> CP wrote --
>> I know -- sad, & frightening, considering Orwell wrote about it in 1948
> He got a lot of things right.  The message is right, its the medium that
> changed.

I wonder if he had a true vision of the future & he saw the computers & what  was behind them ("Big Brother") but didn't have the words or concept for  "computer" in his time or language, so he interpreted with a writer's  imagination & linked it to something from his day that he saw as leading to a  particular danger. He was fully right, as computers are now just television  sets -- providing quick & easy entertainment to the masses ("them asses"; my  interpretation of "hoi polloi")

>>Yup; & how pollsters ask for people's BELIEFS, then post them as if the facts
> were determined by a selection of people's opinions.
> Concur.
> A lot of people believe things that simply aren't true.

& guess who elects our government (not "leaders" as it was at one time composed
exclusively of those who were solid leaders in tight(military) situations,  putting their men's lives ahead of their own when required. Even the military  only has "commanders" now, who sit far away from the fighting, making decisions that put others' lives on the line, while they sit safely home with their  families.

>> I have a sill chicken on my email now, as one of my friends was having
> genuine trouble reading my emails.
> Same here.
> I sometimes have to read something a couple of times.
> Your spell is like my handwriting.

I spell beautifully, but I type lousily (one handed & all, by necessity(only  one working hand); I figured out how to activate a spill chicken in my browser  now, so that's improved things, too, for y'all.  My biggest peeve is spaces  that don't go in where I hit the spacebar. . .

> If reading something I had written some time before I have to think what
> was I writing about and sort of fill in the gaps.  These are generally
>something I just jotted down.  Often times I give up and trying to decipher it
> :)

I'm the same with my own written notes -- this is why I love my phone -- I can  make a legible note at any time (typically I email the to my home desktop  email)

> Going back to ads popping up I find it a bit scary when I want to find a
> business in this area and just type in, oh say, "pizza" and get a list of
> pizza places around me.
> Not "pizza places in Huntington, WV" but just "pizza".

Yup, Google was always with a geographical bias for results -- which helps most people (but helps businesses even more, of course); let's be honest -- you were seeking pizza places within 2 miles of your location, really, fr free delivery  or for easiest picking, eh? Google is just trying to be 'helpful' (yup, need a  nice suspension bridge? You can set the tools & make money forever from it!)

> When I worked in wholesale produce I called about 80 businesses a day to
> get their orders.  After a while I knew their number by heart and didn't
> need to look it up.  Those are long since drifted out of my memory.

I was sae, with numbers I called at least weekly (or two, depending on  importance); never had an address book or phone book, never used a phone book  except to find a stranger or business I hadn't called yet.

A teacher millennia, ago lamented the use of paper & pencil because children no longer learned stuff by heart (completely memorizing a half book or two was  standard)

> Currently in parking I have about 50 license plates of regulars
> memorised, along with permit numbers, etc.
> I like to show off at work at times and have someone give me a
> description of a vehicle:
> Red Ford four door on such and such a lot.
> That plate number is thus and so.
> They check the list and I'm right.  :)
> Now balancing my cheque book is another story with numbers...

For any ob I'm on, I quickly memorize the key data that speeds things up for  me, like at the A&W, I memorized the entire menu, including recipe,  ingredients, & prices (I did the math for taxes in my head, if asked for a  total -- saved me walking back to the register, ringing it up as a dummy  sale(so as not to go onto the tape for the day's total); it was some times cold out there, so an extra walk back & forth to the farthest parking stall wasn't  my idea of a necessity, if I could resolve the need easier.

in my current job, taken when I was a fair bit older, I would memorize the key  emails used for our big clients & most used providers (emails & even their  emergency phone numbers); when I did a stint as call director, I memorized all  extensions & mobile phone numbers for transferring calls on the old system,  then the new one h ad them all in a list on my desktop & I could click to  transfer, including my pre-announce or not.

Now I'm looking for the tech way to do everything, as my memory isn't what it  used to be -- still got a few things in there, but like that teacher said, 3-4K years ago,. the pencil is enemy to the memory

I'm not lazy -- I'm efficient; that's intelligently lazy (& I can omit that  exclamation & get credit for efficiency)

I took to textspeak, creating my own abbreviations, to save typing. It almost  annoys me when I have to explain them, but then I'm especially appreciative  when I meet someone who gels with my way of thinking & just gets them first  time used!

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6