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. == 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.. == 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. == 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. == 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 == 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 == 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. == 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 == 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 == 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. == 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 ==
