SL's newspapers - ugh

Perhaps because you need to pay writers if you don't want them to write things such as "most hippest" or "say's".

Pedantic pillock! What do you think editors are for?

I'm behind the times or just old fashioned, I still use bookmarks and haven't looked into the RSS thing....guess its time to do so since it seems everything I read offers one. Any tips on a good feed reader?

For me, it's slow to load. I get annoyed with the "update your software" window.

--Hugsy

I'm behind the times or just old fashioned, I still use bookmarks and haven't looked into the RSS thing....guess its time to do so since it seems everything I read offers one. Any tips on a good feed reader?

There is an incredible book called Feed by M. T. Anderson, written for young adults but still an excellent read for adults as well. I highly recommend it. It is one of my all time favorite books, and that is saying a lot, as I am a voracious reader. I read it years ago, yet the basic premise of it stays in my mind even now. And your quote from Futurama brought it back to mind. When people walk past stores in the mall, they get targeted advertising delivered directly to their brains, based on their likes, dislikes, etc.

You can get it on Amazon. Or, support your local library. They should have it in their young adult section.

Here's a description, from Amazon:

Amazon.com
This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy.

Anderson gives us this world through the voice of a boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate, whose vocabulary, in a dead-on parody of the worst teenspeak, depends heavily on three words: "like," "thing," and the second most common English obscenity. He's even made this vapid kid a bit sympathetic, as a product of his society who dimly knows something is missing in his head. The details are bitterly funny--the idiotic but wildly popular sitcom called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", the girls who have to retire to the ladies room a couple of times an evening because hairstyles have changed, the hideous lesions on everyone that are not only accepted, but turned into a fashion statement. And the ultimate awfulness is that when we finally meet the boy's parents, they are just as inarticulate and empty-headed as he is, and their solution to their son's problem is to buy him an expensive car.

Although there is a danger that at first teens may see the idea of brain-computers as cool, ultimately they will recognize this as a fascinating novel that says something important about their world. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell


Oh, now I have to go and read it again! I have a copy here somewhere around the house.
Enjoy!
Princess Ivory

I still hate PDF but Foxit Reader (a free PDF reader/printer) makes it a lot less painful than it was with Adobe Reader.

I agree that the Metaverse frequently has great content. But it really is laid out to be printed out ... in fact, it's so beautiful when printed that it never occurred to me to question its delivery mechanism.