[extropy-chat] a futurist prediction

[Emlyn]

Double oops...

1 - I thought yours was a personal email to me and then sent it to the
list anyway by accident. Apologies all.
2 - I forgot the attachments. I'll send them on separately (I'm not
going to post screenshots to a public list, it seems like poor form),
if anyone else wants them just let me know privately.

Emlyn

On 25/08/05, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Brett, long time no email. How's the big wide world treating you?
> I've replied to your email inline below.
> 
> On 25/08/05, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > Emlyn wrote:
> >
> > > FWIW, I haven't been overly bugged by all this twentycen partisan
> > > political crapola, because I'm using gmail. It's inherently threaded,
> > > so the tech threads have a 2 or 3 next to them (number of posts) while
> > > the political ones have numbers that are 50+ sometimes, but the
> > > threading keeps it contained; I see them as equal weighted, rather
> > > than being swamped by the political stuff.
> >
> > When you say its "inherently threaded" I don't follow. How are
> > incoming posts from say the Exi-chat list "inherently threaded" so that
> > you can read just the tech stuff if you want and avoid the political
> > stuff if you don't?
> 
> I've attached three pictures of my gmail user interface. The first one
> is the main screen, the second one is where I've clicked on a thread
> and you can see the unread message at the end of the thread, the third
> is where I've clicked on the thread message list higher up and then
> selected an old post to view. Note in the first pictures that emails
> are grouped by subject, with a number of posts next to each one. It's
> really simple and surprisingly usable. Actually it's the best email
> interface I've ever used. It's not very customisable, but I haven't
> found that I've needed to customise it so far.
> 
> >
> > As you know Emlyn, I have an IT degree, but I *still* forget or don't
> > keep track of all the features of all the bits of software. Most of what
> > I hear I have to discount as salesy blah blah from people who haven't
> > got much of a clue themselves. At least until the time I get irked enough
> > by some limitation to formulate a plan to learn and listen to some of
> > them asking what I want to know, not what they want to tell me. There
> > isn't time to check everything. But if you, who likes this stuff are getting
> > value from it, its probably pretty damn good (at least for what your
> > doing with it ;-).
> 
> I hear you absolutely. I have enough technofetish to investigate new
> things, but I am very lazy too, and I am the world's worst
> administrator. Most techies I know wont use gmail because they run
> their own mail servers, etc etc etc. But although I know how to do all
> that stuff, I refuse to because I don't have a 24x7 server
> infrastructure at home, and have no hope in hell of achieving one.
> These days I even find Microsoft Word too annoying because I'm always
> using different machines with different installations of software,
> often not controlled by me.
> 
> So, I prefer web applications to desktop applications. They have a
> drawback that they absolutely require you to be online, but I've made
> it my business to satisfy that requirement. Their benefits are zero
> installation, being available everywhere, being run by people who are
> usually excellent administrators, and usually being free.
> 
> My favourite obviously is google, but my next favourite is gmail, best
> email system I've ever had, no hassles, almost non-existent learning
> curve, huge capacity.
> 
> And if this is ever relevant to you, my next favourite is the Yahoo
> calendar; it's a really excellent web based schedule, which you can
> keep private or share with people as you see fit. You can also combine
> in other people's schedules if you want to see them inline with yours,
> and you can set up email or sms alerts for important events in your
> schedule. And again, it's free.
> 
> >
> > > And I get practically no junk mail, and it's extremely reliable, and
> > > the ads are ignorable or actually relevant (the same as with a google
> > > search, small print on the right side of the screen), and the
> > > interface is excellent, and the capacity now grows continuously
> > > (pushing 2.5gb last time I looked), and it's free. If anyone wants an
> > > invite, just ask :-)
> >
> > Thats an invite to gmail, again, or an invite to something else? I took
> > your gmail invite and I think I lost my gmail account, or perhaps didn't,
> > because I wasn't ready, it wasn't important enough to me, to take the
> > time to make the change.
> >
> 
> I mean an invite to gmail. I'll send you another one; they are really
> easy to come by these days (for example, I have 50 at all times it now
> appears), and you can use it if you want to.
> 
> > I reckon a lot of Exi-chat posters are like me. Smart but lazy. Looking
> > for the easy way. Budgetting time, in a way, like most people budget
> > money, because time, is also precious, and the serious thinking we like
> > to do, but we don't like to waste it on trivial administrative stuff.
> 
> That laziness is extremely important; it's actually, as you've said, a
> response to a strong demands on one's time. All the applications I
> favour are on the quick & easy side of the fence, rather than super
> configurable but complex (which suck up all your time for dubious
> returns).
> 
> I've committed myself to learning more about the Linux and open source
> worlds recently, which can only really be done one way - by immersion.
> The most annoying thing about it is that the Linux world is all about
> complex & super configurable, which means huge learning curves &
> massive time investment. I'm trying to push through it because I think
> the Open Source / Free Software has discovered some really interesting
> and relatively new ways of organising collaborative creative effort.
> But the cost of penetrating that world is very high...
> 
> >
> > Funny thing is one persons trivial administrative stuff is anothers living
> > and passion.
> 
> My passion is building software, making music, and all things
> transhuman. The administrative side of computers is definitely not a
> passion, it's something I mostly loathe, and I continue to search for
> ways to make it an unnecessary evil. Web apps (the new breed of really
> excellent ones) seem to be a major part of the solution.
> 
> --
> Emlyn
> 
> http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *
> 


-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *