The internet - some thoughts to share?

Fido

Fido

Joined
Wednesday August 26, 2009
Location
New Forest, England.
Do you ever reflect on the extraordinary value of the internet? I remember in the early 90s having a discussion with some colleagues about the potential of the world wide web. Linking computers together, sharing information, worldwide. It was mind blowing then. As it is now.
I retired in 1995. Oh, how I wish I had the tools available today during the last few years of my career. But then what a difference the internet has made to my retirement. Over the past few years I have studied a wide range of subjects and come to understand how to use the internet to enhance the pleasure and effectiveness of my daily life. I remain puzzled why so many of my friends have failed to grasp the opportunities made possible by the internet. A lot of them are bright people, but they still don't grasp how much more they would get out of life by just using the internet for a relatively short time each day. It is a bit of an age thing, but there are growing numbers of older people who are embracing new technology now.

The point of this post is to stimulate discussion about ideas for further use of the internet which may not have occurred to us.

Perhaps we might highlight particularly useful websites or little tricks we have found that have helped our internet use. Or tips to make us more streetwise about the dangers we all face by being too open with information.

Here's some advice for discussion. Always assume that anything you say on the internet can be traced back to the real you. There is nowhere to hide. So to say things you would regret being traced back to you is at best, risky. The internet is full of forums in which people say stupid and outlandish things to each other. The world is a dangerous place and there are a lot of weird people out there. So the internet culture is anonymity. People think they are safe to say what they like. They are not. Because if someone really wants to find you, they will. So when I am on the internet I behave as the real me. I bite my tongue when I have to, just like in real life. I don't make remarks that I would not like my friends and family to hear. That's the way I play it, and it will stay that way.

As for useful websites. This is one of them. And it's friendly. I like that. Not like Saga. It can be vicious there.
 
I got my first ipod music player(a shuffle) thingy about 6 months ago, and was getting so much out of music and podcasts that I just upgraded to the new ipod nano, mainly cos it has an FM radio. Whilst in the Apple store the assistant demonstrated the ipod touch as well and I was very tempted. :geek:

It is the hardware (laptops, balckberry, ipod touch) now that I find amazing, expecially as a person who last used mobile music in the mid eighties with a knock-off walkman. Remember the bulk, the batteries that needed changing after 5 mins, the chewed tape...........now the hardware is so much smaller, doesnt require a second job to buy duracells, andn does sooo much more.

But Fido, I do think the internet can be an off putting place, due to the sheer volume of info, and the provenance of that info. It is a resource that needs to be used with discrimination and care (and often scepticism). I also am concerned about the number of news stories that have an origin on the interweb. Seems some journalists just spend the day googling till they find something trhey can turn ninto a story. Did you retire before the advent of the senior colleague who 'manages by e-mail'? :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Nah...your'e scaremongering Fido, I think it's nigh on impossible track down an IP address without a court order otherwise I guarantee you'd be hearing much more about it. Anonymity is the key and if it was that easy to compromise security as you suggest then people really would be much more reluctant to use it as much as they do.

As for forum etiquette, there has been the odd rare member I can think of that has expressed less than desirable views, when those views have not been validated they either refrain or those members soon fall off the radar. It is a form of self regulation.
Don't bite your'e tongue too hard though, I want to know what people really think without causing offence whether I agree with them or not. ;)
 
Each to his own Tony. I'm comfortable playing it my way. Don't get me wrong, I am very direct and confrontational when I choose to be. I just don't wish to feel that I cannot be traced. I dread to think what I might say then.
I would be very interested to hear about the way others use the internet.
I embrace it as an indispensable aid to life now. As I go through the day, if I come across an issue which I cannot quickly resolve I tap in the words and within seconds I'm usually on track to a solution to a problem or meeting a need. And as a sports fan, I am never out of touch with events anywhere. It all makes for much more productive use of time.
On a practical point, I have made full use of Ebay and Amazon to sell surplus goods. And using the internet to buy goods and services can pay for our investment in computer equipment quite quickly.
I'm a bit laid up at the moment - I am having to rest a foot injury which is causing a few sleepless nights. That's why I have been busy here recently. When things improve I will spend more time outdoors. That's where I like to be. But meanwhile the internet provides plenty of things to do.
 
Without seeing facial expressions and hear the tone of voice its possible to completely misunderstand what someone is trying to say. Is someone mad or not. Are they taking the mick or are they being serious. When I read emails, everyone writes in a Welsh accent. Does that make sense?
 
When the boundaries become blurred...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/16/fromsecondlifetoseconddegr">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... seconddegr</a><!-- m -->
 
antdad said:
When the boundaries become blurred...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/16/fromsecondlifetoseconddegr">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... seconddegr</a><!-- m -->
Click to expand...

Tony
That is just....WRONG! Apart from guy's shooting each other it is actually horrific. How bad is your life when you have to resort to this, Second Life dollars, Second Life property. In the words of out transatlantic cousins, I'm grossed out.

Yours

The Stepford Shaver :twisted:
 
This makes me think of the Red Dwarf game Better Than Life. It is a 'Total Immersion Video Game' that plugs in to your brain and puts you in to a different reality. It features light-heartedly in the TV show, but it also appears in the book by Grant Naylor as a highly addictive game, no different from drugs.
 
antdad said:
When the boundaries become blurred...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/16/fromsecondlifetoseconddegr">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... seconddegr</a><!-- m -->
Click to expand...

Oh, and can I make it quite clear that I bear no resemblance to my avatar who is in fact Count Arthur Strong. I am also not having an affair with any member of The Shaving Room and am definitely not trying to groom Sir Prize in to performing disagreeable acts with my pet daxund Colin. :hungrig
 
On a more serious note, to actually respond to Fido's post... I use the internet for all sorts of things. I don't have a double life but use Facebook quite regularly. Not so much as last year when the novelty was still there for most of my friends, but it is a nice way to keep in touch. Last week someone from my Primary School posted a class photo. This brought back lots of memories and inspired a few people to get in touch. Amazing to think this is just a normal part of life. My four year old just accepts computers and the fact you can play games and look at pictures on it. He is already capably using a mouse while I can remember the novelty of using on for the first time when I was about 14.

I regularly buy from Amazon and find the Prime delivery service very good. eBay too is useful, mainly for buying as are countless other companies for gifts, cookware and clothes. I bank online and back up my files on line. Our area cannot get broadband through the phone lines, so I pay £25/month for a wireless service where the signals are beamed to and from a little dish on my roof. We would be lost without it!

Oh, just remembered Wikipedia and Spotify! :D
 
You got me...join up and you can all come and have a proper shave in my virtual barber shop where I use a proper straight unless of course the elf and safety come knocking :shock:


Actually if you ever caught sight of those 2nd lifer's involved, it's no surprise that they chose to spend most of their time indoors and isolated.
 
Like I said earlier, I want to be me. Frankly i hate the perceived need for anonymity, false names and avatars. You see me here, albeit a long time ago when I had a lot more hair. But I accept the reality of having to play it the way we do because it's the only game in town.

But hey, there's more to the internet than forums and social networks. That's where I'm at. Looking for real live benefits from this incredible opportunity for self education and communications unimagined years ago. One hope I have is that better information will enable those with doubts about religion to resolve them. I wish I had the opportunity to explore the internet when I was brainwashed as a Roman Catholic as a child. That would have saved me a lot of heartache and empowered me more in battles with priests.

The internet has a lot to offer all of us if we use it wisely. But it is a dangerous place if we are not streetwise. Like real life really?
 
Here goes for the old man of the internet... I first encountered the idea of networking computers together back in the late 1980s - when 2400 baud modems where aspirational items (I could only snaffle a 1200 baud myself) - and Fidonet was the king of the hill - I remember sneaking online about twice a week to a BBS (2:256/504.2 was me) and picking up my mail. Oh those halcyon days.

Then I went to uni and the wonder of packet-switched X25 and a gateway to the internet (there was a 60 page book telling you how to get "qualified" to get your internet wings) it was all accessed through text-based terminals and email - you could download from the SIMTEL public domain archive, but you had to do it via email and decode the attachments manually (and hope you got them all).

Then came gopher - a sort of precursor to the graphical WWW - it allowed searching and bookmarking - etc. At this time (about 1990/1) I placed my first order over the internet with CD Universe - who had an eye-wateringly large catalogue of CDs at extremely keen prices. That was done through the wonder of telnet to their actual order/shipping/billing system - soon to be followed up by a similar order with Bookstacks Unlimited... You tell that to the kids today and they won't believe you could browse the catalogue without pictures :lol: Modem upgraded to the überspeedy 9600. Never stopped shopping online since - in fact every Christmas since 1991 has been done mostly online - the range of goods is bigger now though :lol:

In parallel with this I was dabbling in packet radio - networking via Ham Radio - at 1200 baud with 30-50% packet loss - that was some slow networking and when the idiot in Silksworth brought his rig up with a duff configuration that turned everyone's routing tables to garbage (since he advertised himself as a gateway to the rest of the world) and when we all worked out who had done it and what had been done, a deputation/lynch mob arrived at his house to find him just left for 3 weeks holidays. His antenna was disabled by one of the chaps with a Land Rover and winch :D still took 2 days for routing to recover though.
 
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