If the internet disappeared...

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_90_the-world-tomorrow-if-internet-disappeared-today_p21#21

I was amused.

Privacy for convenience

Richard Stallman, founder of the free software movement has stated that he is unwilling to use a cellphone due to the ease with which they can be used as a tracking and recording device (source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard-stallman.html?hpg1=bn ).

While this may sound crazy, it is something that has occurred in the past and will continue (source: http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdropping-tool/150467 ).

Given this knowledge, is it crazy that Richard Stallman refuses to carry a cellphone in the technologically dependant society that we live in, or is it crazy that we are so willing and anxious to give away our privacy for the convenience of being in reach of everyone 24 hours a day?

Reality TV

http://www.cracked.com/article_19101_6-studies-that-prove-reality-tv-causing-apocalypse_p2.html

I saw this article, and found a section of it that embodies the view I've always had on blogs:

"Growing up with reality television teaches you that sharing every irrelevant thought as publicly as possible isn't the province of lunatics in trench-coats and attention whores but is "normative" and "prosocial," which we're fairly sure are psychobabble words for good things. Keeping Up With the Kardashians being taken as the basis of a society makes 1984 look like a nice future. Hell, it makes Fallout 3 look good.

It's a cargo cult: They see people with absolutely no ability becoming famous, sharing absolutely every irrelevant detail of their lives with the world, and confuse one of the effects with the cause. They then proceed to pour out every pointless emotion in a never-ending toxic spill of weaponized boredom."

I've heard some people described as having "diarrhea of the mouth" when they just keep talking and tell you details about their lives or whatever strikes their fancy that you just don't need to know or care about.

I also remember a character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book by Douglas Adams, named Ford Prefect, who is an alien writer for an intergalactic guide book, trying to decipher why people talk so much. His theory based upon years of observing people from earth was that if we ever let our mouths stop moving, our brains might start working.

All of these summarize what I feel most people have to say, especially in blogs: nothing of value.

Disconnect

I've got two friends who are both going through the same program I'm in to get their degrees and go back into the military. Consequently, we're all good friends and hang out almost daily. The other night we had a conversational disconnect. One of our number had never seen the youtube video of "Leeroy Jenkins." Someone had pulled up a youtube video that was a compilation of the top 100 youtube videos in 4 minutes. It showed the funny clips from these top 100 videos. When the clip from the leeroy jenkins video came up, the two of us that HAD seen it were rolling, but the one who hadn't had no idea what we were talking about. So through discussion and futher watching of this top 100 video, we also discovered he had never heard of "rick rolling." Just goes to show that not everyone is familiar with the same internet memes as us.