LOL.
So you did get a life? What? Second Life? LOL.
Btw, if you joined Second Life, let's meet. I'm Xah Toll there. We can
voice chat about the importance of functional programing in humanity's
future.
In fact, there is a lisp group in Second Life. I don't remember his
name now, but few months back he's telling me to post in
comp.lang.lisp about it. (obviously he's not gonna do it and seeing
how i more fit for the job.) Also, i have created a emacs group in
Second Life too.
(one time i mentioned about Second Life's lisp group in
freenode.net's
#lisp channel then promptly got banned (luckly, it was temp ban). LOL.
y'know how male society is... )
If you haven't heard of Second Life, have a look here:
http://xahlee.org/sl/index.html
Highly recommended even if just for a tour. It is, in some inevitable
sense, how technology is heading towards.
Whenever i mention Second Life to some programing geeks, their first
reaction is “thank you, i have a life”. Quite silly. I can't emphasize
enough, that Second Life, despite it's funny name, is a major
technological impact on human society, just as the internet was. I've
been in Second Life daily for the past 1.5 year. Originally i was
there to explore the potential of building geometry visualization, but
got distracted quickly.
(for geometry in Second Life, see for example:
http://xahlee.org/sl/sl_math.html
and
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/modelling_rendering/secondlife/
)
Daily, i literally talk with (voice or text) people from Europe,
Australia, Japan. And there is all sort of incredible social things
you learn in such a virtual congregation. In fact, now many
universities (e.g. UC Davis) has courses on Second Life including
programing courses on their language, and major tech corps has a
presences (e.g. IBM, AMD...).
We, are the lovers of technology. Though, sometimes i am surprised by
how little your guys know about its relation to society. I don't mean
average professional coders, who are usually dumb, just doing a day
job, and have no interest in math or programing langs really. But i
mean you guys, who hog around comp.lang.* groups and tech geek blogs n
slashdots all day.
have a look at top website by Alexa for example:
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none
Yahoo and google and msn are top 5, old news. But look at things like
YouTube. Basically in just a couple of years it climbed to the top.
Note that any of these, will have building-sized serve rooms. And,
when i see some of you sneer at YouTube with its javascript and Flash,
or sometimes snearing at Wikipedia (currently ranked 7) , thinking
that these are for kids or whatnot, i can see how much totally
ignorant of what's actually influencing the human society.
Also, note that Facebook, Myspace,
Blogger.com, orkut, these are also
top 10. These are social network sites. Most are often sneered by tech
geekers here. You really just have to take 30 minutes to think about
the significance of these sites with respect to the world's affairs,
the impact they are doing.
I'm no card-carrying sociologist, but i can tell you roughly on the
ball-park, that Youtube alone, its impact on cultural exchange and
understanding, perhaps out weight all the culteral exchange works and
programs and education done in the past decade.
Also, note that
YouPorn.com is ranked #35. Perhaps you don't know, but
youporn.com is basically a website like youtube, where people can
upload vids, but porn.
In the past, there are many major controversial studies on human
sexuality. e.g. Kinsey and Masters & Johnson, involving funds,
interviws, painstaking research... and at those times, their results
are controversial, banned, etc. (gays are illegal and jailed. and only
in recent decade, ass fucking or cock sucking is officially legal in
most states) But look at youporn today! Such a site basically makes
past human sexualogy research like kid's guess-work. And look at how
our society has progressed and opened up, by what? By Communication!
The _communication_ that the technology brought us. Mostly the
internet!
well i don't know why am i writing this... i guess one thing leads to
another. You tech geekers, have a look at society! Stop your killfile
drivel and spam-filtering setup proudness or your how-you-should-
format-your-code, or whatever incredibly blind and stupid thought you
are doing daily.
Xah
∑
http://xahlee.org/
☄
