Amiga - What If It Were Today....

[the_leander]

People are just soooooo stupid these days. This the same mentality as naming your kid Bob Roberts or Bill Williams. I just don't get it and hope I never do  ;-)

So twitter has a silly name you completely dismiss it as a tool? Yeah, gonna have to agree with you, people are stupid.

As for not understanding it... It's a massive great collective RSS feed on steroids. Pick and choose what you want, leave the rest. What's not to get?

Many Iranians seemed to find it useful at least...

[the_leander]

There *IS* a consortium of people that are bent on hiding/destroying history on many different levels and primarily for one agenda: the less you know about the past, the more moldable you are. And that's why I have a problem with a name like "Twitter".

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I've read 1984 too.

That is to say, I have never, ever - not even once, "tweeted" in my life. Never will either.  :lol:

Your loss.

[the_leander]

LOL! Glad you can read. And screw paying for a tinfoil beanie. I fashion my own    My loss for not tweeting? Are you serious? Too funny.

Like I said, Twitter is just a huge RSS feed on steroids, if used as such, can be a hugely powerful tool for information gathering or following breaking events long before the media get to it.

So yes, honestly I would say it is your loss.

 I do participate in Facebook... so it's kind of like "tweeting", you know?

It really isn't.

Watch the B-52's Funplex video sometime. See if you identify.

Just watched it, realised that it's yet another indictment of consumer culture that doesn't offer an alternative or way forward.

[the_leander]

Exactly - just as almost all of our choices today. Thanks to whom?

The Victorians, specifically industrialisation.

And how is Facebook different than Twitter? The hundreds of drones that are my "friends" on Facebook... when they update their status... how is that not tweeting?

On my Twitter feed I get updates multiple news organisations, political organisations, a few select celebs such as Stephen Fry, some from Anonymous regarding some of their ops, some from bloggers such as Jack of Kent because when they update their blogs it pops up there. The result is I have a broad spectrum of opinion and news that is often hours or even sometimes days ahead of anything you'll pick up on TV or radio.

They want you to communicate THEIR way or no way. Pretty selfish. As is this current ME generation and mindset.

Please tell me you get the irony of this statement given the context.

Or am I missing something here??

You are, but then you'd actually have to check it out to figure out what that difference is.

[the_leander]

Ah! I do and I appreciate that - although contextually, we're still talking about two entirely different things. Reading between your lines, I have surmised you can "suck" in different RSS feeds from varying places and sites of your choosing.

No, these are the peoples "tweets". But many blogs for instance have options to enable automated updates to their twitter account, effectively turning twitter into RSS by another name.

Forgive my ignorance. I had thought Twitter was another tweeny-bopper social site of sorts. You'll have to forgive me. I am programmed to think anything popular today must be incredibly stupid and unworthy. Not sure exactly where I picked that up, but it is what it is.  lol

Twitter is a lot of things, there is an huge amount of noise, but it offers you a robust toolset to filter it out to your specific interests/wants.

For a tweeny bopper, it's little more than a quick and dirty way to announce to the world their every waking moment and thought as it comes into their heads. For an Iranian dissident, it's a means to let the world know their government has just ordered in the imperial guard and is attacking unarmed civilians in the street they're standing in... Same tool, totally different usage.

And that's why I like Twitter. It is quite literally what you make of it.

[the_leander]

Like most things in life, eh? Okay - thanks Leander. You've given me ample reason to check it out 'someday'. But for now, I'm quite content living without it. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it the way you did. Might be fundamental to some, but I've only been exposed (through hearsay) to the tweeny/negative aspects of it.

No worries matey. Was good to be able to talk about it.

Great thread btw and sorry to all for the off-topic aspects  

Are you kidding, most of the greatest threads this place has ever seen has been off topic! :lol:

Besides, the discussion of the internet landscape in view of the original topic is fairly relevant I would have thought. Any new system would likely have to able to deal with these things in an effective manner, for better or worse

[the_leander]

 Smart phones are getting more and more advance and ok at the moment it difficult to see how you will be able to do certain type of work on a phone, like making web sites, desktop publishing etc,

You use the right tool for the right job. And there are certain jobs that are simply going to be beyond the scope of a 4 inch screen.

 but then I never believed you could do any good video editing on on them, now you can thanks to iMovie

The basics for sure, but if you're planning on doing anything even remotely delicate a smart phone simply isn't the tool for the job due to it's form factor. Even if in terms of processing power and software it could probably do it.  

v
 and that's the problem the evolution going on in the mobile phone business and now the tablet market are going so quickly overtaking desktops as they are just standing still. Its not just smart phone either, TVs are getting better with internet built in and with more and more software being in the cloud why will you need to have a separate computer? Consoles are getting more and more like computers offering more and more features, web cam, video editing, etc.  

 
The front room isn't the ideal place for net browsing no matter what you're running. It sounds like a really cool idea, right up until you actually try it.

 What I'm trying to say is I can see it happening in maybe in less than 6 years even, that computers the way we think of them (big desktops) only being seen in business, not in the home, in the home your have smart phone with a dock to your tv, plonk it in and with a wireless mouse and keyboard your be able to do everything I can do on my desktop so why would you need one? Thats what the new amiga would have to be, a intelligent smart phone that when out of the dock your apps are touch controlled and work in the same way a current smart phone works, drop it in your dock attached to either your monitor or tv, the apps become desktop versions, with a simple blutooth connection to keyboard and mouse.

The digital home is pretty much there already tbh. It's simply a question of who will sell whole packages. Currently as it stands Apple are really the only ones who could probably put together an out of the box setup that anyone can use.

But even outside of that, you can do every single thing you describe today with current tech more or less.

So the idea of a big desktop computer I think is nearing the end of line, and only geeks and business will have them, lucky I'm a geek.

Gotta be honest, I'm not really going to shed many tears for honking great boxes. I like my space

[the_leander]

Have you looked at http://justiphoneart.com/

Now I'm not saying everyone can produce high quality work on iphones or other smart phones I'm just amazed that these tiny devices let you do all this and more. Plus lets not forget kids are growing up with these device from the age of 3, I'm amazed by how fast some can txt messages, these pepole are growing up with these devices and know how to use them so I think as apps become more clever with the way they work on tiny screens and the users are more use to working with them, your be surprised by what people can do.

Yes, very good, that still doesn't change the fact that a 4ins screen simply isn't up to some jobs. Yes, you can do truly astonishing things with smart phones. But for some tasks, a larger screen is always going to be needed.

That is all, the processing power is there, ram, OS and software is pretty much bob on. But the form factor simply cannot lend itself to some tasks, now plug it into a bigger screen and you're good to go however.