteous and self-serving. The proof is in the evolution of the site, not in pious declarations. I've had sorry experiences with takeovers and mergers, from CBS News to Hotwired, and have never had trouble leaving. But I'm far from thinking that way. /. this week looks pretty strong to me. If Rob or anyone else here felt compromised, he'd be gone in a flash, taking a horde of people with him. It's not hard these days to find websites to start, write for or go to.
Rob (and Jeff and others) have created a brilliant, pioneering site with several missions I love and believe in. They are the best people I have worked for in my writing life, and I have complete confidence in them. Robin Miller is all sorts of interesting things, but corrupt isn't one of them.Nothing would make him happier than storming off in a huff and going for a ride on his boat.
I think Jay's declaration that Slashdot is doomed, and that the geek community has suffered a grevious blow is a bit knee-jerk, even premature (I asked him what's the difference between a "self-appointed" crusader and other kinds). The content on
But that would be an incredibly dumb thing for VA Linux to provoke, as the site would quickly become fairly worthless.
The people who put this site together had a great idea, and were helped by an enormous and impassioned community that is still very much here and very much engaged. They are entitled to whatever money and rewards they get out of this. As for me, I don't own stock in anything..Andover, VA Linux or any other place. I'm deleriously unattached. My own feeling is that it's way too early to make thunderous declarations about Slashdot's being doomed or saved. We'll see. But when the time comes for pompous pronouncements, I'll be lst in line..
I think this is a great and interesting post, though I don't completely agree with it. The Net is a tool that makes a number of different ideologies possible. Standing on a street corner ranting isn't the same as going online and having access to all sorts of people all over the world. That's the ideological part of the Net and has been from the first. But the technology is definitely a tool.
Dummies like me don't know this, and it's essential that this kind of info get out, I think. This was incredibly helpful to me, and useful, and thanks for it, Jurgen.
Anybody but me heard of Jonathan Postel and the Internet Society and all the work they did designing the Net protocols to keep them open and free? E-mail me, I can steer you to lots of books and articles.
...and insightful, too
The U.S. congress, which has passed not one but two decency acts..RIAA which has filed scores of lawsuits to shut down college music sites...MPA, which is looking for geeks to lock up for using DVD source code, the ABA, suing to shut down websites that provide legal info for free that lawyers charged thousands for..I could go on for quite awhile.
\
I thought this was a great, clear and powerful post.
The head of the Justice Department's MS legal team said in several interviews that he believes the trial will begin setting Internet law regarding corporate practices. I disagree. I think the government and the judiciary are definitely and quite openly moving to set some Net law, as seems inevitable.
I don't think there are any set of rules that could run the Net..But some understandings..the OS license, for example..do have impact. And people who write software are going, like it or not, to determine how the Net is used. I don't think it's matter of issuing rules. I think it's writing software with a particular purpose and consciousness, just as the people who designed the Net in the lst place did. Don't underestimate yourself. As a programmer you can do things someone like me can't even imagine.
I don't ever see a leader of the Net, or a leader of geeks..Incompatible, I think..But that doesn't mean people can't gather on some broad principles..And no, absolutely not..OS is a choice, not a religion.
Interesting that Greg wants to join the ranks of the "antiKatz" (what an interesting term) because he disagrees with a column I've written. Can't we just disagree? Ideas are intensely personalized here..I don't think it's healthy.
This isn't a fear tactic. This is a real issue, whether one agrees with me or not. Privacy has always been considered a fundamental human freedom and a lot of people - by no means just me -- are worried about it's erosion. I feel corporations are getting too big and are too poorly unmonitored. If that belief sparks an "antiKatz" I'll be happy to go down...