> my interest in the technology world is degraded > brings on a serious depression Yes I feel this way, too. It's come a long way from learning GR and HGR in

> my interest in the technology world is degraded > brings on a serious depression Yes I feel this way, too. It's come a long way from learning GR and HGR in Apple Basic. Telephony modems were fun... Usenet was interesting, the Internet over ethernet was fun but people started to take it seriously... Spam was an amusing nuisance. Around the time of LAMP and RealAudio, circa 1997-2000, things got a little shaky for me. The seriousness level increased. Eternal September then ubiquitous cellphones, business and lifestyles started to depend heavily on the internet. Now, toddlers with tablets, worldwide death threats, mass surveillance, daily international cyberwar, full-on regimented, intense web development and marketing, gate-of-the-month... It's no longer a strange, miraculous garden full of surprises, but more like other mediums, an appropriated, militarized and polluted playground of propaganda, a staging ground for real-life violence. An electronic Jungian shadow. I suppose most of the NSA's work is the result of our own base, human natures, a reflection of our failures at international reconciliation. We can't have a naive internet, because the real world is still too violent. With international hatred and war, massive inequality, we can't set up a sweet, pleasant, fun, interesting electronic bridge between one another because too many people want to use that bridge to board and destroy the rest. But we're so damned determined to have this internet before we civilize humanity, we have to have the NSA build all these paranoiac watch points to prevent our own destruction. It just wears me out...