December 18, 2007

• 1 Google - I remember our local library with a green screen bbc computer with a basic prompt and people typing in "What is an umbrella?" etc ... google made this a reality (not a fanboy, just is v important) 2 Jason Forrest - War Photographer 3 opensource - communism for the 21st century 1 goatse 2 rickrolling 3 lonelygirl15 ... 5 profit
• 1. Veronica Mars 2. Battlestar Galactica 3. TotalFark Man, that whale had me laughing for a full 10 mintues the first time I saw that. I'm sure there's so much more, the problem is...the tubes are so integral to my daily operating life, that I can't pick anything out because there is too damn much.
• anywho.com - phone book, schmone book. No matter what weird, obscure thing I'm into, I'm not the only one Doctor Who Furries/plushies IRC RPG's Vote for the Worst
• Serious: 1. MIT and Yale have entire courses available on-line for FREE. 2. Countless work-related items: Datasheets, training, price quotes, etc. 3. Monkeyfilter Time-wasters: 1. Dicewars 2. Desktop Tower Defense 3. Monkeyfilter
• 3 seriously idiotic things teh intarwebs have inflicted on my life: 1. hamster dance 2. badger, badger, mushroom 3. goatse, tubgirl and 2 girls, one cup.
• And how could I have left out The Gilbert and Sullivan Archives!?! Tink-a-tank, tarantara, and tzing-boom!
• Almost my entire corpus of knowledge.
• Good: 1. Chordie 2. Sigur Ros 3. Wikipedia answers every tiny question I've ever had Idiotic 1. I like pie. 'Lo Bob, you like pie? 2. 2girls1cup etc 3. Recipes that look good but don't work in execution
• Damn! Dicewars! I had forgotten...now, hooked again...
• Heh, Heh, Heh. Dicewars? Oh no, it gets much, much worse. kdice Yeah, a wasted time black hole.
• Useful: Travel arrangments. Booking flights, selecting the best seats (thanks seatguru.com!), getting opinions and reviews on hotels and destinations, and getting tickets for events, trains or whatever, all from the comfort of my seat, is just so convenient. Been years since I've had to use a travel agent or have to pick up physical tickets in advance. Message boards and community sites, both work and hobby related. Knowledge is power indeed. So. Many. Art. So many graphic expressions, music, photography, music videos, animation, creative stuff that otherwise one would need to spend a lot or be in teh right plcae at teh rightg time in order to have contact with. And it can be here in my screen with a click of a few buttons. Ah, thank you, Al Gore. Weird stuff: Fetishes. You learn that, well, there's someone out there just like you! *cough* But at the same time, learn of interest one would rather not have ever even considered. Oh well, as I told someone once, 'Better to know about certain things so next time you're offered you can say [i]No thanks[/i] with certainty'. Hobbies. Games. Too easy to fall down into those time-sucking pits and find yourself with more and more deadlines looming. Spam.
• Ah, that preview button, that's handy too. *sigh*
• I have a hard time thinking of three things of which I would have remained blissfully unaware without the Internets. Really, it's quite pervasive in my life. Broadband is in my mind as necessary and expected a home utility as water, gas and electric. Or, as "frivolous" as phone service, if you want to put it that way; not required for actual life-support but, you know, required to have a life. I think the three main eye-opening realizations I have had regarding the 'net are as follows: 1. You can get that game/program/etc. for free? Really? And sometimes legally? Holy shit. 2. You can get news/weather/information/references immediately? Without waiting? Without going anywhere? Jesus H Christ. 3. I can buy that, right now? For that price? Shipped to my door? I'm going to die, seriously. I have a hard time remembering what it was like to go to the library to do research, to order things from catalogs, to cart gifts to the post office or UPS myself rather than having onlinestore.com ship it there when I ordered it, to have to shell out lots of cash for things like quality games and music and software. The fact that so many people give away for free things that they have worked so hard on still remains in my mind one shining glimmer of hope for humanity, as dorky and geeky as it may sound. I don't understand people who wait until 10:00 to hear what happened in the world, when I can get the news in my RSS feeds as it happens. I know what the weather forecast is without listening to the radio and hoping I don't miss it in between traffic reports, stupid jokes and endless commercials. When I'm unable to access the 'net to do the things I do in daily life, I almost feel as if I've had some small, but essential, organ removed from my body. There is a dark side, though... 1. I can waste that much time, with no gain, and nothing to show for it? Uh... well, just one more game and then I'll quit, I swear. 2. WTF is wrong with you people? Oh jesus my eyes are burning, that image will never be scraped from my brain no matter how hard I try to forget... plus now I need to email this link to about 6 (soon-to-be-ex?) friends. 3. Fanfiction and furry art should have remained in the diaries and doodle-pads of the clinically obsessed and deeply disturbed, where it belonged. Writing that is not healthy. Drawing animals with big boobs is not healthy. Sharing it with others borders on the criminal. (No offense meant to any potentially fur-friendly members of the Monkey community, but I can't help it, man, that stuff just creeps me right the fuck out.)
• Re CLF's second comment: When I was a young man, an early job was at a fairly large library. Within our ranks were "reference librarians". One could approach or phone them with a question, and their job was to research and answer it. Their salaries were all part of our property taxes, I suppose. I knew many of these types, and they loved their quirky jobs (and they were rather quirky people themselves). They are now, of course, all but obsolete. I am sad for them, but not for the technology that replaced them: Googling is a quantum leap or two from phoning the library and asking "which Shakespeare play included the ghost with the scarlet robe?" Progress. What're ya gonna do?
• THE BOOK WAS THE GHOST!!!
• ha!
• MCT's knees; Hank's chicken; GramMa's horse; TUM's Addams Family fetish; tracicle's family; Koko's petticoats; Medusa's sex life; petebest's doppelgangers; kit's art's tameness and blandness; quid's will to power; H Dawg's fascination with the brain, altered states, spirituality -- and politics; kamus's music; Ralph's quickness with the one-liner; Skrik's deep and abiding affection for the POTUS; Pallas Athena's voice; Neddy's knowledge of tea; path's thoughtfulness; and on and on.
• and on, and on, and on, and on. I'm with Hank. There's an entire corpus of knowledge that I'm familiar with now. What's scary is that I'm no spring chicken. What's scary is that I know things like badger, badger, hampsterdance, googlemaps, woot and l33t sp33k, goatse, the many ways to google, exploding whales, LOLCATS, why Fark sucks, and on, and on, and on, and on. And it just slays me when I talk to teenagers and young adults who haven't a clue. Or folks my age. Think of what they're missing!!! MonkeyFilter: I can't help it, man, that stuff just creeps me right the fuck out. And taglines. Damn, but I lubs me some taglines!
• I always wished Gomez was my Dad. Of course, that would make Sam Gamgee my brother, so I dunno.