by SonicSilicon » Apr 16, 2001 @ 1:22pm
It's truly amazing how encapsulated in one platform's domain certain people make themselves. I don't own a Mac, and I've never particularilly liked them, but I'll still use one if the software I need and or want to use is on it. Same thing for any type of computer - palmtop, console, desktop, or otherwise.<br><br>It's a shame that such a mass of people put their heads in the sand like that all the time. These are the people that will buy a Palm because they never thought to ask what other PDAs so or if there even are other PDAs. They've bught a PS2 for $1000 at Christmas for their kid(s) without asking their kid(s) what they want or realizing the games the kid(s) will play are on the GameBoy Color. Or they'll buy one console for themselves without realizing the games they'll play have equivelants for the Palms they bought, and could be had for cheaper on a platform they can take with them. And then they'll only play the latest highly hyped games for their console, despite how little they understand or care about the game. They'll buy an Internet Appliance saying "wow, I can't believe how cheap this is since it's such an easy to use way to get on the Internet." Then they'll wonder what all the fuss about the Internet is when they can't watch video, go to half the sites out there because they're browser can't handle them, and why everyone sends these large e-mail attachments that do nothing.<br><br>The truth is the average consumer doesn't know what to consume, how to find out what to consume, or how to consume it properly. It's a major part of the reason we've become disposing consumers. We don't know what we really want so we'll just buy the first pretty thing that catches our eye. Then we spend more time and effort getting rid of what we've found out is not good enough for us. I admit, I've done it myself many times, but I know better now. And this whole problem could be lessened through the use of the Internet if people learned how to research. It's more than plopping a term in a Search Engine. It's comparison; correlation; collection of related data. This is what they should be teaching kids in school to do with the Internet. Instead almost every single one of them uses it the same way; IM; e-mail; surfing for entertainment. We should be entering the golden age of information, not the golden age of hear-say, gossip, parotting, and media thought adjustment.<br><br>Why is it that my town's High School tries to teach our students how to think, but got put on academic probation because our school library was too small (that was just one point) despite their being two public libraries as well as a college library. We don't have a lrage town, so that's a lot for us. So now we have a nice big High School Library, but our computer lab is outdated. (The desktops are 6 years old now, which wouldn't be a problem except for the now tiny 800 MB harddrives. Moose has more than that for his PPC!) And now there's going to be a $30,000 per year Athletic Trainer (not an actual staff member) paid for by the school, instead of athletics, while our band has had a cut in funding and won't have a place to march for two years because they're fixing the athletic fields. (Band is co-curicular, which means it must meet during school and don't have time to go someplace to practive marching. Don't worry about the football team, they can meet after school, at out Middle School's fields, since their extra-curicular. By the way, band is an actual course with a grade and credits.)<br><br>Wow . . . what a rant. I'm sleepy now so . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......
Quake 3 is not way off...
