Marcus316

Interesting. Is it a huge deal if they miss their 30 minutes a day?

I probably allow my kids too much time with screens, but the flip side is that, if they don't have screen access for a few days, they don't really care. They'll read some books or play outside, no big deal. I get wary of setting hard limits on their screen time, because (knowing their personalities) they would then never accept if they didn't get that time for whatever reason, and constantly be trying to make sure they get their screen time, rather than the current state of affairs where missing their screens for a day or two doesn't phase them one bit.

(not the narrator, but I was active when the narrator was creating these ...)

The rule for these audio clips was to do a search for any blog post on the internet which started with "No One Will Ever Read This, But ..." and where the blog had been abandoned for at least a year. If you listen to the audio and do some searching, sometimes you can find the post, if it's still up.

(Long time tilde.town member here)

This is a fair criticism. There is a bit of a barrier to entry here. I think pengaru is unnecessarily harsh in his response.

The server has a limited number of admins (really only a single main administrator with a handful of volunteer helpers), and the process of adding an account is mostly manual at the moment, I believe (with some helper scripts, of course). There are efforts underway to improve this.

In the end, though, this is just one person's fun little side project. We're along for the ride, and I would like the admin to keep enjoying his project so I can share in that joy. If they don't have the time to address signup process improvements, I figure that's OK ... we're not in this for money or fame or anything, right? It's just ... fun (IMO).

It's a bit like a BBS, yes, and that's what drew me to the concept initially (I'm an early member of tilde.town; still reasonably active).

We do have an internal bulletin board, and an internal IRC (like the chat rooms of multi-line BBSes of the late 80s/early 90s). There are a ton of little projects by members, and the projects are pretty varied.

I find it a fun place to hang out, personally.

Sadly, the narrator of this set of audio readings has moved on from the project, to my knowledge.

That may be for the best, though. Some of the charm (in my own opinion) is that this little project was a gem to discover, a bit ephemeral, and special in its scarcity.

"I need a handle, man. I don't have an identity until I have a handle." - Joey Pardella, Hackers, 1995

The statement "being told exactly what to learn" is so counter to my own university experience (admittedly almost 20 years ago now).

It seems to me that going to university to be told what to learn is counter to the actual goal of going to university, namely to have first-class access to resources (people resources, knowledge resources, laboratory resources) to pursue your own learning goals.

I've been tempted to go back to university in order to learn more about organic chemistry and chemical engineering, for instance. There's certainly a lot of information online, but a world-class chemistry lab with access to chemicals would be a great resource to have available to me, along with readily available mentors to help guide me when I have questions.

As for homework and essays, that sounds more like high school than university, from what I remember. It's always possible things have changed in the last 15 years, though.

The mechanical how people read at higher speeds might be an interesting topic.

What I often do when I am "reading" for knowledge can probably be simplified down to "I read fairly quickly", but there's no nuance in that statement to talk about what I'm doing when I'm reading and how I move so quickly.

I am often doing some combination of:

- scanning (moving quickly across sight-words, finding relevant points of entry into the subject matter)

- absorbing (slower process of gathering words surrounding the entry point to gain better local context)

- backtracking (taking local context and fixing it into a broader context)

- full-on processing (often this looks like deep reading, but it is more like deep thinking; I take in fewer words from the page, but connect them to concepts I already understand)

This is not a linear process, at least for myself.

This is different from when I read for pleasure. My pleasure reading can only really be described as "scanning" I think. Authors who craft their paragraphs so carefully would probably be horrified by how I enjoy their works of art, but I appreciate their works in my own way, and I find that this reading for pleasure is probably the fastest reading I do. I could easily consume a book of fiction in a day or two, and I always enjoy re-reading.

Another reading skills facet: my reading out loud is pretty clumsy (or it at least feels that way). I read often to my children, and it feels pretty slow and clunky. I enjoy doing it, but it's not the same type of "reading". Different skill, different goals. It's something I'm working on.

It's quite possible you're right, and I can't deny that my brain is pretty twisted anyways. That said, I feel like there's a clear difference in taste between brands, at least for my own taste buds.

I drink Coca-Cola as my preferred choice. I can't stand Pepsi (and will order a new drink in a restaurant if Pepsi shows up when I ordered Coca-Cola; I can tell, even if it's not labeled). There's a specific sweetness to each, to my tastebuds. I also enjoy RC Cola, but it's also a different flavour from either of the two most well-known brands.

I get pretty specific in my tastes, especially surrounding extra flavourings. I dislike vanilla flavouring added to my colas, though I will still drink it paired with another flavour such as orange or cherry.

I will choose Cherry Coke (classic) over just Coke any day, but will choose just Coke over Cherry-Vanilla Coke. I'm willing to drink Wild Cherry Pepsi (actually quite good), even though regular Pepsi is not a flavour I enjoy.

There's an interesting version of Pepsi called Pepsi Throwback (at least, that's what it's called around here) which I also enjoy greatly. It uses a different sweetener than regular Pepsi.

I can't stand either Diet Coke or Coke Zero (or any Diet soft drinks, really); neither taste right, to me.

Now, I still think New Coke vs Coke was overblown. I don't fault the Coca-Cola company for trying to shake things up a bit, and perhaps the new formula could have appealed better, given time and a better launch. We'll never know, though ...

I was unaware of that section of Facebook's settings, so thank you for the tip!

Looking through it, I am far less concerned with what Facebook knows about me, but I am not a daily user of the platform, and so it is probably understandable why their "Interests" as flagged are so generic (and also some are just wrong).

I like this. I feel like I would want to participate in the community, but not necessarily as an everyday creator.

While I do enjoy creating things myself, I also like providing support and mentoring where I can. Are there ways for creators to easily share their work from the Futureland system with the wider internet community? Are you considering "mentor" or "support" participants who do not create, but provide knowledge and encouragement to creators?

Not that you need to support such things. These are just a couple thoughts I had while browsing the link and the other comments here.

All sorts of electronics have gold in them. Minute traces, to be sure ... but it is a use ...