Ender’s Game maybe. It was in the new books section and I read it cover-to-cover in the library stacks, people walking over me, when i was 12/13/14 – whenever the book came out. It was new, looked interesting, short and it was.
I related to the boy with the huge empathy who was forced through awful circumstances and had to learn to turn of his empathy when necessary but not without a cost.
Tried reading the rest of them when they came out but couldn’t get through them.
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Movie wasn’t the book. I’m just happy they at least TRIED to make a movie out of it, so I was glad to watch it and see where it meshed up and differed from my mental image of the book. Mostly different, got some things right. I didn’t expect it to fit in 90 minutes but they did ok. They missed a lot of the spirit of the book but they caught some of it. It was just nice to see them try
I never expected it to be a movie. It always felt like “my book” ’cause I knew very few people who read it..
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I got online in 1989 so Ender’s Game had me prepared for chat rooms and message forums, and BBS’ and mailing lists.
1984 makes sense. I was born in ’72, so that’d make me 12. 7th grade.
When I read the book, it just seemed like an obvious “next step”. I had JUST got my first computer the year before, and I was aware that computers were starting to talk to each other over phone lines… and it was just a matter of waiting for the technology to be available for me, which happened by the time I was 17.
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Yeah, I was ok with the movie. My beef is that it was too fast, really. Also, I know they had to make concessions with the ages so I was ok with it, but the age changes were a big deal for me in the book, so I did have a bit of, “sigh oh well” when they went with a more practical route.
But all things considered, it was very well done.
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90s internet was a far different place than the post 2010s internet.
I actually couldn’t take anonymous seriously. I mean, I know they did stuff and that’s great, but I just never could, never did, never will take cyber war stuff seriously.
The Internet is fundamentally insecure at its root. I hacked my way through learning the protocols early on (1990 was my first “full” Internet – via Bitnet/Internet at college) – I rooted for Gopher to win over WWW, but I’m glad WWW won now)…. stuff like that.
And while I never took any classes in it, the Internet’s not that complicated at it’s root.
It’s message passing. They call it “store and forward” but really, it’s “Store, make a copy, and send copy”.
Right there, makes Internet insecure.
What else does? Passwords. At some end point, there’s a stupid password.
Change the password too many times, and people have to keep them under their keyboards or their top desk drawer.
So, cyber stuff isn’t a serious thing to me, even though I live here. Anonymous I couldn’t take seriously.
They shouldn’t have ever done banking online for example. I love it, but it’s a fundamental error in judgement. I cash my checks through my phone but I also know that it’s insecure ultimately.
I guess it’s still a nerd toy that got really popular for some reason. I’m glad, because it makes everybody nerds like me smile emoticon
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oh haha lol – sorry I thought you meant Anonymous tongue emoticon
I haven’t read the book in.. um… wow.. 31 years… lol so I forgot about that smile emoticon
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Nobody used real names on early Internet. Everything was anonymous… or had the potential to be [unless you had an .edu or something]
But you’re right – post 2010 we started using real names for everything. I _still_ can’t believe FB and Google managed to pull off making everybody use their real names.
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It’s true – now that you mention it, it’s true. I STILL can’t believe it when I see a meme about a _twitter_ posting and people go, “OMG LOOK THIS GROUP IS SAYING THIS!” and such and get all hot and bothered over it.
I try to remind people: People say ANYTHING they want online because there is no consequences to them personally, and everybody will be suckers and believe them.
News is hungry to fill up space to get people to read so they can sell more advertising space, and they don’t care where it comes from.
I’d have thought by 2015 people would be wise to media but they’re dumber than ever. tongue emoticon
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wait – dumb isn’t the right word. What i mean is I thought by 2015 people would be less swayed by excessive hyperbole. But people _still_ do. As long as its an opinion that they already agree with, they’ll agree with it. No questioning. Don’t people realize they should question things they agree with MORE critically than stuff they disagree with?
But they don’t. Some do. But ugh, I could rant about this all day tongue emoticon
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Yup. And that viral video was an obvious fake. A joke. At the end of it, he shows his handgun. I mean, COME ON… but I guess ppl _wanted_ to believe that there were a group of angry Christians out there protesting cups, so they believed it. People who pride themselves on their reasoning abilities were easily suckered. Cracks me up and saddens me at the same time.
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I believe it.
You know why I believe it?
’cause it makes life more fun to believe it.
Since everything is degrees of bullshit, it lets me run with a working assumption that it’s true (given a lack of obvious flaws).
Then if it turns out not to be true, I can go, “Haha, got me!” smile emoticon
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