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iloveboxcars

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Me and a friend of mine were talking the other day about our childhoods and how it differs

from the internet driven childhood of today.

We were specifically talking about video games.

Even more specifically we were talking about point and click adventure games.

 

We didn't grow up with the internet, and even the internet when we were teens was nowhere

near the internet of today. I remember when html was amazing to everyone. I was the only

person within my social circle that knew a decent amount of html. I even recall getting a

phone call from a friend asking what the code was for placing an image on your webpage. Now

everyone and their mother knows this code (except dao, because he grew up with less of the

internet than everyone). To think that html is considered so basic now where as not even 15

years ago it was a completely foreign language to the large majority is amazing.

 

Anyway - Me and my friend were talking about different games we played as children. We

both played a lot of point and click adventures so the conversation eventually drifted in that

direction. Namely we talked about how difficult some of the games were. Back then when you

got stuck in a game you couldn't go to the internet to find the solution in a walk through.

You had to search every crevice of your brain in order to figure out a solution.

 

I remember the first time I played Simon the Sorcerer. I got stuck for about 6 months

because I could not figure out for the longest time that the tiny handle on the well needs to

be turned to get a bucket of water. What caused me to not notice it is the handle was a

separate clickable (im not sure of the proper terminology here, bear with me) than the actual

well itself so every time I would go to the well outside of the witches house I would try to use

all of my items with the well, and try to "use" the well about 20 times over and over again

until I finally would just go search for something I might have missed somewhere else. When

I finally figured it out it was a fantastic feeling. After struggling so long at this one specific

part I finally was able to move on.

My friend told me a story about him playing Ultima5. Back then, if any of you recall, anti-

piracy protection was in the form of matching up color wheels or little things you had to do in

game that were only explained in the manual. My friend had a pirated copy of Ultima5. In the

middle of the game you have to play a song on a piano in the game, this was their anti-

piracy protection. Obviously my friend did not have the manual that told you how to play the

song. Now a days he could have just went to google and gotten the answer in 10 seconds.

Back then (they didnt want me now im hot they all on me) err. sorry. Back then this obviously

wasn't the case. He figured out that the song was played earlier in the game, so what he did

was go back to that part, many many times, and learned the song by ear until he was finally

able to recreate the song later in the game. There was also another part of this game where

you get a document in an ancient language that you have to decipher. Once again this is

something that was in the manual. Luckily earlier in the game a 4 letter word was translated

so he used that 4 letter word to translate the entire document. This is when he was 8 years

old (I believe).

 

We went on from this to discuss how although the internet is an amazing wealth of knowledge

it doesn't really allow anyone to learn anything. It makes certain things that you would

normally struggle through and therefor remember for your entire life completely simple tasks

that you will forget by next week because you did not do any real work in order to accomplish

it. I feel this is a terrible drain on society and the possibilities society has.

 

So I was just wondering how all of you felt about it. I know we've had similar discussions on

this before but it doesn't hurt to bring it up from time to time.

Do you think the internet is ultimately a good thing or a bad thing? Please explain your

answers in depth/

 

tl;dr: dont worry about it, go to another thread.

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i read the whole thing.

 

i'm in two minds about whether the internets are good or bad. i've noticed that my taste in music changes on an almost weekly basis now as i'm able to download a collection of music from whatever genre i fancy in mere hours that would have taken years of record store hunting and tons of money to amass as a teen. i will then listen to it over the course of a couple of weeks, grow tired of it, and move onto the next thing.

 

i am also bored to death of graffiti, or more specifically other people's graffiti. when i was a youngin i would get magazines occasionally, however i could, and would pore over them for hours and hours and hours taking it all in. i would ride the train and look at graffiti and just be constantly inspired. thanks to the internet i have now seen every fucking style of graffiti you could think of and have been beaten over the head with so much of it that nothing is new or exciting any more.

 

most of my life i stuck to one hobby or interest. i skateboarded from the age of 10 through to my early 20's, i spent the same period listening to mostly rap music, and i have spent the last 20 years writing graffiti. so for me to have the constant influx of culture is pretty overwhelming, and shortens my attention span and interest level to that of a 4 year old with a belly full of kool aid and twizzlers.

 

i find this contributes to a feeling of frustration and impatience, and a general sense of dissatisfaction. contentment is harder to attain now than it was as a young person.

 

so yeah, the internet is probably bad, but porn is free and abundant, so you'll have to kill me before you take it away.

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OG RPG's like LoD were the shit.

all the free porn I could handle.

meeting chicks from thousands of miles away and getting them to take their clothes off.

chat rooms were hilarious.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said boxcars, except that last part about the internet being too vast with information to let people actually learn something for themselves. don't really have to way to articulate my point right now other than I see it another way, too tired to express it clearly.

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i read the whole thing.

 

i'm in two minds about whether the internets are good or bad. i've noticed that my taste in music changes on an almost weekly basis now as i'm able to download a collection of music from whatever genre i fancy in mere hours that would have taken years or record store hunting and tons of money to amass as a teen. i will then listen to it over the course of a couple of weeks, grow tired of it, and move onto the next thing.

 

THIS.

 

 

when i was 9-12 (when i first started really giving a fuck about music) i used to beg my neighbour to download music off KaZaA with me over his shoulder like "GET LUDACRISSSSSS GET ITTTTT" and then he'd burn me a 12 track cd that i would listen to for months.

 

now i get 6-7 albums a week.

 

 

/not claiming i 'grew up hard'

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I remember the only way to get information about something was to go to the library or bookstore. Now you just type in what kind of car/porn/graffiti you want to look at and it's there. Instant gratitude is less rewarding than the search that you used to have to go on. Hunting down graffiti spots was an all day adventure and now you just go to flickr and find whatever you want.

 

I'm glad about cell phones and the internet though. Remember trying to call your homie all day and you couldn't get a hold of him? He was probably just outside but if you couldn't hear the phone inside then you're screwed.

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i only use the internet for porn,art,ch0,paper chase,facebook,windows messanger and aim and even their main reason is to con young womenz into getting naked on cam...im starting to think the only thing we can use it for is porn.and stealing music/movies/tv series' and making explosives.

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the nets are good and bad.

 

i can easily keep in touch with friends from miles away, but at the same time, it makes things so much less personal and destroys so many social skills. then again, skype keeps me visually in touch with people as well. but nothing beats human contact.

 

i think the internet has desensitized a whole new generation of people, and an old generation as well.

 

i think it has almost destroyed graffiti, like abracdabra said, you can go online, see a million pics, styles, and it doesent excite anymore because there is just too much of it.

styles would be amazingly different sans the internet.

 

i think technology has made so much of life totally cheap, disposable and fake.

 

remember when you made an engagement with no cell phones? you didnt text to say youd be late, you were simply on time.

 

people dont even dial 911 anymore, they tweet that they need help.

 

its good and bad, like most things. and the internet is not going anywhere.

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i read the whole thing.

 

i am also bored to death of graffiti, or more specifically other people's graffiti. when i was a youngin i would get magazines occasionally, however i could, and would pore over them for hours and hours and hours taking it all in. i would ride the train and look at graffiti and just be constantly inspired. thanks to the internet i have now seen every fucking style of graffiti you could think of and have been beaten over the head with so much of it that nothing is new or exciting any more.

 

 

 

i agree with everything you said but this specifically rings a bell for me. growing up you had to hunt for info on spots to paint at, get paint at, get caps at (as in steal from products in the store), etc... today, a lot of younger heads can come online and have all of this info within seconds. i mean there are parts of this site that will prove that. kids post threads asking for info and within no time at all they have it and if you call them out on asking for it, you're the one who is wrong.

 

hunting for all of those little things back then not only built character but it was fun. you earned your info and had fun along the way. not only that, you met people and found new shit that other people may not have been hip to yet.

 

the internet has helped to give birth to a generation of kids who will never say half the shit they say online to someones face in real life. i mean, i know people who are quite snarky, outspoken and pretentious online but when you meet them in the real world they have little or nothing at all to say. yeah, there are still plenty of people out there who will handle shit the old fashioned way, but i think they are few and far between or they don't have such an intimate relationship with the internet.

 

overall it's a double edged sword. so many good things have sprung up online, but there is a ton of bullshit as well, along with a generation of people who want instant gratification on everything. so i guess you have to take the good with the bad and accept it for what it's worth.

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The collection and dissemination of information through the use of the internet has proven to be extremely beneficial to the scientific community as a whole thus spurning the creation of new ideas and making intelligent collaboration on a project vastly easier than it ever has been in the history humankind. I view the the internet as a digital library of alexandria; however on, the other hand it has created a public forum where the ignorant masses are able to rise up and have their unintelligible din roar heard by the world over, i.e. 4chan.

 

Plus free porn, and lolcats. Can't be knocking those lolcats.

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The one good thing that the internet has done for me is help mature my taste of music, when i was younger i was really into rap, but as i got older and music got more shitty through the 2000's i really began to hate this shit we call rap.

 

I would hear talk about groups such as led zep and the who and got curious. All i had to do was do some clicks here and there and VOILA! i have an entire discography of some of the greatest bands of all time.

 

(funny shit, my American history teacher got me into weezer)

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The collection and dissemination of information through the use of the internet has proven to be extremely beneficial to the scientific community as a whole thus spurning the creation of new ideas and making intelligent collaboration on a project vastly easier than it ever has been in the history humankind. I view the the internet as a digital library of alexandria; however on, the other hand it has created a public forum where the ignorant masses are able to rise up and have their unintelligible din roar heard by the world over, i.e. 4chan.

 

Plus free porn, and lolcats. Can't be knocking those lolcats.

 

this^

the amount of information available is a beautiful thing and allows a sense of understanding of the world around us that we never had. It's people and how they use the internet that make or break it. I think the internet is a great way to preserve and communicate a context of graffiti. As the times change through flicks and communication younger kids could better understand something that they are far removed from. Its peoples values that are fucked up. I still can just soak up a few flicks for hours. And the vastness of the information available online only ensures that i wont get bored and that there can always be something to accomodate my changing tastes. Its just become a new medium of exploration.

 

and fact of the matter is the law of exchange still applies. You cant google character or style. The availability of information on the internet wont make you a good writer. Bieng dedicated will. And that wont change. If anything the internet can help the dedicated become even better writers.

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I have found that the Interent has had one major negative influence on me personally. My attention span has reduced greatly in recent years!

The speed at which you can get information on the Internet is incredible. You have access to news sources, people, and their thoughts, from all around the world. I find it difficult these days to read through a full newspaper or a complete book. Why? Because I can get the information quickly and in a concise format on the Internet.

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Yeah graffiti and the internet don't mix too well. I remember starting out writing and being amazed by nibs people had. "How do you get it to be circle?" shit like that. I started out all exports with no clue about anything and was amazed by my first 20ml posca pen. I see kids these days doing their first pieces with all montana golds with a full set of nibs and knowing about cutbacks. You used to have to meet people to get that sort of information.

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i didn;t read much of the thread

but the internet changed everything (i first saw the net in maybe 98 or 99 when i was 22 or 23)

 

not many people saw it coming and now it's here and practically indispensible

 

it has changed almost every aspect of people's lives, from getting info to ordering food and renting movies to finding a job or a date or even a murder victim

it's your friend and a hobby and the best time waster

a conduit to any world you wanna realize

 

 

so basically we're fucked

:haha:

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