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Off the Grid

stephenfry.com

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Re: Off the Grid

#91

Post by arximboldi »

debacle wrote: post #78
darkclarity wrote: post #52

I have gone through a similar phase. Got rid of social media, switched back to a feature phone, am reading real books, listening to music on physical media, using cash where possible and whatever else. The Internet has gone from a place with a high barrier of entry (and the interesting characters that self selected for that barrier), to an all encompassing entity with a load of moralisers, businesses and governments…

What feature phone are you using? For the life of me I can't find one these days that isn't a cheap piece of crap.

I recently got a Nokia 130 because I lost my old phone. Dunno if it goes above your "piece of crap" line but it serves very well my needs.

Re: Off the Grid

#92

Post by nadam »

As someone who uses the internet in a healthy way and healthy dose, i think this article is like when an (former?) alcoholic suggests to all the people to not even drink one beer occasionally. Seriously why should I not use email to communicate with people far away from me on interesting topics? Why would I not look up things in Wikipedia? Why would I not look at Fecebook once a day for 2 minutes to see whether there is something extra with my IRL friends and relatives?

Re: Off the Grid

#93

Post by Jtsummers »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #88

That's cute, he thinks a student in today's world can be successful without the Internet.

Why not? Assuming access to books (library, bookstores) and journals via a library (should be present in most schools or within a school district, decent libraries in my rather small town), a student would be in the same situation as most pre-2000 students, many of whom succeeded just fine.

Re: Off the Grid

#95

Post by grillvogel »

nadam wrote: post #92

As someone who uses the internet in a healthy way and healthy dose, i think this article is like when an (former?) alcoholic suggests to all the people to not even drink one beer occasionally. Seriously why should I not use email to communicate with people far away from me on interesting topics? Why would I not look up things in Wikipedia? Why would I not look at Fecebook once a day for 2 minutes to see whether there…

> internet in a healthy way and healthy dose,

what are you basing that on exactly

Re: Off the Grid

#96

Post by mattl »

DanBC wrote: post #79
uhtred wrote: post #38

It's interesting that I was at an itunes free gig in London back in 2010 at the Camden Roundhouse (band was Bombay Bicycle Club and they were very good), and Stephen Fry made a pre gig speech (obviously paid by Apple) to say how marvellous the iphone was and how although some people criticise social media , it is a marvellous thing that helps people feel less lonely, amongst other things (and the iphone helps people…

Stephen Fry has been an early adopter of technology for many years. He and Douglas Adams were the first people in the UK to get Apple Macs, for example. He was the first person to apply for a .uk domain name

> He was the first person to apply for a .uk domain name

Is a little misleading. He was the first person to use the modern, nonprefixed uk domain but not the first person to apply for a .uk domain back in the day.

Re: Off the Grid

#97

Post by scott_s »

Jtsummers wrote: post #93
dajohnson89 wrote: post #88

That's cute, he thinks a student in today's world can be successful without the Internet.

Why not? Assuming access to books (library, bookstores) and journals via a library (should be present in most schools or within a school district, decent libraries in my rather small town), a student would be in the same situation as most pre-2000 students, many of whom succeeded just fine.

Plenty of students got an education before we assumed everyone had a computer, too. But the environment surrounding the student, including the infrastructure they must interact with as a necessary part of being a student, has changed. At the least, such a student will be at a disadvantage.

Re: Off the Grid

#98

Post by braythwayt »

gglitch wrote: post #75
braythwayt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change the email address to a random uuid-like hash @example.com, then change your password to a random hash. Do not allow your browser or password manager to save these values. Now you’ve locked yourself out with no way back in.

Solid, but somehow very creepy, answer. I'm imagining someone discovering that they're a clone, and that their original was just sort of shut into a closet and forgotten about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_%28film%29

Re: Off the Grid

#99

Post by coldtea »

RivieraKid wrote: post #86
coldtea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another way to put it: "I have heard many People say, 'Give me the Ideas. It is no matter what Words you put them into.' To this I reply, Ideas cannot be Given but in their minutely Appropriate Words." - William Blake

Oh ok, I get the point... But for a lot of articles it seems that 90% of the value can be conveyed with 10% of the length, so I usually just quickly skim it - unless it's the type of text where the value is in the experience of reading and not information (stories, poems, ...).

I guess that can be true for technical articles the most (e.g. just get to the instructions, numbers, results etc), but probably not as easily for things like this Fry post.

Re: Off the Grid

#100

Post by tomrod »

Jtsummers wrote: post #93
dajohnson89 wrote: post #88

That's cute, he thinks a student in today's world can be successful without the Internet.

Why not? Assuming access to books (library, bookstores) and journals via a library (should be present in most schools or within a school district, decent libraries in my rather small town), a student would be in the same situation as most pre-2000 students, many of whom succeeded just fine.

Pre-2000 students had access to card catalogs within the library. Most libraries nowadays use the Internet to support their many locations' cataglogs.
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