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Washington Post, 12/26
Those who would resist the coming of our corporate digital-overlords mutter impotently ?: [^].
Astra Taylor’s iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade.
...
Last month, Taylor and more than 1,000 activists, scholars and techies gathered at the New School in New York City for a conference to talk about reinventing the Internet. They dream of a co-op model: people dealing directly with one another without having to go through a data-sucking corporate hub.
"The powerful definitely do not want us to reboot things, and they will go to great lengths to stop us, and they will use brute force or they will use bureaucracy," Taylor warned the conferees at the close of the two-day session.
We need a movement, she said, "that says no to the existing order."
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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I envision a world wherein neighbor's wireless home networks all talk to each other to form one large (free)network without need for a "backbone" and "Service Providers" and nosey regulation.
Such will, of course, be more effective in large well-populated areas (unlike islands of population, e.g. Phoenix).
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Then I will need trees to be able to grow wifi to enjoy my daily dose of internet.
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NY Times, Dec. 26 ... Is intimacy an endangered species ? [^].
"If you’re not up to the dirty deed yourself, the Breakup Shop will do it for you. The site, whose slogan is "Let us help you end it," uses email, snail mail, text or Snapchat, at prices from $5 to $80, for customized naughty or nice options. (In the nice category is an hasta la vista gift pack that includes chocolate-chip cookies and "The Notebook" on Blu-ray. In the naughty is a "mean photo attachment" of you with your new loved one.)
It’s always been possible to "unfriend" someone on Facebook, but the company’s new "breakup flow" allows you to limit your connection with an ex: untagging photos, burying past posts and editing any mention on your news feed.
"It’s like unfriending lite," said Kelly Winters, a project manager on the company’s compassion team. (Yes, Facebook has a compassion team, whose bailiwick entails "easing life’s difficult moments," such as designating a "legacy contact" to handle your account when you’re dead.)"
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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If you aren't mature enough to break up in person, you aren't mature enough to have a relationship, in the first place!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Well, Daniel, another perspective might be: you only get "mature" by being forced to face the tragic consequences of your immature acts.
It worked for me 
cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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BillWoodruff wrote: you only get "mature" by being forced to face the tragic consequences of your immature acts.
I agree. That does not stop me from expressing my horror at the objectification of people implied by this app. I can and have thrown away useless possessions without a second thought; I would not dream of doing so to a person.
It is a sign of the degeneracy of our times that the "Dear John" letter has gone mainstream.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: That does not stop me from expressing my horror at the objectification of people implied by this app
That is a fascinating statement, and a remarkable extrapolation from my words. You may have given me an idea for a story, thanks !
Forty years ago, prior to my enslavement to the Goddess Techne, someone might have been paying moi US $50 an hour (good money, back then), to explore the meaning, and emotional context, of that. And, yes, people forty years ago were as concerned about the de-personalization of their experience as they have been since homo sap took its "great leap forward" through the virus of language.
"... on the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology." Arthur Koestler "The Ghost in the Machine" 1967 By the way, for my money, the best descriptions of de-personalization in the modern sense are found in the horrific novel by Brett Easton Ellis, "American Pyscho," published 2000. But, Dante, Nabokov, Kafka, and Hesse, can get you there, too.
cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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BillWoodruff wrote: That is a fascinating statement, and a remarkable extrapolation from my words. You may have given me an idea for a story, thanks !
You're welcome!
BillWoodruff wrote: Forty years ago, prior to my enslavement to the Goddess Techne, someone might have been paying moi US $50 an hour (good money, back then), to explore the meaning, and emotional context, of that.
I'd have been wasting your time (and my money).
All I meant was that the users of such an App apparently see people as mere objects, to be used and disposed of. I would think (hope?) that one would have outgrown such an attitude by the time one is old enough to have a relationship.
Humans should never be treated as mere objects. Recent history is too full of horrific examples of what happens when this principle is forgotten.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Hi Daniel,
Excuse me, I didn't mean my words as any kind of riposte, or provocation.
The paradox I see (experience) is that without "objectification" we would be functionally insane (or enlightened ?) in the sense that intimacy is inversely proportional to exclusion.
I often wonder, when thinking about my life now, if the "intimacy" I experience with people I get to know on-line only is illusory; I don't think it is ... but, take into account the only place that is happening, for me, is CodeProject (no FaceBook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc. for this old flea) ... I do think on-line intimacy is qualitatively different from intimacy in the context of frequent social interaction and exchange, but, I can't say I can describe that (hypothetical) difference clearly ...
For me, a week may go by where I only interact, in person, with local people who do not speak English (my mastery of Thai is sufficient); I find the fact they are "grounded," not lost in digital self-absorption, delightful.
If I should have been lucky enough to have a client forty-years ago, like you, I am sure I would have offered you a handsome discount, and, after one "session" declined payment, saying to you: "you already know what you need to know"
Happy New Year, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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That's a remarkably eloquent reply, for you.
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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According to renowned technology investor and internet pioneer Marc Andreessen. In 10 years, he predicts mobile phones themselves could disappear. Even the chips will have chips implanted in them!
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Even the chips will have chips implanted in them!
Recursive or fractal implantation ? 
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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It's chips all the way down. 
Even on the turtles.
TTFN - Kent
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Even on the turtles.
I thought turtles were already equipped with GPS tracking ships.
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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Hey everybody! Marc's got eggnog! ![Jig | [Dance]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/jig.gif)
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Windows 10 version 1511 build 10586.36/Cumulative Update 6 may be the worst Win10 patch yet. It's like they've stopped even trying...
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WX may be the worst patch for any other version of windows. 
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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What’s more important is to focus on what you can build with the help of any programming languages. It's all just 1s and 0s
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I've always meant to try Algol...
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: I've always meant to try Algol
Start at the beginning I always say.
That's why I started with Aardvark++.
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I prefer the beginning chronologically, not alphabetically.
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