"Steve" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:John,
His first name is Jon, not John. If you weren't top posting, you might not
make these very elementary mistakes.
Quoted message said:That's really interesting stuff; never mind what he says.
You had always better mind what Ed Dolan the Great says. Otherwise, you are
doomed to ignorance and you will be universally regarded as an idiot.
Many Internet
Quoted message said:users are unaware of newsgroups, but many newsgroup participants may not
be aware that Usenet existed before the Internet fully developed. I
remember that some of the data transmissions were done by servers
auto-dialing each other to transfer data over ordinary phone lines.
It's amazing how computer communications have developed over the last 30
years, and especially in the last 10. Almost equally amazing, I find, is
the ability we now have to store and carry data. I recently aquired a
pocket-sized 80 GB external drive for very little money, and it's
realistically possible to have a Terabyte of storage in one's desktop
computer.
Remeber when computers were considered to be calculating machines, and
then business machines? Now the biggest use is very likely entertainment
of all kinds.
Steve
Steve, I think you are right in that computers and newsgroups now exist
solely for the purpose of entertainment. Meinecke goes way back, but that is
all ancient history now.
I got into computers only a couple of years ago. As far as I am concerned,
the computer and the Internet is there for my amusement only. None of us
should be taking newsgroups at all seriously. That is the biggest mistake
that Meinecke makes. He wants newsgroups to be serious forums for the
exchange of information. Those days are gone forever. Even moderated forums
are not worth much.
Scholars and serious folk will continue to communicate with one another the
way they always have, via scholarly publications and peer review. There is
no other way. The rest of us are clowns and my genius is that I realize it
and act accordingly. Too bad Meinecke does not get up to speed and realize
that he is a clown too.
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota