Results tagged “internet”

"It's too much. It's hard to just stop using the net or something. Like right now I'm filling out this form when I should be concentrating on a different task."

"I am so used to brevity now as a product of twitter, article summaries, etc that it is a huge chore to sit down and read something longer - a long blog post, or a book. I find myself wishing all information were condensed into a paragraph or two at most. I don't like this trend in myself and wish my ability to concentrate/focus on longer written material would return."

"I would like to be more in control."

"I would like it if other people, such as yourselves, would stop demonizing this perfectly normal behavior in a reactionary fashion."

And so we begin our journey into the mind of the average techie internet user.

Ever since I wrote the article comparing technology to heroin, I've been been thinking about mind and body-altering things and how morals, standards, and mores build up around them to contain the damage and maximize the benefits to society. As we get more and more integrated with technology, I'm waiting for some new standards to emerge about what is acceptable or not -- I think this is a vital next step to maintain some kind of vigor in the species.

Since nobody else is doing anything else along these lines that I can see, I thought I'd create a few standards or morals for myself. A "standard" is just a better way of doing things: standards change over time. A "moral" is something that I personally do not do because I find it harms myself or others. You create standards and you discover morals. I apply the simple rule of discovering morals by asking "If I made this moral a universal law, would more people be helped than harmed by it?"

So let's get with it.

Ever get a song stuck in your head that you just can't get out?

I do that all of the time -- perhaps because I played the piano so much as a kid, but perhaps it's just some kind of defect. Seems like I read somewhere that having the same song repeat over and over again in your head was a form of seizure.

Let's hope not.

There is a phrase for it, however, as it is such a common occurrence: it's called an "earworm".

Can you get the same thing when it comes to inventions?

Wonder what's interesting on the phone today?

If you go back far enough, fragments are all you have.

That isn't bad if you used to dress like a penis.

Take the epic of Gilgamesh, for example, or rather the epics of Gilgamesh. There are at least ten versions, all from different cities and different times. None are complete. Some contradict. We speak of an epic of Gilgamesh, but like everything else in life, you get different answers depending on who you ask.

Like our personal lives, the story of Gilgamesh, among other things, is a story of friendship and a search for immortality. Gilgamesh is a great king who meets and fights Enkidu, then they become fast friends. Enkidu is a wild man, born in the fields, who eats grass, is hairy, howls at the moon, and probably forgets to wear underarm deodorant most days.

"The whole of his body was hairy and his (uncut) locks were like a woman's or the hair of the goddess of grain. Moreover, he knew nothing of settled fields or human beings and was clothed (in skins) like a deity of flocks."

Gilgamesh sends him a prostitute. That seems to settle him down. She has sex with him for a few days, then convinces him to try some wine. After downing the ancient equivalent of a case of beer, Enkidu begins singing and allows himself to be shaved and bathed. He gets a haircut, picks up his sword, and is ready to go out and fight.

As far back as we can look, people were hooking up with hookers, getting loaded, having sex, and doing other stupid things. In Gilgamesh such activities were considered an essential part of becoming civilized. Nothing like a little sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll to knock the edge off.

I was thinking about Gilgamesh when I read an article about how kids were sending pornographic pictures of themselves by cell phone to each other. It's called "sexting." The kids are being arrested and held for felony charges -- child pornography and distribution of child pornography. This is strange because the "children" in question are the kids themselves. The victims are also the perpetrators.