Pragma wrote:
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>>
>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> Frits van Bommel wrote:
>>>>> Manfred Nowak wrote:
>>>>>> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/87499/from/rss09
>>>>> For those who don't speak German, and in line with the recent
>>>>> discussion about automatic translation, the Google translation is
>>>>> somewhat readable:
>>>>> http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2F87499%2Ffrom%2Frss09&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> (definitely not perfect though)
>>>> Hmm. When I translated it, it came back:
>>>>
>>>> "Das maschinen ist nicht for gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Sitz back und vatch das spitzensparken."
>>> LOL.  The BlinkenLights text was on the wall at a school I attended years ago.  I've never been able to forget it.
>>>
>>>
>>> Sean
>>
>> Aah, the wonders of the Intarwebs.  That I can have *no* idea what you're going on about, and have the full text inside of 15 seconds thanks to Google and Wikipedia is a miracle.  :)
>>
> 
> Welcome to the shared experience that we used to only get from reading the same books, watching the same movies, listening to the same music and traveling to the same places.  Now every "in joke" from the last 30 years or so is archived for posterity.  The Internet is rapidly becoming one giant, shared hallucination, from which millions can reflect upon rapidly and easily.  And to think this type of activity (peering into a computer screen for hours) used to be labeled as 'anti social'.
> 
> </philosophical>
> 
> I was in the same boat.  I found it particularly interesting that the wikipedia article on "Blinkenlights" mentions that there's a faux-English equivalent that German-speaking folks use.

It's like that discussion on vampiric vegetables: I *never* would have known about that if not for the internet (and this NG in particular). My knowledge of the world has expanded vastly since I found out about Wikipedia :P

That said, I do think it's still anti-social.  I spend pretty much all of my time in my little cave, wrapped in the warm glow of my CRT. Sometimes, even I feel the need to go outside and actually spend time with people.

Pity I'm not very good at it; I'd probably be a lot happier if I was :P

	-- Daniel

-- 
int getRandomNumber()
{
    return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll.
              // guaranteed to be random.
}

http://xkcd.com/

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/

Daniel Keep wrote:
> 
> It's like that discussion on vampiric vegetables: I *never* would have
> known about that if not for the internet (and this NG in particular).
> My knowledge of the world has expanded vastly since I found out about
> Wikipedia :P
> 
> That said, I do think it's still anti-social.  I spend pretty much all
> of my time in my little cave, wrapped in the warm glow of my CRT.
> Sometimes, even I feel the need to go outside and actually spend time
> with people.
> 
> Pity I'm not very good at it; I'd probably be a lot happier if I was :P
> 
> 	-- Daniel
> 

Meh, I'd say we are socializing right now.

Of course, you could say that if one were to only interact with people through the internet, then that person's skills with body language, facial expressions, verbal communication, and other such up-close communications could become severely diminished due to lack of use.  It wouldn't be surprising anyways.

Well, the question I ask myself is this: there are obviously human beings communicating here, so how is that a solitary activity?
I conclude that it isn't, but exclusively pursuing activities like this may lead to problems like I mentioned above.

Also, consider the relationships.  The D newsgroup does not seem to be a place for romance, beer buddies, discussions of family life, "those guys I chill with in the Walmart parking lot", war stories, partying, and all of those other potential dimensions to a person's relationships. Rather, I really appreciate this newsgroup for being some kind of awesome aggregation or attractor of really smart people, and a place for intelligent and often professional discussion.

Chad J escribió:
> 
> Also, consider the relationships.  The D newsgroup does not seem to be a place for romance, beer buddies, discussions of family life, "those guys I chill with in the Walmart parking lot", war stories, partying, and all of those other potential dimensions to a person's relationships. Rather, I really appreciate this newsgroup for being some kind of awesome aggregation or attractor of really smart people, and a place for intelligent and often professional discussion.

True to an extent. Historically, over here you can talk about almost anything, and people mostly don't mind.

-- 
Carlos Santander Bernal

Carlos Santander wrote:
> Chad J escribió:
> 
>>
>> Also, consider the relationships.  The D newsgroup does not seem to be a place for romance, beer buddies, discussions of family life, "those guys I chill with in the Walmart parking lot", war stories, partying, and all of those other potential dimensions to a person's relationships. Rather, I really appreciate this newsgroup for being some kind of awesome aggregation or attractor of really smart people, and a place for intelligent and often professional discussion.
> 
> 
> True to an extent. Historically, over here you can talk about almost anything, and people mostly don't mind.
> 

Like this thread for instance. <G>