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[Realmfighter]

If it makes you happy to waste your life on a computer, then it is a life well wasted.

[dragnar]

If it makes you happy to waste your life on a computer, then it is a life well wasted.

Huzzah to that my friend, huzzah!

[Tarran]

If it makes you happy to waste your life on a computer, then it is a life well wasted.

Huzzah to that my friend, huzzah!

Agreed.

[Tack]

Unless you literally waste your life. Like play it to death.

You need to eat, drink and pee, so that you can live to play more computer.

[Lucus Casius]

I'm going to cut myself off from computers and video games eventually, at least for a time.  I'll finally have nothing to do but write a novel.

Anyway, today...  I did nothing.  I was happy.

[Tarran]

You need to eat, drink and pee, so that you can live to play more computer.

You forgot shatting. It's quite important you know.

[Vector]

I'd probably have to subscribe, even though I'm a terrible conversationalist.

Shit, What's the fee?

No fee =)  Just won't give my address out to anyone I'm not reasonably familiar with online.

I wonder sometimes, if using computers and the internet like I do is making me a less complete/effective person. I know I spend a good chunk of my days playing video games, chatting online, and watching silly videos... but I also look up a great deal of interesting information, write and read narratives, and keep updated with what's going on in the world with computers too. At the very least, it'd be an interesting experiment, to not use computers for a month or two, and I know of others who plan to do the same. I might try it at some point, but once I graduate I'm going to be at sea without technology for several months at a time... at least until I start Grad school. I'll get plenty of chances to check then, I bet.

To be honest, I want to learn how to live without relying on electronics.  I have this recurrent fear that I'm going to end up in the wilderness with nothing but a knife (or perhaps not even that) and ... well, simply not know what to do.  Or maybe mutant zombie apocalypses, or WWIII, or an earthquake, or whatever.  I think it's important to be able to survive, nice modern contrivances or no.  It's also a very interesting thought problem, as one extends the "time of survival without x amount of infrastructure" and considers the possibility of rebuilding society from the ground up.

I think the internet can be extraordinarily useful, but when I look at things realistically, most of my time spent on the computer is fairly wasteful and doesn't even make me all that happy.  It's easy, and it's fun, and I have been learning a lot--but soon enough, I'm going to be at a university filled with millions of fantastic books and tens of thousands of interesting people.  Do I really want to take my crutch along with me, leaning on it rather than forcing myself out of my comfort zone?  Not really.

Besides, I need time to learn how to maintain my typewriter, darn my socks, and sew myself clothing.  I'm also hoping to learn how to build furniture.  Somewhere along the line, I realized I'd rather own less and make it myself, so that all the decisions in the process are really mine.  It's nice to polish one's shoes up and oil them when they look worn, rather than closeting them when they become "unpresentable" in fine society.  Thinking about all this stuff encourages one to buy things that are made to last...

[Tack]

Have you read the Hatchet series, by Gary Paulsen?

It's a short book, and if when you get through the storyline, which is still pretty damn entertaining, you can learn a lot.


There. Reason #1 for internet-
Helping you stay alive if you crash in the wilderness.


Help me out, guys.



Edit: I'm a higher up in a local post office. I OWN the addresses. All of them.

[Vector]

Have you read the Hatchet series, by Gary Paulsen?

It's a short book, and if when you get through the storyline, which is still pretty damn entertaining, you can learn a lot.

Read it, as well as the books by Jean Craighead George.  Also the books around Julie of the Wolves, which would be great if I were an Eskimo, but... I'm not 

Seriously, guys, I'm not on the verge of leaving--and if/when I leave, it probably won't be permanently.

[Tack]

Then what's your worry? Move out to the country. You learn so many useful non-educational skills there.
Plus in today's modern society- The outback (Translation: Deep South (Guffaw)) still has internet.

[userpay]

Awsome weekend for me, Renaissance Faire workshops (ie stuff for people who work at it to practice/set up everything) started this weekend. Can't wait for the actual season to start up. If anyone mayhaps would like to come the information is here. Sept 18-Oct 17, Casa de Fruita Hollister, CA. Its a bit pricey but opening weekend is 2 for 1 for tickets and kids under 12 are free for the whole season.

[Solifuge]

To be honest, I want to learn how to live without relying on electronics.  I have this recurrent fear that I'm going to end up in the wilderness with nothing but a knife (or perhaps not even that) and ... well, simply not know what to do.  Or maybe mutant zombie apocalypses, or WWIII, or an earthquake, or whatever.  I think it's important to be able to survive, nice modern contrivances or no.  It's also a very interesting thought problem, as one extends the "time of survival without x amount of infrastructure" and considers the possibility of rebuilding society from the ground up.

This is one of my favorite thought experiments... and probably a big reason I hunt for old copies of the Foxfire anthologies, and books on how world cultures first tamed the different climate zones of Earth (Civilizations, by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is a great book on this). Most people, myself included, don't know know the first thing about agricultural and industrial practices that are necessary for civilizations to exist... and if our current infrastructure or electronic data was lost after some disaster, what would we do? As we move more and more of our knowledge to electronic forms, a series of surgical EMP strikes on major servers and data storage locations could destroy huge chunks of historical and scientific record... it'd be like the destruction of the Library of Alexandria all over again.

I guess it just feels weird when I think about how dissociated we are, as individuals, from all the things we need in order to survive. Most people don't know what wild plants are edible, how to hunt and fish for food, how to start a fire, how to grow and fertilize crops, how to make a shelter or tools, or any of that... much less how to smelt metal, set a fractured bone, or build a wagon without electricity or industrial tools.

But yeah, that thought experiment, and "How could I survive and find success if I were sent to X historical period?" are two of my favorites. I'd like to think I could make a decent minstrel, storyteller, alchemist, or physician, so long as I could speak the language.

[Realmfighter]

Tropic Thunder was better than expected.

[Tack]

I always wanted to be a General in roman times.

But then I'd intersect that dream with the one of me being a General in roman times In charge of a crack troop of Romano-British soldiers, A team that combine stealth and unbridled savagery to create havok to countries, and slip away undetected.

Failing that- I'd be a potter. Potters are cool, if they're roman.

[Nivim]

 It's far better to assume you wouldn't be able to speak the language, and people would treat you accordingly. Even if you had good (well studied and/or practiced) medical, engineering, and chemical knowledge, you would probably need to do hard labor for a several months at any time or location without an industrial revolution. First just to feed yourself, then so you could get chances to demonstrate your knowledge (which would have degraded by then).

In which case, I'm going to post in purple.
More to annoy anybody using Darkling than anything else.
Which unfortunately includes me.

In hindsight, that's a horrible idea...

"In purple ink."
"We like purple. Yes."