slightly OT: we're all doomed, I tell ya, doomed
DouhetSukd
brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
Socrates.
- we can't read books anymore
- we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
addressed)
- our mental setup is being rewired to reward multi-tasking and
information grazing over deep attention and rumination.
- our mental processes and culture is being reshaped by the internet,
in as fundamental a fashion as happened when the printing press
revolution got well under way. TV and radio did not come close,
according to him.
I find Carr entertaining and do not fully disagree with him either - I
do often spend hours on the Net without clear recollection of what I
got from it at the end.
One of his predictions, perhaps relevant to the writing community, is
that it illusory to aim to recreate the normal writer-reader dialogue
using online hypertext, with its wealth of hyperlinks and
distractions. Even e-Books are held to be tools of the Devil. The
internet is a "distraction technology" for him.
The biggest shortcoming, to me? He does not acknowledge that so many
many people now write stuff online. Sure, the smartest are probably
being dumbed down by informal emails and texting. For the rest of us,
I imagine that many people who would never have written anything now
do.
Quite thought-provoking and highly recommended. But the book does
leave a bit of a Luddite aftertaste.
Carr made his name with "Does IT matter?", a highly iconoclastic book
attacking the mirage of attaining business success through IT
spending. A book, strangely enough, not at all well received by the
IT vendor community but which I found to be not that far off the
mark. He's back to tilting at idols here.
Kay Shapero
@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> Socrates.
>
> - we can't read books anymore
>
> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> addressed)
>
And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
down would be the Ruination of Memory...
--
Kay Shapero
address munged, email kay at following domain
http://www.kayshapero.net
DouhetSukd
> In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
> > brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> > effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> > neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> > Socrates.
>
> > - we can't read books anymore
>
> > - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> > addressed)
>
> etc.
>
> And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
> was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
> down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>
> --
> Kay Shapero
> address munged, email kay at following domainhttp://www.kayshapero.net
At the risk of appearing clueless, or, worse, a non-native English
speaker, what's an UL?
He does mention writing & Socrates' opinion about it. In the end, he
agrees with Socrates, while I came away with the idea that Socrates
was a snob and that Carr was, in a way I couldn't figure, wrong.
Jared
[...]
> Carr made his name with "Does IT matter?", a highly iconoclastic book
> attacking the mirage of attaining business success through IT
> spending. A book, strangely enough, not at all well received by the
> IT vendor community but which I found to be not that far off the
> mark. He's back to tilting at idols here.
Seems like asking whether electricity or running water matter.
That is, you certainly don't succeed in proportion to your spending on
them, but that doesn't mean they don't matter.
I admit I work for an IT vendor, though.
Brian M. Scott
<douhe...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:5075e22e-b946-4308...@d8g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science:
> On Oct 26, 10:09�pm, Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
[...]
>> And if it's �not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like
>> a UL), there was a day when people worried that all that
>> newfangled writing stuff down would be the Ruination of
>> Memory... �
> At the risk of appearing clueless, or, worse, a non-native English
> speaker, what's an UL?
Urban legend.
[...]
Brian
Dorothy J Heydt
Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
>> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>> Socrates.
>>
>> - we can't read books anymore
>>
>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
>> addressed)
>>
>etc.
>
>And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>down would be the Ruination of Memory...
And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
preliterate ancestors did.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.
Joel Olson
news:16e94a74-3ed9-42f7...@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
>
Imo, the internet is much less debilitating than tv.
It is probably all those closely spaced cuts - jumps that force our
visual systems to reorient - that are destroying our ability to focus,
to concentrate. On the internet, the user has a lot more control of
stuff like that.
Dorothy J Heydt
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Oct 26, 10:09�pm, Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>> In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>> @e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhets...@gmail.com says...> Nicholas
>Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>> > brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>> > effects the internet has on our attention span. �This is argued via
>> > neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>> > Socrates.
>>
>> > - we can't read books anymore
>>
>> > - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
>> > addressed)
>>
>> etc.
>>
>> And if it's �not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>> was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>> down would be the Ruination of Memory... �
>>
>> --
>> Kay Shapero
>> address munged, email kay at following domainhttp://www.kayshapero.net
>
>At the risk of appearing clueless, or, worse, a non-native English
>speaker, what's an UL?
Urban Legend. Like the Mexican Pet (turned out to be a rat) or
the spiders that nested in the bouffant hairdos of the 1960s.
Google on Alan Dundes or Jan Harold Brunvand, or just go to
snopes.com.
David DeLaney
>Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>>And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>>was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>>down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>
>And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
>preliterate ancestors did.
Or, at least, we can't remember whether we do or not.
Dave "a long time ago, in an alphabet far far away" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Joel Olson
news:LAxr2...@kithrup.com...
>
Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
used to associate the memorable item with an image.
Even in the middle ages there were people who retained the
records and happenings of the local community, and were called upon
in the case of disputes.
A small community is still practicing these feats, memorizing entire
books verbatim. Most of them are recluses, living in the woods and
hiding from the authorities.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Oct 26, 10:09 pm, Kay Shapero<k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>> In article<16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>> @e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhets...@gmail.com says...> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
>>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>>> Socrates.
>>
>>> - we can't read books anymore
>>
>>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
>>> addressed)
>>
>> etc.
>>
>> And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>> was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>> down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>>
>> --
>> Kay Shapero
>> address munged, email kay at following domainhttp://www.kayshapero.net
>
> At the risk of appearing clueless, or, worse, a non-native English
> speaker, what's an UL?
Urban Legend.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article<MPG.273153eb6...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> Kay Shapero<k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>> In article<16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>> @e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
>>> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
>>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>>> Socrates.
>>>
>>> - we can't read books anymore
>>>
>>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
>>> addressed)
>>>
>> etc.
>>
>> And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>> was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>> down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>
> And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
> preliterate ancestors did.
>
I know I read something about that but I just can't remember where...
Cryptoengineer
news:gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com:
> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
> news:LAxr2...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <MPG.273153eb6...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
>> Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>>>In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>>>@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
>>>> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>>>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>>>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
>>>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>>>> Socrates.
>>>>
>>>> - we can't read books anymore
>>>>
>>>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which
>>>> is addressed)
>>>>
>>>etc.
>>>
>>>And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL),
>>>there was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing
>>>stuff down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>>
>> And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
>> preliterate ancestors did.
> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that
> they used to associate the memorable item with an image.
For example: 'The House of Memory'
There's a useful description of the technique here:
http://www.sophiainstitute.com/client/products/prodpdf/175.pdf
Don't let the religious trappings throw you off.
pt
Walter Bushell
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <MPG.273153eb6...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
> >In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
> >@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
> >> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
> >> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> >> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> >> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> >> Socrates.
> >>
> >> - we can't read books anymore
> >>
> >> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> >> addressed)
> >>
> >etc.
> >
> >And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
> >was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
> >down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>
> And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
> preliterate ancestors did.
But some societies still do, and they down up for not appearing to know
much.
--
The Chinese pretend their goods are good and we pretend our money
is good, or is it the reverse?
Dorothy J Heydt
Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>news:LAxr2...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <MPG.273153eb6...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
>> Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>>>In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>>>@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
>>>> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>>>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
>>>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
>>>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>>>> Socrates.
>>>>
>>>> - we can't read books anymore
>>>>
>>>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
>>>> addressed)
>>>>
>>>etc.
>>>
>>>And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL), there
>>>was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing stuff
>>>down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>>
>> And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
>> preliterate ancestors did.
>>
>
>used to associate the memorable item with an image.
Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
mental cathedrals.
Jens Egon Nyborg
>
> Imo, the internet is much less debilitating than tv.
> It is probably all those closely spaced cuts - jumps that force our
> visual systems to reorient - that are destroying our ability to focus,
> to concentrate. On the internet, the user has a lot more control of
> stuff like that.
As I recall, in the 70'ies when I was a child European statistics showed
that children's intelligence correlated positively with the number of
hours they watched tv.
At the same time American statistics showed the reverse correlation.
Since then European tv has become much more like American tv (IMO), and
now European children too, turn out to be dumber the more tv they watch.
One might even suppose that it matters what you see in tv/browse on the
net/read about in your book?
And to get back on topic: How much better (or worse?) could we do in the
future?
David Mitchell
There are quite a few such techniques, some are self-linked lists (where
each item links to the prior one), and some link to an already known list
(such as the "loci" method described above), or to more abstract lists
which require one-off rote learning of a large number of pigeon-holes
(the system I use is called "Tee for one", which assigns each digit one
or two consonants - one is Tee or Dee, for example - and then forms
memorable images for the numbers from 1 to 100 using those consonants and
any vowels which make it easier, so 11 is "Dad", and I would associate
the 11th item of a list with my father to remember it).
Mnemonic techniques like this are more of an open secret than a lost art
- I was taught them at school and have used them ever since.
Quite a good book on the subject is _The Memory Book_ by Harry Lorayne
and Jerry Lucas.
http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/dp/0345410025
--
=======================================================================
= David --- If you use Microsoft products, you will, inevitably, get
= Mitchell --- viruses, so please don't add me to your address book.
=======================================================================
Default User
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:LAyH0...@kithrup.com...
> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>
> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
> mental cathedrals.
"The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred it
to the later "Connections" show.
http://www.cosmolearning.com/documentaries/the-day-the-universe-changed/18/
Brian
--
Day 630 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project.
Current music playing: "Is That All You've Got for Me" (The Donnas)
Quadibloc
> A small community is still practicing these feats, memorizing entire
> books verbatim. Most of them are recluses, living in the woods and
> hiding from the authorities.
Like the fire department? Are we sure we haven't confused reality with
science fiction here?
John Savard
Quadibloc
The thing is, though, that if companies spent on IT like they do on
electricity and running water, they would print their business letters
on laser printers attached to computers running Microsoft Word 2.0 on
Windows 3.1.
Instead, they're spending much more money on keeping up to date than
they would need to spend for something that just does the job. They
hope that having slightly better computers than their competition will
give them an edge - and maybe it does, but it's a destructive arms
race that only the IT companies really profit from, yet it's not one
they have a choice about resigning from.
My suspicion, therefore, is that even an "iconoclastic" book on the
subject will just have missed the point, and won't have any useful
advice either for individual businessmen or for policy makers.
However, all is not lost. All this money wasted on fancier business IT
systems and on fancier video games is subsidizing an industry that
will eventually lead to chips so powerful that we will be able to
upload our brains. This just has to happen in my lifetime, and I can
live forever in transhuman bliss in the post-singularity world! That
would be a silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud of inescapable
waste.
John Savard
Joel Olson
news:aa02ebff-3d95-4832...@v20g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
John Savard
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
;-)
Erik Max Francis
> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
> news:LAyH0...@kithrup.com...
>> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
>> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
>> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
>> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
>> mental cathedrals.
>
> "The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred it
> to the later "Connections" show.
Other way around, actually. _Connections_ was 1978-1979; _The Day the
Universe Changed_ was 1985-1986.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
I will always remember / This moment
-- Sade
Default User
news:9OWdnWPYT5n7NFXR...@giganews.com...
> Default User wrote:
>> "The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred
>> it to the later "Connections" show.
>
> Other way around, actually. _Connections_ was 1978-1979; _The Day the
> Universe Changed_ was 1985-1986.
Ah, I had to look it up. I was unfamiliar with the first series. I thought
Connections2 (1994) was the first one.
Brian
--
Day 630 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project.
Current music playing: None
Erik Max Francis
> "Erik Max Francis" <m...@alcyone.com> wrote in message
> news:9OWdnWPYT5n7NFXR...@giganews.com...
>> Default User wrote:
>
>>> "The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred
>>> it to the later "Connections" show.
>> Other way around, actually. _Connections_ was 1978-1979; _The Day the
>> Universe Changed_ was 1985-1986.
>
> Ah, I had to look it up. I was unfamiliar with the first series. I thought
> Connections2 (1994) was the first one.
That would explain it, then. The later _Connections_ series were not
very good. The first series was excellent, though. It ends with some
quirky politics, but then, so does _Cosmos_.
You can watch the original series (and, indeed, the later ones) on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeWeb#p/c/C9924A8A0F7AF2B6
Dorothy J Heydt
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>Default User wrote:
>> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>> news:LAyH0...@kithrup.com...
>>> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
>>> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>>> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
>>> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
>>> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
>>> mental cathedrals.
>>
>> "The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred it
>> to the later "Connections" show.
>
>Other way around, actually. _Connections_ was 1978-1979; _The Day the
>Universe Changed_ was 1985-1986.
That's what I thought. I have only Connections I on DVD; I think
II and III are now available but at several hundred bucks apiece
from a source that expects you, the buyer, to be a school.
Erik Max Francis
> In article <9OWdnWPYT5n7NFXR...@giganews.com>,
> Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
>> Default User wrote:
>>> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>>> news:LAyH0...@kithrup.com...
>>>> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
>>>> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>>>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>>>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>>>> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
>>>> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
>>>> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
>>>> mental cathedrals.
>>> "The Day the Universe Changed". Once of my favorite series. I preferred it
>>> to the later "Connections" show.
>> Other way around, actually. _Connections_ was 1978-1979; _The Day the
>> Universe Changed_ was 1985-1986.
>
> That's what I thought. I have only Connections I on DVD; I think
> II and III are now available but at several hundred bucks apiece
> from a source that expects you, the buyer, to be a school.
Yes, the DVDs are expensive. You can just watch them for free on
YouTube, though:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeWeb
Erik Max Francis
> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>
> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
> mental cathedrals.
I've seen the shows a zillion times, and I think maybe you're conflating
two things. There's a scene where he's walking through a manor house
from the Middle Ages and showing the various features of the house, and
there's another (unrelated) scene where he's talking about how the
church (at the same time) preserved knowledge but in a strange way, by
only seeing the here-and-now as symbols for the afterlife. Mnemonics
didn't really come up that I can recall.
Default User
> Default User wrote:
>> Ah, I had to look it up. I was unfamiliar with the first series. I
>> thought Connections2 (1994) was the first one.
>
> That would explain it, then. The later _Connections_ series were not very
> good. The first series was excellent, though. It ends with some quirky
> politics, but then, so does _Cosmos_.
>
> You can watch the original series (and, indeed, the later ones) on
> YouTube:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeWeb#p/c/C9924A8A0F7AF2B6
I will investigate that. Thanks.
Default User
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
>> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>>
>> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
>> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
>> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
>> mental cathedrals.
>
> I've seen the shows a zillion times, and I think maybe you're conflating
> two things. There's a scene where he's walking through a manor house from
> the Middle Ages and showing the various features of the house, and there's
> another (unrelated) scene where he's talking about how the church (at the
> same time) preserved knowledge but in a strange way, by only seeing the
> here-and-now as symbols for the afterlife. Mnemonics didn't really come
> up that I can recall.
I agree with Dorothy on this one. He described a mnemonic system where there
is an imaginary house, with rooms that divide up the categories of things to
be remembered, with objects (say a suit of armor with rose or something like
that) to serve as the keys for recalling specific bits of information. In
the show, Burke walks through an actual house to illustrate the imaginary
one.
Erik Max Francis
Hmm. Well, it wasn't the _Connections_ serie or _Day the Universe
Changed_. Could it have been _The Neuron Suite_? The topics fit. (It,
too, is available on YouTube.)
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Tomorrow does not exist. Twenty tomorrows is a long time.
-- Lady Mariko
art...@yahoo.com
> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> Socrates.
>
> - we can't read books anymore
>
> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> addressed)
>
> information grazing over deep attention and rumination.
>
> - our mental processes and culture is being reshaped by the internet,
> in as fundamental a fashion as happened when the printing press
> revolution got well under way. TV and radio did not come close,
> according to him.
>
> I find Carr entertaining and do not fully disagree with him either - I
> do often spend hours on the Net without clear recollection of what I
> got from it at the end.
>
> One of his predictions, perhaps relevant to the writing community, is
> that it illusory to aim to recreate the normal writer-reader dialogue
> using online hypertext, with its wealth of hyperlinks and
> distractions. Even e-Books are held to be tools of the Devil. The
> internet is a "distraction technology" for him.
>
> The biggest shortcoming, to me? He does not acknowledge that so many
> many people now write stuff online. Sure, the smartest are probably
> being dumbed down by informal emails and texting. For the rest of us,
> I imagine that many people who would never have written anything now
> do.
>
> Quite thought-provoking and highly recommended. But the book does
> leave a bit of a Luddite aftertaste.
Does he make a really convincing case? Is all just
correlation=causation? Does he offer alternative explanations?
Or is it just all shallow....
I teach Biology and I find that my students readings skills are not
always great (and I try to work on it). And while the internet may be
a factor, there are plenty of other factors as well....
Dorothy J Heydt
Oooh, is it? Cool. I'll look it up.
What about _The Real Thing_? That one was neat.
Dorothy J Heydt
>> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
>> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that they
>>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>>
>> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
>> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
>> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
>> mental cathedrals.
>
>I've seen the shows a zillion times, and I think maybe you're conflating
>two things. There's a scene where he's walking through a manor house
>from the Middle Ages and showing the various features of the house, and
>there's another (unrelated) scene where he's talking about how the
>church (at the same time) preserved knowledge but in a strange way, by
>only seeing the here-and-now as symbols for the afterlife. Mnemonics
>didn't really come up that I can recall.
No, he's going through a modern house, with unusual things
planted in it here and there, and he's using it to provide
mnemonics for the Seven Liberal Arts. All I remember at this
remote point is a tube in the toilet, to remind you of Music.
Dorothy J Heydt
Yeah, all cut up into bits.
Not to mention that my computer goes through fits of not being
willing to get any *sound* off YouTube, though it's fine with
everything else. Hasn't done it recently. Touch wood.
Brenda Clough
> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> Socrates.
>
> - we can't read books anymore
>
> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> addressed)
He can speak for himself. I find this point erroneous.
Brenda
DouhetSukd
> On Oct 27, 12:25 am, Jared <jared4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Seems like asking whether electricity or running water matter.
>
> The thing is, though, that if companies spent on IT like they do on
> electricity and running water, they would print their business letters
> on laser printers attached to computers running Microsoft Word 2.0 on
> Windows 3.1.
>
> Instead, they're spending much more money on keeping up to date than
> they would need to spend for something that just does the job. They
> hope that having slightly better computers than their competition will
> give them an edge - and maybe it does, but it's a destructive arms
> race that only the IT companies really profit from, yet it's not one
> they have a choice about resigning from.
>
Precisely the point of that book. Companies often spend too much
chasing technological game-changers for themselves. Sometimes it
works (Sabre reservation system being the textbook example), most of
the time it either doesn't change much or and sometimes is an outright
fail.
Second-best is often best and coming in a bit later in a new tech
cycle can be a good thing as well, once the hype has died down and the
early adopters have worked out the kinks. Having too much resources,
besides QA and hardware, can negatively affect a project.
I work with ERP systems and it is a constant rehash of new buzzwords
(real time enterprise, 360 deg customer view, service oriented
architectures, etc...). Only point being to trigger buyer envy.
So, at least on that book, I thought Carr was on the ball.
For "Shallows", I lack expertise to really judge if he's right or
not. I tend to think he's being a bit over-dramatic, but it is a
fascinating and enjoyable read and in some ways the anti-thesis of
Vinge's rather optimistic take in Rainbow's End.
DouhetSukd
> "DouhetSukd" <douhets...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:16e94a74-3ed9-42f7...@e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
> > brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the bad
> > effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued via
> > neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
> > Socrates.
>
> > - we can't read books anymore
>
> > - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which is
> > addressed)
>
> > information grazing over deep attention and rumination.
>
> > - our mental processes and culture is being reshaped by the internet,
> > in as fundamental a fashion as happened when the printing press
> > revolution got well under way. TV and radio did not come close,
> > according to him.
>
> > I find Carr entertaining and do not fully disagree with him either - I
> > do often spend hours on the Net without clear recollection of what I
> > got from it at the end.
>
> > One of his predictions, perhaps relevant to the writing community, is
> > that it illusory to aim to recreate the normal writer-reader dialogue
> > using online hypertext, with its wealth of hyperlinks and
> > distractions. Even e-Books are held to be tools of the Devil. The
> > internet is a "distraction technology" for him.
>
> > The biggest shortcoming, to me? He does not acknowledge that so many
> > many people now write stuff online. Sure, the smartest are probably
> > being dumbed down by informal emails and texting. For the rest of us,
> > I imagine that many people who would never have written anything now
> > do.
>
> > Quite thought-provoking and highly recommended. But the book does
> > leave a bit of a Luddite aftertaste.
>
> > attacking the mirage of attaining business success through IT
> > spending. A book, strangely enough, not at all well received by the
> > IT vendor community but which I found to be not that far off the
> > mark. He's back to tilting at idols here.
>
> It is probably all those closely spaced cuts - jumps that force our
> visual systems to reorient - that are destroying our ability to focus,
> to concentrate. On the internet, the user has a lot more control of
> stuff like that.
That would be the exact opposite of what he claims. TV is too passive
a medium to do much to us.
FWIW, the main area where _I_ do have real problems concentrating is
watching TV. I can barely sit still through a DVD disk, pausing often
to do something else. It doesn't hold my attention much, unless it is
an awesome movie. That's why I cut my cable sub off.
Where I can't fault him is that I can spend hours online with only a
limited knowledge residue (sorry for the term) at the end, unless I
was looking up very specific topics. Reading news, looking up coding
recipes and wikipedia works, in-depth knowledge acquisition usually
does not (for me).
Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
eBook readers)?
Thomas Womack
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>eBook readers)?
I've read a few - mostly Cory Doctorow's, a couple of the Baen Free
Library books, and perhaps a dozen late-19th-century dawn-of-SF
novels. No more than 2% of my book-length reading.
I've only read one or two chunky non-fiction texts online - Veblen's
_Theory of the Leisured Class_ is the one I remember, and it was quite
hard work. I get my maths from physical books, and I haven't learned
much non-trivial maths since getting the PhD a decade ago.
Tom
Joel Olson
news:ia9o69$rep$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
It looks like virtuality is a big headache, for the time being, and we'll
have to be content with the passive 3D.
Worse, the internet is becoming less and less interactive. As USENET dies,
so does the "soapbox for everyone."
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
I don't think it's getting less interactive anymore; Facebook and
Twitter are huge, and they're both driven by input from millions of
individuals.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm serializing novels at http://www.ethshar.com/TheFinalCalling01.html
and http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight1.html
Erik Max Francis
> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
> eBook readers)?
I've been using my Kindle DX to read non-fiction only so far. I'm
enjoying the experience a great deal.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Victory is a very dangerous opportunity.
-- Gen. Andre Beaufre
Erik Max Francis
> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:51:40 -0500, "Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net>
> wrote:
>> Worse, the internet is becoming less and less interactive. As USENET dies,
>> so does the "soapbox for everyone."
>
> I don't think it's getting less interactive anymore; Facebook and
> Twitter are huge, and they're both driven by input from millions of
> individuals.
Not to mention the zillions of Web-based bulletin boards.
David DeLaney
>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>eBook readers)?
Counting a first draft, I have, from LW-E. And am reading another one by him.
And would HAPPILY read the rest of Diane Duane's online one if only she'd
finish WRITING the thing. Oh, and Cat Valente's _The Girl Who Circumnavigated
Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making_.
I'm presuming that by "online" you're not including "in .pdf or textfile form,
stored on your own computer", and that some sort of web browser grabbing it
from elsewhere is needed?
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
David Mitchell
> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
> eBook readers)?
I've just finished something like twenty books from Baen online. The
only gripe I have with the process is that since my laptop battery is
shot I can't take anywhere without mains.
--
=======================================================================
= David --- If you use Microsoft products, you will, inevitably, get
= Mitchell --- viruses, so please don't add me to your address book.
=======================================================================
Carey
> ...The first series was excellent, though. It ends with some
> quirky politics, but then, so does _Cosmos_.
A lot of people like that show, but it left me quite cold.
It could have been profound - revealing important deep connections - but
was instead trivial. Not up to, say, the standard of the "Ascent of Man."
Burke basically just plays the the Kevin Bacon game with technology,
exploiting the genuinely inevitable existence of short connection paths
in any complex system no matter how vast. The paths he finds are
generally not very significant.
Default User
> Default User wrote:
>> I agree with Dorothy on this one. He described a mnemonic system where
>> there is an imaginary house, with rooms that divide up the categories of
>> things to be remembered, with objects (say a suit of armor with rose or
>> something like that) to serve as the keys for recalling specific bits of
>> information. In the show, Burke walks through an actual house to
>> illustrate the imaginary one.
>
> Hmm. Well, it wasn't the _Connections_ serie or _Day the Universe
> Changed_. Could it have been _The Neuron Suite_? The topics fit. (It,
> too, is available on YouTube.)
I'm pretty sure it's the episode of TDTUC that I provided a link for
earlier, in the section on "Memory Theater".
Brian
--
Day 631 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project.
Current music playing: "Emmie" (the late, great, Laura Nyro)
Default User
news:UHdyo.4491$qg3....@newsfe14.iad...
That was my impression of the second series that I saw. However, I didn't
see the first so I can't comment on it.
Brian M. Scott
<douhe...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:534ee670-c64b-4e9f...@k22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science:
[...]
> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels
> online (not on eBook readers)?
I've read a few at Gutenberg and at Baen, Catherynne
Valente's _The Girl Who Circumnavigated
Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making_, and one unpublished
novel posted by someone who'd given up trying to sell it.
If you count PDFs read on the screen, I've read a few more
as a beta reader. It's an insignificant part of my reading,
however.
Brian
Quadibloc
> That was my impression of the second series that I saw. However, I didn't
> see the first so I can't comment on it.
Of course, there was _also_ The Day The Universe Changed.
I saw episodes of the first Connections series, and, yes, the
connections were usually 'trivial' in the sense that they were minor
links between things that amusingly came full circle at the end, but
which in themselves weren't major causal factors that really defined
the sequence of events.
The links were intended to be an amusing hook to pique the interest,
not to defend a theory of history as mystical coincidence.
John Savard
Christopher Henrich
Carey <care...@gmail.com> wrote:
I found his early efforts in this line much more convincing than his
later ones. If memory serves, in the first series the connections were
consequential, and the way that a series of connections came around to
the beginning seemed significant. Later, especially in his _Scientific
American_ columns, the connections were logically tenuous and the final
tie-in had a so-what fell to it.
--
Christopher J. Henrich
chen...@monmouth.com
http://www.mathinteract.com
"A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver." -- Boon
DouhetSukd
>
> Counting a first draft, I have, from LW-E. And am reading another one by him.
> And would HAPPILY read the rest of Diane Duane's online one if only she'd
> finish WRITING the thing. Oh, and Cat Valente's _The Girl Who Circumnavigated
> Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making_.
>
> I'm presuming that by "online" you're not including "in .pdf or textfile form,
> stored on your own computer", and that some sort of web browser grabbing it
> from elsewhere is needed?
Correct. Only interested in reading books within a browser. I have
rarely managed to read any one piece longer than a few pages in one
sitting that way. Too easy to get sidetracked by all the hyperlinks
and browser bookmarks - that is his main contention and I find that to
be largely correct, in my case.
Personally, I can concentrate just fine reading an eBook. Carr claims
that even eBooks are too much distraction, but I don't find that to be
the case with me. I do just fine on my iPad reading PDFs in iBook or
stuff in the Kindle app. He claims Google and Wikipedia lookups have
too much potential for distraction but you have to go out of your way
to use them. And on an iPad at least, leaving the eBook reader to go
to Safari is not all that quick to do.
In either browser or eBook I find reading technical guides easier than
fiction.
Erik Max Francis
> "Carey" <care...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:UHdyo.4491$qg3....@newsfe14.iad...
>> Erik Max Francis wrote:
>>> ...The first series was excellent, though. It ends with some
>>> quirky politics, but then, so does _Cosmos_.
>> A lot of people like that show, but it left me quite cold.
>>
>> It could have been profound - revealing important deep connections - but
>> was instead trivial. Not up to, say, the standard of the "Ascent of Man."
>>
>> Burke basically just plays the the Kevin Bacon game with technology,
>> exploiting the genuinely inevitable existence of short connection paths in
>> any complex system no matter how vast. The paths he finds are generally
>> not very significant.
>
> That was my impression of the second series that I saw. However, I didn't
> see the first so I can't comment on it.
The latter series tend to get more trivial and more repetitive.
_Connections^2_ was foolishly made as a half-hour show, which meant he
had to go through things quickly. _Connections^3_ returned to the
hour-length format, but jumped around so much he needed summaries at
each commercial break to remind the viewer what was going on (and,
presumably, to fill time).
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Love is the true price of love.
-- George Herbert
Erik Max Francis
Yes, _Connections_ (the first one, at least) was intended to end up with
what Burke thought would probably be the most important inventions to
affect our lives in the future (keep in mind it was shown in 1978-1979).
The point was not so much to show the casual links in how things got
made, but to connect them in an interesting way. (Keep in mind that the
viewer is not told what the final invention is each episode until the
end, so he has to get there sneakily.) Yes, some of the connections are
quite tenuous, and there's certainly some post hoc ergo propter hoc
going on, but it's mostly to show how things are connected in ways you
wouldn't normally expect. It was basically a cross-disciplinary
approach (whether that term today makes you smile or cringe is another
question) to something that hadn't really been tried before, at least
for general audiences.
_The Day the Universe Changed_ used a similar format, but its intent was
to show how inventions in the past changed our view of the world, so its
tracking was more historical and causal, although he certainly did his
fair share of stretching there. Both series are worth seeing, although
even within these two series there is a fair amount of repetition. (How
many important inventions can you talk about the history of without
mentioning, say, the steam engine?)
The later two _Connections_ series are more scatterbrained and tenuous
and are rushed through, and are even _more_ repetitive. I'd only
recommend them for huge Burke fans, but then huge Burke fans would
probably have already seen them.
And you can't talk about Burke too far without mentioning this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82GUX_NA7AU
Joel Olson
news:q49ic6t9p4bgacce7...@reader80.eternal-september.org...
>
How far do those messages propagate? On USENET, they're available to
anyone looking for them. On FB and Twitter, they only go to your "friends".
The newsgroups are getting replaced by forums, which are usually censored,
and mailing lists, which are hard to find.
The general trend is for the internet to become more one-way messaging,
with the user on the receiving end.
A side issue:
Consider someone who contributes only information on his web page.
Without links to other pages, Google will never find it.
Tim Little
> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
> eBook readers)?
I've read almost all of the Baen Free Library, and at least a few
dozen other novels.
- Tim
Tim Little
>> I'm presuming that by "online" you're not including "in .pdf or
>> textfile form, stored on your own computer", and that some sort of
>> web browser grabbing it from elsewhere is needed?
>
> Correct. Only interested in reading books within a browser.
Does downloading the pages in bulk with wget and reading the local
copy in a browser count? That has been my usual mode of operation, as
I like to have a local copy of anything that is interesting enough to
spend time reading.
- Tim
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <l...@sff.net> wrote in message
>news:q49ic6t9p4bgacce7...@reader80.eternal-september.org...
>> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:51:40 -0500, "Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Worse, the internet is becoming less and less interactive. As USENET dies,
>>>so does the "soapbox for everyone."
>>
>> I don't think it's getting less interactive anymore; Facebook and
>> Twitter are huge, and they're both driven by input from millions of
>> individuals.
>
>How far do those messages propagate? On USENET, they're available to
>anyone looking for them. On FB and Twitter, they only go to your "friends".
Of whom I have about 900 on Facebook and about 80 more on Twitter, and
I'm not trying. Plenty of people have thousands or even millions of
followers on Twitter. (I don't have numbers for Facebook; the most
friends I've seen is about 8,000, but I haven't been looking.)
By the time you add in retweets and Facebook tags, I'm reaching as
many people as a lot of Usenet groups ever did.
>The newsgroups are getting replaced by forums, which are usually censored,
>and mailing lists, which are hard to find.
>
>The general trend is for the internet to become more one-way messaging,
>with the user on the receiving end.
Ah. You don't do Facebook, I take it.
>A side issue:
>Consider someone who contributes only information on his web page.
>Without links to other pages, Google will never find it.
So?
Christopher Adams
> DouhetSukd wrote:
>
>> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>> eBook readers)?
>
> I've read almost all of the Baen Free Library, and at least a few
> dozen other novels.
I've read two or three full novels and a couple of short stories - most
recently, the original Sherlock Holmes stories.
--
Christopher Adams
Sydney, Australia
http://cataclysmicevents.blogspot.com/
Erik Max Francis
> Tim Little wrote:
>> DouhetSukd wrote:
> >
>>> Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>>> eBook readers)?
>>
>> I've read almost all of the Baen Free Library, and at least a few
>> dozen other novels.
>
> I've read two or three full novels and a couple of short stories - most
> recently, the original Sherlock Holmes stories.
I did read Niven's _Draco Tavern_ collection (the old stories with some
new ones) on my Kindle, but the original poster was asking about novels.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
You are the lovers rock / The rock that I cling to
-- Sade
Derek Lyons
>The general trend is for the internet to become more one-way messaging,
>with the user on the receiving end.
I'm guessing you don't actually use any part of the internet other
than Usenet.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Robert Carnegie
> A side issue:
> Consider someone who contributes only information on his web page.
> Without links to other pages, Google will never find it.
You can control how Google views your web site, at least by, I suppose
in effect, inviting them to collect it for their index. But yes -
Google famously puts first the web page that is a target of a lot of
links from other pages. (People do cheat. Google knows that.) And,
chicken-and-egg, if people, other web site owners, don't know that you
have a fabulous web page, then they aren't going to make links to it.
But if it's the /only/ page, then Google will show it.
Nevertheless, it pays off to advertise in some way.
Robert Carnegie
> On Oct 27, 1:34 pm, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 27, 12:25 am, Jared <jared4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Seems like asking whether electricity or running water matter.
>
> > The thing is, though, that if companies spent on IT like they do on
> > electricity and running water, they would print their business letters
> > on laser printers attached to computers running Microsoft Word 2.0 on
> > Windows 3.1.
>
> > Instead, they're spending much more money on keeping up to date than
> > they would need to spend for something that just does the job. They
> > hope that having slightly better computers than their competition will
> > give them an edge - and maybe it does, but it's a destructive arms
> > race that only the IT companies really profit from, yet it's not one
> > they have a choice about resigning from.
>
> Precisely the point of that book. Companies often spend too much
> chasing technological game-changers for themselves. Sometimes it
> works (Sabre reservation system being the textbook example), most of
> the time it either doesn't change much or and sometimes is an outright
> fail.
Hmm. I think "often" really means "sometimes". Done right, IT is
about your business - but, probably, your business isn't about IT.
Your computers let you serve customers without losing information or
drowning in paper. You NEED the utility services, and business
computing is one of those.
Example: real estate agent; YMMV, but I much prefer picking over house
details online, PDF for instance, to collecting dead trees, or, heaven
forbid, actually visiting a house that you probably don't want to live
in.
> I work with ERP systems and it is a constant rehash of new buzzwords
> (real time enterprise, 360 deg customer view, service oriented
> architectures, etc...). Only point being to trigger buyer envy.
It is, but that's just marketing, everyone does that.
As for everything being online sapping our attention span: who cares?
It's better to have a flexible mind. You don't learn the same subject
in school all day...... do you?
Michael Stemper
>"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <l...@sff.net> wrote in message news:q49ic6t9p4bgacce7...@reader80.eternal-september.org...
>> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:51:40 -0500, "Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>>>Worse, the internet is becoming less and less interactive. As USENET dies,
>>>so does the "soapbox for everyone."
>>
>> I don't think it's getting less interactive anymore; Facebook and
>> Twitter are huge, and they're both driven by input from millions of
>> individuals.
>Consider someone who contributes only information on his web page.
>Without links to other pages, Google will never find it.
I think that you mean "from other pages".
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
This sentence no verb.
Derek Lyons
>Hmm. I think "often" really means "sometimes". Done right, IT is
>about your business - but, probably, your business isn't about IT.
>Your computers let you serve customers without losing information or
>drowning in paper. You NEED the utility services, and business
>computing is one of those.
The trick is to not starve it because IT is a cost center, nor to pour
money into it blindly in hopes of an IT miracle. Fame and fortune
awaits the person that can reduce that to an easily implementable
methodology.
>Example: real estate agent; YMMV, but I much prefer picking over house
>details online, PDF for instance, to collecting dead trees, or, heaven
>forbid, actually visiting a house that you probably don't want to live
>in.
But eventually, you *do* have to physically visit the property.
Researching online, we rejected the house we currently live in
multiple times. Our agent, knowing that we wanted to live in this
neighborhood but not knowing we'd rejected it, set us up an
appointment to walk through it. (One of several that day, so we
didn't catch it when she showed us the list.) It was the first house
we visited, and turned out to be the only - we made an offer within
hours.
Don M
> "Jens Egon Nyborg" <j...@invalid.invalid> wrote in messagenews:ia9o69$rep$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>
>
> > Joel Olson skrev:
>
> >> Imo, the internet is much less debilitating than tv.
> >> It is probably all those closely spaced cuts - jumps that force our
> >> visual systems to reorient - that are destroying our ability to focus,
> >> to concentrate. On the internet, the user has a lot more control of
> >> stuff like that.
>
> > As I recall, in the 70'ies when I was a child European statistics showed
> > that children's intelligence correlated positively with the number of
> > hours they watched tv.
>
> > At the same time American statistics showed the reverse correlation.
>
> > Since then European tv has become much more like American tv (IMO), and
> > now European children too, turn out to be dumber the more tv they watch.
>
> > One might even suppose that it matters what you see in tv/browse on the
> > net/read about in your book?
>
> > And to get back on topic: How much better (or worse?) could we do in the
> > future?
>
> It looks like virtuality is a big headache, for the time being, and we'll
> have to be content with the passive 3D.
>
> so does the "soapbox for everyone."
Not dying, it's reverting to a useful level of obscurity.
Aleksandar Kuktin
> Joel Olson skrev:
>>
>> Imo, the internet is much less debilitating than tv. It is probably all
>> those closely spaced cuts - jumps that force our visual systems to
>> reorient - that are destroying our ability to focus, to concentrate. On
>> the internet, the user has a lot more control of stuff like that.
>
> As I recall, in the 70'ies when I was a child European statistics showed
> that children's intelligence correlated positively with the number of
> hours they watched tv.
>
> At the same time American statistics showed the reverse correlation.
>
> Since then European tv has become much more like American tv (IMO), and
> now European children too, turn out to be dumber the more tv they watch.
>
> One might even suppose that it matters what you see in tv/browse on the
> net/read about in your book?
Recently, I was reading an assortment of texts on Wired with this
thematics. While a snobby Internet magazine is not the best resource for
scientific data, one thing floated to the top.
What matters is the format of what you see in the browser.
My conclusion from the whole thing is the following list.
What is bad:
- hyperlinks inside the text
- many hyperlinks
- hyperlinks leading to unpredictable location containing unpredictable
content (every link to a different site)
- attention distracters: ads _within_ text, flashy adds all around
What is good:
- hyperlinks separate from text (in the footer)
- as little hyperlinks as possible
- hyperlinks leading to consistent targets (parts of the same site)
- no attention distracters
The reason for this is probably in context switching. Every time a
hyperlink or an ad comes up under the eyes, the brain has to think about
it and this interferes with it's main body of work.
But I am not terribly concerned with humanity's fate regarding this. On
one hand, you actually WANT to be as stupid as possible because you can
get by with less brainmass, which means less food. On the other hand,
biological systems are phenomenally good at exploiting any and all quirks
in their environment for their own good.
It is my belief that ultimately humans will just find a way to
efficiently integrate computers and IT into their metaorganism, in the
same way agriculture and other technology got successfully integrated.
Joel Olson
> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:23:07 -0500, "Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
>>"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <l...@sff.net> wrote in message
>>news:q49ic6t9p4bgacce7...@reader80.eternal-september.org...
>>> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:51:40 -0500, "Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Worse, the internet is becoming less and less interactive. As USENET
>>>>dies,
>>>>so does the "soapbox for everyone."
>>>
>>> I don't think it's getting less interactive anymore; Facebook and
>>> Twitter are huge, and they're both driven by input from millions of
>>> individuals.
>>
>>How far do those messages propagate? On USENET, they're available to
>>anyone looking for them. On FB and Twitter, they only go to your
>>"friends".
>
> Of whom I have about 900 on Facebook and about 80 more on Twitter, and
> I'm not trying. Plenty of people have thousands or even millions of
> followers on Twitter. (I don't have numbers for Facebook; the most
> friends I've seen is about 8,000, but I haven't been looking.)
>
> By the time you add in retweets and Facebook tags, I'm reaching as
> many people as a lot of Usenet groups ever did.
>
Saw some time back that the FB limit on friends was 5000. I don't do
twitter. Both have a different focus, a-topical in contrast to the News
Groups, forums and mailing lists.
But even with both capable of reaching thousands of people (who, of
course are all well-known to you), that is nowhere near the potential,
nor the retention, of USENET. To say nothing to the information content.
W. Citoan
Wrong on all three counts: Neither is limited to thousands (Facebook
has the ability to do public posts as well as just friends). Retention
is far longer than the typical Usenet server. Usenet signal to noise
content is terrible and no better than either of the other two. The
other two have a white list approach (you only listen to who you want)
which can actually make the signal to noise ratio much better.
- W. Citoan
--
Borrow money from Pessimists -- They don't expect it back.
-- Anonymous
Joel Olson
news:slrnicorf8....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org...
>
Thousands that you or I can reach. How does one do "public" posts?
I grant that the owners can spam everyone at will. And that they have
(potentially) a complete history of the site. For me, I give up on accessing
anything farther back than 3 pages - they just take too long to load, and
then you only get a half-page.
is "only listen to what you want" equivalent to "only access what you
already know"?
Robert Carnegie
hyertext. You see that text is linked, you know it means "more about
this, possibly including what these unfamiliar words even mean."
You can open it in another window for later, or ignore it.
Aleksandar Kuktin
Stands perfectly sound, that /is/ the whole point.
I'm just conveying my take-away. Seems hyperlinks deconcentrate.
???
Derek Lyons
>Not dying, it's reverting to a useful level of obscurity.
If you define 'useful' as 'dead', sure. Otherwise, no.
W. Citoan
>
> Thousands that you or I can reach. How does one do "public" posts? I
> grant that the owners can spam everyone at will. And that they have
> (potentially) a complete history of the site. For me, I give up on
> accessing anything farther back than 3 pages - they just take too
> long to load, and then you only get a half-page.
>
> is "only listen to what you want" equivalent to "only access what you
> already know"?
If you are truly interested, there are plenty of help pages out there.
If you don't like the format of or simply don't want to use Facebook,
Twitter, etc., that's fine - they are not for everybody the same way
Usenet is not. But claiming they cannot do something because you don't
kow how to do it is silly.
- W. Citoan
--
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the
candle will not be shortened. Happiness is never decreased by being shared.
-- Buddha
Brian M. Scott
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:slrnicqn1k....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science:
> Joel Olson wrote:
>> Thousands that you or I can reach. How does one do
>> "public" posts? I grant that the owners can spam
>> everyone at will. And that they have (potentially) a
>> complete history of the site. For me, I give up on
>> accessing anything farther back than 3 pages - they just
>> take too long to load, and then you only get a
>> half-page.
>> is "only listen to what you want" equivalent to "only
>> access what you already know"?
> If you are truly interested, there are plenty of help
> pages out there. If you don't like the format of or
> simply don't want to use Facebook, Twitter, etc., that's
> fine - they are not for everybody the same way Usenet is
> not. But claiming they cannot do something because you
> don't kow how to do it is silly.
They cannot be what Usenet was and to some extent still is.
And with (I presume) the exception of Twitter, which is of
no interest to me at all, they are painfully unwieldy unless
one has high-speed access to the internet.
Brian
W. Citoan
And so? If they don't fit your needs, that's fine. But the fact that
they don't fit your needs is irrelevant to the prior (now clipped out)
incorrect factual claims.
Brian M. Scott
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:slrnicr9r4....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> Joel Olson wrote:
> And so?
And so it is every bit as silly to pretend that they
adequatly fill the Usenet niche as it is to exaggerate their
limitations out of ignorance.
> If they don't fit your needs, that's fine. [...]
I said nothing about my *needs*.
Brian
W. Citoan
>
> And so it is every bit as silly to pretend that they adequatly fill
> the Usenet niche as it is to exaggerate their limitations out of
> ignorance.
When you find the person that pretended that, you should tell them that.
Brian M. Scott
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:slrnicrcbl....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> And so it is every bit as silly to pretend that they
>> adequat[e]ly fill the Usenet niche as it is to
>> exaggerate their limitations out of ignorance.
> When you find the person that pretended that, you should
> tell them that.
Since you show no signs of realizing that you failed to
answer Joel's real objection, I rather think that I just
did.
W. Citoan
Since you show no signs of realizing that I wasn't addressing Joel's
"real objection", I rather think you didn't.
Joel Olson
news:slrnicrqa2....@wcitoan-via.eternal-september.org...
>
You couldn't find a more appropriate (in the sense of whatever your point
was) poster to insult?
W. Citoan
> "W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >> On Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:12:08 +0000 (UTC), "W. Citoan"
> >>
> >>
> >> >> And so it is every bit as silly to pretend that they
> >> >> adequat[e]ly fill the Usenet niche as it is to exaggerate their
> >> >> limitations out of ignorance.
> >>
> >> > When you find the person that pretended that, you should tell
> >> > them that.
> >>
> >> Since you show no signs of realizing that you failed to answer
> >> Joel's real objection, I rather think that I just did.
> >
> > Since you show no signs of realizing that I wasn't addressing Joel's
> > "real objection", I rather think you didn't.
>
> point was) poster to insult?
As I have not insulted anyone, no, I couldn't. I'm not even sure if you
are claiming I insulted you or Brian, but neither would be valid based
on an actual reading of what I wrote.
- W. Citoan
--
It is a bad plan that admits no modification.
-- Publiluis Syrus
Autymn D. C.
> What is bad:
> - hyperlinks inside the text
> - many hyperlinks
Wikipedia? newsfeeds?
> - hyperlinks leading to unpredictable location containing unpredictable
> content (every link to a different site)
portals?
> What is good:
> - hyperlinks separate from text (in the footer)
sundert
> - as little hyperlinks as possible
few
> - hyperlinks leading to consistent targets (parts of the same site)
> - no attention distracters
>
> The reason for this is probably in context switching. Every time a
> hyperlink or an ad comes up under the eyes, the brain has to think about
> it and this interferes with it's main body of work.
its
Erik Max Francis
> On Oct 30, 5:06 am, Aleksandar Kuktin <akuk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> - as little hyperlinks as possible
>
> few
Holy crap, that correction actually corresponded to real,
honest-to-goodness English. PLEASE HELP ME BECAUSE THE SURPRISE AND
SHOCK OF AUTYMN GETTING SOMETHING RIGHT IS GIVING ME A HEART ATTACK.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis
Far away, hidden from the eyes of daylight, there are watchers in the
skies. -- Euripides, ca. 406 BC
Michael A. Terrell
Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> Autymn D. C. wrote:
> ? On Oct 30, 5:06 am, Aleksandar Kuktin ?akuk...@gmail.com? wrote:
> ?? - as little hyperlinks as possible
> ?
> ? few
>
> Holy crap, that correction actually corresponded to real,
> honest-to-goodness English. PLEASE HELP ME BECAUSE THE SURPRISE AND
> SHOCK OF AUTYMN GETTING SOMETHING RIGHT IS GIVING ME A HEART ATTACK.
Blind pig syndrome. It happens, but rarely.
--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.
CleV
> In article <gu2dnaqJxNWqiVXR...@supernews.com>,
> Joel Olson <joel....@cox.net> wrote:
>> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
>> news:LAxr2...@kithrup.com...
>>> In article <MPG.273153eb6...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
>>> Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:
>>>> In article <16e94a74-3ed9-42f7-a0ce-d125165f6eb4
>>>> @e14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, douhe...@gmail.com says...
>>>>> Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows - what the Internet is doing to our
>>>>> brains" is an elegantly argued, entertaining examination of the
> > > > > bad
>>>>> effects the internet has on our attention span. This is argued
> > > > > via
>>>>> neurological research, exploring our cultural history and quoting
>>>>> Socrates.
>>>>>
>>>>> - we can't read books anymore
>>>>>
>>>>> - we can't write books either (bit of a contradiction there, which
> > > > > is
>>>>> addressed)
>>>>>
>>>> etc.
>>>>
>>>> And if it's not a UL (after awhile EVERYTHING looks like a UL),
> > > > there
>>>> was a day when people worried that all that newfangled writing
> > > > stuff
>>>> down would be the Ruination of Memory...
>>>
>>> And they were right! We don't have *nearly* the recall that our
>>> preliterate ancestors did.
>>>
>>
>> Its almost in the category of lost techniques. Read somewhere that
> > they
>> used to associate the memorable item with an image.
>
> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole
> mental cathedrals.
To bring it back on topic, the technique features heavily in John
Crowley's Aegypt.
William December Starr
CleV <cl...@balJUNKcab.ch> said:
It or something very like it gets a passing mention in Ken MacLeod's
THE STAR FRACTION, when some character uses it to put together the
digits of the phone number (or whatever) of the Super-Sekrit
Gathering of People Of Considerable Influence online clubhouse,
because the number is so super-sekrit that she doesn't dare keep it
in her head fully assembled because, um.
-- wds
DouhetSukd
> In article <651858094310582364.072256clv1-balJUNKcab...@news.swissonline.ch>,
> CleV <c...@balJUNKcab.ch> said:
>
> > Dorothy J Heydt <djhe...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
> >> Yes; in one of James Burke's TV series he walks through a house,
> >> showing how you can link mnemonics with the features in the
> >> interior. In the Middle Ages, they would generate whole mental
> >> cathedrals.
>
> > To bring it back on topic, the technique features heavily in John
> > Crowley's Aegypt.
>
> It or something very like it gets a passing mention in Ken MacLeod's
> THE STAR FRACTION, when some character uses it to put together the
> digits of the phone number (or whatever) of the Super-Sekrit
> Gathering of People Of Considerable Influence online clubhouse,
> because the number is so super-sekrit that she doesn't dare keep it
> in her head fully assembled because, um.
>
> -- wds
If y'all want to read some really, _really_, bad SF, you can always
try Hendrix's Labyrinth Key, which has all sorts of memory palaces.
Greg Goss
>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>eBook readers)?
I have.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Wayne Throop
:: eBook readers)?
: I have.
Not I. I downloaded from Gutenberg and read the plain text form from
local disk, rather than online. Though... I may have done that with the
html form... does using a web browser to look at a wget-ed (wgotten?) copy
of a web page count as "reading online"?
For that matter, does reading a .doc file via embedded word processor
in your web browser by clicking on a ".doc" url count as reading online?
I mean... behind your back, it downloads the entire thing. And then...
y'know, even if you just browse a big html file, it downloads the
whole thing, and even if you lose your net connection at that point
you can bilthly go on reading, so...
what was the question again? Hm. What counts as "reading onlne" anyways?
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dorothy J Heydt
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>>eBook readers)?
>
>I have.
I got about halfway through _The Remembrance of Things Past_ on
Gutenberg.
They told me (after the fact) that there are ways of marking
bookmarks on a Gutenberg text, but I didn't know that at the
time, and since M. Proust wrote his magnum opus in four huge
gigantic sections with no chapter breaks, I had to leave my
computer up and running for a week in order not to lose my place.
That got me as far as a dozen pages or so into section 3, after
which I got so disgusted with M. Swann acting like a damned idiot
that I turned it off.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.
Greg Goss
>Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>>>eBook readers)?
>>
>>I have.
>
>I got about halfway through _The Remembrance of Things Past_ on
>Gutenberg.
>
>They told me (after the fact) that there are ways of marking
>bookmarks on a Gutenberg text, but I didn't know that at the
>time, and since M. Proust wrote his magnum opus in four huge
>gigantic sections with no chapter breaks, I had to leave my
>computer up and running for a week in order not to lose my place.
I've read just about everything of H Beam Piper's that's on Gutenberg,
re-read the Blyton Adventure books (to bring back that age-7
experience), and several of the Baen books (Fallen Angels, 1526 and
several of its sequels (both titles approximate))
Greg Goss
>were always stored on local disk, not really "read online". Even more
>recently, I've read quite a few books on my phone, which is definitely
>"online" unless you go by an extremely strict definition.
I tried reading a book on my ipod nano, but the tiny screen didn't
work out for me. I got about a chapter and a half into "The Invisible
Man" from Gutenberg.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>Paul Arthur <flower...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>were always stored on local disk, not really "read online". Even more
>>recently, I've read quite a few books on my phone, which is definitely
>>"online" unless you go by an extremely strict definition.
>
>I tried reading a book on my ipod nano, but the tiny screen didn't
>work out for me. I got about a chapter and a half into "The Invisible
>Man" from Gutenberg.
Just couldn't see it, huh?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
DouhetSukd
> On 2010-11-09, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
> > DouhetSukd <douhets...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
> >>eBook readers)?
>
> > I have.
>
"online" may not be the choice of terms from my end
Basically, how much long-form material have you read in a browser?
I.e. not asking about 3-4 pages. Not asking about reading text in a
text editor or a pdf viewer, or an ebook viewer.
Interest rating:
[most interested] a standard browser on a PC.
[interested] If you are reading the book in the iPhone's browser, then
yes, that's what's I am interested in, because you can always run off
somewhere else quickly to read up on something related to the subject
at hand.
[interested] If you are in a non-hyperlinked text editor/viewer on say
a PC, then it is trivial to swap programs to use your browser.
[not so interested] If you are reading in an application/system that
makes it hard to take a quick sidetrip elsewhere.
[not so interested] ebook viewer on iPhone or iPad: sure you can
leave your ebook and launch your browser to look something up. But
it's a hassle, because only one application is visible at a time and
there is a stiff cost in user manipulations to switch around.
***********
Basically, I am wondering about the point Carr is making that some
people find it hard to read some electronic media.
I've added both "some"s above - Carr was much less equivocal about the
dangers of distraction. His certainty is actually the biggest
complaint I have about his book.
From what you are all saying, most of you are reading electronic media
fairly easily. Barring kludgy things like missing bookmarks in
Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu", a book I would most
certainly not attempt in any media ;-) Again, a valid refutation of
Carr's main point.
As a side note, I've read several of Mark Pilgrim's online computer
books which are browser-based, and he has a knack for laying pages out
in a way that both uses a browser's capabilities and also avoids
distracting the user with too much clutter and hyperlinks.
Wayne Throop
: Interest rating:
:
: [most interested] a standard browser on a PC.
:
: [interested] If you are reading the book in the iPhone's browser, then
: yes, that's what's I am interested in, because you can always run off
: somewhere else quickly to read up on something related to the subject
: at hand.
:
: [interested] If you are in a non-hyperlinked text editor/viewer on say
: a PC, then it is trivial to swap programs to use your browser.
:
: [not so interested] If you are reading in an application/system that
: makes it hard to take a quick sidetrip elsewhere.
:
: [not so interested] ebook viewer on iPhone or iPad: sure you can
: leave your ebook and launch your browser to look something up. But
: it's a hassle, because only one application is visible at a time and
: there is a stiff cost in user manipulations to switch around.
But then, everything I do on the computer is trival to go sideways from.
Even reading kindle-format text from amazon, I can simply front the browser
window (or even better, simply move my cursor to the other screen on my
desktop machine), badabing, badabang, google (or whatnot).
So yes, I've read long-form things in such way that I can easily make
side-trips to look things up via google or whatnot. In fact I'd have to
go to some lengths to make it difficult if I wanted *not* to be able to,
via desktop or netbook alike. And I don't really have anything less
capable than my netbook, other than my combination alarm clock,
pocketwatch, 4function calculator, cheap camera, and voice messager,
upon which I definitely don't read substantial texts.
Of course it's fairly annoying that the kindle PC app won't let me
select text to paste into google if I want, but oh well. Indeed, it
won't even let me enter notes... but it does allow bookmarks.
That may be because I need to run a fairly elderly version, since
more recent versions won't run under linux wine. But I digress.
Hm... Does it count that (I have heard) Kindle hardware comes
with a built-in web browser? Should be easy to flip between
browser and ebook on a hardware kindle, is it not so?
Mike Schilling
>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>eBook readers)?
Not I. I've read almost all of the early Wodehouse that Gutenberg contains,
but always by printing it out and reading the paper copies.
Wayne Throop
: I've read almost all of the early Wodehouse that Gutenberg contains,
: but always by printing it out and reading the paper copies.
Interesting. NAICT you've hit on a way to combine electronic
and print forms in such a way as to have each negate most advantages
of the other. YM obviously MV.
Joyce Haslam
> Basically, how much long-form material have you read in a browser? I.e.
> not asking about 3-4 pages. Not asking about reading text in a text
> editor or a pdf viewer, or an ebook viewer.
I've read all of Lee&Miller (Liaden Universe, etc), Bujold's Cryoburn,
LWE's _Realms of Light_ and most of _The Final Calling_, and Sea Wasp's
_Digital Knight_, as well as shorter pieces, in Firefox on my laptop.
I do find reading in a browser very different from reading print, and I
persevere only if I like the book and it isn't available in paperback at
a price I can afford. Reading html is much easier for me than reading pdf.
Joyce.
Greg Goss
>> On 2010-11-09, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>> > DouhetSukd <douhets...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>Curious, how many of you have read full length novels online (not on
>> >>eBook readers)?
>>
>> > I have.
>Basically, how much long-form material have you read in a browser?
>I.e. not asking about 3-4 pages. Not asking about reading text in a
>text editor or a pdf viewer, or an ebook viewer.
>
>Interest rating:
>
>[most interested] a standard browser on a PC.
>
>[interested] If you are in a non-hyperlinked text editor/viewer on say
>a PC, then it is trivial to swap programs to use your browser.
>
>[not so interested] If you are reading in an application/system that
>makes it hard to take a quick sidetrip elsewhere.
I mentioned reading a few Baen Books and some kids books. The kids
books (Blyton Adventure)were downloaded and read a few years back.
Those were copied into Word and read. I don't remember why --
presumably something about the Gutenberg layout bugged me.
More recently I've read several Baen Books entirely in the browser. I
leave the browser open in the background for the day or two it takes
me to finish a lightweight novel. I no longer read "heavy" novels.