Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen.

I've gotta say, this one is still spot-on when it comes to certain online forums.

He nails a few other criticisms, such as electronic books not catching on as long as people have to read them on a glowing electronic screen, but that's not really such an issue anymore...

Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure

Yeah, the rest of the article's pretty much like this.

Juansmith: He nails a few other criticisms, such as electronic books not catching on as long as people have to read them on a glowing electronic screen

I just got back from an Amazon spree where they're pimping the Kindle up, down and sideways. Is this finally going to be what helps e-books take off? Haven't paid attention much to peoples' reactions on it.

Funny article, though. Like the Decca Records guy who rejected the Beatles, saying "guitar music is on the way out."

The best part isn't that he's wrong, it's that he's so smug about it.

Bah. Who would be a part of an online community? I mean. what kind of loser would want to spend time online talking to other losers online.

And anyone who would send money over the internet needs their head examined.

and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connections, try again later."

Yeah, that still happens. It's called 'Farked'.

/I wonder if this guy still has his job.
//Here's his book.

Clifford Stoll is a minor figure in the wild and wooly days of the internet. He was touting his then new book Silicon Snake Oil which ended up predicting everything wrong. Nonetheless, his chronicle about catching a hacker, The Cuckoo's Egg was an enjoyable read in 1990. He was a smart guy, but a poor prognosticator.

Juansmith: I've gotta say, this one is still spot-on when it comes to certain online forums fark.

FTFY.

In the late 80's, I subscribed to Prodigy for one whole month.

Based on that experience, I could have written this article ;)

Juansmith: Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen.


It's just internet snobbery. Now those same people are saying the same thing about Wikipedia.

Peaceboy: I just got back from an Amazon spree where they're pimping the Kindle up, down and sideways. Is this finally going to be what helps e-books take off? Haven't paid attention much to peoples' reactions on it.

Not until it hits a sub $200 price point. But I've been waiting for the sony reader to do that for years.

When the kindle was first announced, I kinda hoped it would drive the price of the sony reader down. BUT, the kindle is $100 more than the reader.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/11/amazon-kindle-v.html

/I hate to say it, but the kindle is friggin ugly compared to the sony reader.

...and 640k is more memory than anyone will ever need.

He just never imagined they could make the tubes that small.

What is this enlightened gentleman's fark handle I wonder?

/Ronald Regan....the ACTOR?
//somehow that first slashy isn't as funny as I thought it might be, but if you twist your logic, somehow this reference might make a little bit of sense...
///been drinkin...

From the comments:

"
Posted By: mstrom42 @ 03/23/2008 4:32:13 AM

Comment: Interesting article, but I would disagree on a lot of points. For example much of my shopping is done on Ebay, especially for games and collectibles I can't get locally. My social life is online, every night I hop online after work to chat with friends all over the continent. I even went to visit one very good friend and had a delightful time. Furthermore, much of my news is gathered through the blogsphere, and.or yahoo news."

I really hope he's being ironic. Otherwise: hahahahahaha.

from TFA "And you can't tote that laptop to the beach."

that just made me giggle so much

1995?

ErikShocker: /Ronald Regan....the ACTOR?

I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down.

Little did he know, the porn got better and better.

He and Andrew "Linux is obsolete" Tanenbaum really should hook up.

He actually had a lot of good points, but relied on one fatally flawed set of assumptions to reach his conclusions.

His key mistake was that he believed that people wanted accurate information and rational, informed discussion, which on most of the internet was not available. As we see daily on FARK, this is most emphatically not the case.

I remember when my friend bought an imac back in 99/00 and it came with a 10gb HD. At the time I had a powermac with a 1gb HD and I couldn't fathom how anyone could possibly fill up a 10gb hd. Now I have a 750gb external hard drive. Oh how the times change.

Kuta: Clifford Stoll is a minor figure in the wild and wooly days of the internet. He was touting his then new book Silicon Snake Oil which ended up predicting everything wrong. Nonetheless, his chronicle about catching a hacker, The Cuckoo's Egg was an enjoyable read in 1990. He was a smart guy, but a poor prognosticator.

And last time I looked, he was selling Klein bottles (pops) on the Internet. Not sure if he does it for a living (he's a mathematician by training if I recall right) or just a nerdy hobby, really, but it's a little ironic.

/I want one.
//Preferably suitable for pouring scotch.

FTF(dated)A: I'll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

You bet a lot of things, man. You need to stop.

Flouride in the water has reduced my attention span to that of a retarded goldfish and I have difficulty remembering five minutes ago. Remember great teachers...? Dude, I don't even remember what I had for lunch.

Peaceboy: I just got back from an Amazon spree where they're pimping the Kindle up, down and sideways. Is this finally going to be what helps e-books take off? Haven't paid attention much to peoples' reactions on it.

I read an article recently somewhere where they went around and surveyed bibliophiles. The jist of it was "Yeah...it's nice, I guess. I'll stick with books though." It might be a step in the right direction, but it won't succeed itself.

Overall, the articles correct as often as it is wrong. He sees through the stupid hype that was everywhere back then, but fails to account for advancement in technology.

Quad-core processors, Terabytes and Myspace.com, OH MY!

Hey look, I can make false predictions too! 8-tracks will never become obsolete, robots will never be made into sex machines and Anna Nicole Smith will become the nation's first woman president....

How'm I doing?

Wow. A real prehistoric Internet troll carefully preserved... get the brushes, boys!

Buufoo: I remember when my friend bought an imac back in 99/00 and it came with a 10gb HD. At the time I had a powermac with a 1gb HD and I couldn't fathom how anyone could possibly fill up a 10gb hd. Now I have a 750gb external hard drive. Oh how the times change.

Heck ... in 1991, my college room-mate had an Amiga 500 with an external 5mb HD (which was an add-on; the Amiga had no internal HD option).

I, of course, lorded it over him a year or so later, when I bought an Amiga 1200 with an internal 20mb HD ... ("ha-ha!" I can store 4 copies of all the data on your hard drive!)

/not to mention the 16mb RAM chip I later bought ... for $800 (bringing my total system memory to 20mb) >_//and all this was before I'd ever even heard of the internet

Seeing as the internet is based on all of human knowledge, I'd say yes it is totally useless.

CommandantVonThrash: Peaceboy: I just got back from an Amazon spree where they're pimping the Kindle up, down and sideways. Is this finally going to be what helps e-books take off? Haven't paid attention much to peoples' reactions on it.

I read an article recently somewhere where they went around and surveyed bibliophiles. The jist of it was "Yeah...it's nice, I guess. I'll stick with books though." It might be a step in the right direction, but it won't succeed itself.

I don't think ebooks will get much of anywhere until it can duplicate the heft and feel of a book, at least for the next generation or two. I'm about as techy and gadgety as they come, and even I hate trying to read a book scrolling around on a computer screen. Even on my tablet with pagey buttons and such, it just didn't work. I don't even get nostalgic about the feel and smell of paper, but it just wasn't comfortable holding it up for long periods of time.

The DRM is also pretty killer. If we're going to assume one reader with lots of books on it, there's no way for me to lend a book to a friend without lending the whole reader. I can't count the number of times I lent a book in a series to a friend which caused them to go out and buy the whole thing. It's only costing the book sellers sales.

Is that from the Bill Gates book in the late 1990's where the internet is mentioned like 4 times, in passing?

Scoth: I don't think ebooks will get much of anywhere until it can duplicate the heft and feel of a book, at least for the next generation or two.

Pretty much, everyone's primary complaints were the difference in feel, and not having any pages to turn. Innovations that are replacing traditional ways of doing things always have a harder time getting a foothold than completely new things. It'll have to wait until e-readers become commonplace, and then a generation grows up with no fond memories of books.

/Can't WAIT for the sob storm over that one.

Confident articles about "future" (present) technologies are some of my favorite things to read.

By God he's right. Why should I be wasting all my time on the interweb when I can go out in public and be ignored and laughed at?

Douchebag?????



or not?

Scoth: I don't think ebooks will get much of anywhere until it can duplicate the heft and feel of a book, at least for the next generation or two.

I don't think it's the "heft and feel" of a book that's an issue. I think it's simply the disparity between the strain on the eye from looking at print on paper, and the strain from looking at a glowing screen. I don't care what form "e-books" come in--if there's a light shining into your eyes from the "page," it will be very, very tiring.

Hopefully, things like electronic paper will one day make that a bit more tolerable:

CommandantVonThrash: Pretty much, everyone's primary complaints were the difference in feel, and not having any pages to turn.

One review I read mentioned that some of the buttons were in some bad places, places where you would normally hold the thing,I think one of them was a "page turn" button.

I haven't seen one in person but I hear the display is just about the same as the Sony, didn't particularly care for the look of the text, not enough contrast(yes I played with the settings). But it may have been the harsh florescent lighting...

Just looked, the Kindle is still sold out, or once again sold out...

I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.

Juansmith: Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen.

I've gotta say, this one is still spot-on when it comes to certain online forums.

No it isn't. Nobody actually reads Usenet anymore. It's been taken over by,movies, warez, and MP3s. The rest of Usenet has been taken over by pedos. If Usenet were taken into account in the Flying Spaghetti Monster global warming data, global warming would have ended and we'd all be wearling parkas. Arrrrr. Arrrrr.

Paging Ted Stevens, White courtesy telephone

What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact.

Eaxactly! That's my favorite part of internet shopping. I hate people, especially salespeople!

Anyone have the column by John Dvorak(I think) about how ISDN was the way of the future and dsl/cable wouldn't last?

Wow...

Lot of things wrong in that article... but one bit he got right was about unedited information on the net...

You would be amazed at how many times I have someone come onto one of the tech sites that I admin and proclaim person "X" said it was so...

Then have to waste dozens of messages ( and associated time ) showing them their 'expert' was nothing more than the loudest / most obnoxious... and folks just got tired of proving them wrong...

Btw - any teachers out there ? I hear the same thing from people I know from the primary to university levels... i.e. copy and past from internet 'articles' without checking the facts themselves...


Michael

kevinatilusa: He actually had a lot of good points, but relied on one fatally flawed set of assumptions to reach his conclusions.

His key mistake was that he believed that people wanted accurate information and rational, informed discussion, which on most of the internet was not available. As we see daily on FARK, this is most emphatically not the case.

Yeah, and the newspapers pre-internet were nothing less than 100% accurate. =)

Also:

Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet--which there isn't--the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

LOL

FTA: Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities.

I can't tell you how many great friends I was making in online Forums 12-15 years before this was written. It wasn't techno-burble, it was real friendships with great people. The evolution from individual dial-up BBSs and the CompuServe forums (in beautiful 2-color ASCII!) to the internet platform seemed like a very natural progression to me.

I remember complaining on usenet about usenet in the early 90s when the WWW was just getting started, not so much about signal-to-noise as discussion retention and longevity, which at that time was pretty much up to you, you either archived it yourself or it passed out of institutional memory. I said that the WWW would end up being superior because anyone would be able to build an online community instead of having to deal with the usenet mess. I was roundly criticized for this, mostly on the basis that one web site would never be able to handle the traffic of the discussion of tens of thousands of people, nor store it indefinitely.

ChicoEscuela: Little did he know, the porn got better and better.

And worse and worse...one cannot unsee what one has seen :(