Uh, yeah, Christoper Tolkien is a professional author and he does indeed write for money. Sorry you did not like his Father's telling of the old Norse legend. If you liked Wagner's version then I suppose there is some hope for your redemption. The two works are in vastly different modes of expression so comparing the one to the other is pointless other than to say that both are high art and exceedingly well done. If you can't see that of the Tolkien work, well, as much as I love Wagner's orchestral passages I really don't care much for the fat lady's singing so I only accept on faith that Wagner's operas and operas in general are as good as people say they are, and so I can hardly criticize you overly much if you don't appreciate Old Norse poetic conventions.

Uh, I wasn't trying to impress you. I thought I was responding to someone who previously said "I like matches. I like computers. I like first, second, and third class levers. I like gears. I like bikes. I like typewriters. I like buttons and zippers too. I like woven cloth. I like books. I like..." so I came up with a bookish example to illustrate my point, thinking that someone who likes books could identify with it. And it was a real life example, one morning I was sitting in the train station reading a book and waiting for some associates and I read one too many references to the Volsunga Saga. So I looked it up on my phone (dear me, I probably used Google) and within a few minutes I was reading the source material right on my phone. Now, I thought this was a pretty impressive example but then I really do like books and the knowledge they impart and the interconnections between sources of knowledge that the internet, on a good day, can provide. Both of those books are available from that bastion of high toned, self important, utterly elite literary snobs, Border's Books. If you haven't got an IQ of 230 they don't let you in the door. I don't need your SAT score, it is highly unlikely it is high enough....

On second thought, what was your SAT score again???

Mentioning one Tolkien book, and one that was prominently placed recently in popular bookstores, amounts to fancy pants intellectual posturing? And this from someone who claims to be a teacher? Why in my day teachers actually encouraged reading and a love of books, in my day if I mentioned that I had read a Tolkien book they would have asked was it just the one then, dear? Do teachers not do this anymore? Are you really a teacher? Do you really like books? Your anti-cell phone/internet stance is a fear based intellectual posture and one that is at least as old as the Luddites. If you really want to know I have read almost all of Tolkien (both of them) and Shakespeare. One of the things I like about the train portion of my bike/train commute is that it gives me a lot of time for reading books. Sorry if you find that offensive or uppity, Mr. teacher.

I'm not worked up, just trying to have an intelligent conversation with someone who only responds with chest banging and head butting. I'm actually getting quite bored with this.

Did Google frighten your mother when she was carrying you? Is that why you are so hung up on Google? You are the one who is all Google this, Google that. To the rest of us Google is just a tool, not even my goto search engine, and a small part of the internet. Your father's library could burn down tomorrow. Much of the internet content exists on multiple servers and is at least somewhat immune to attacks and failures. For all you or I know your father's library is also partly online now. This is the wave of the future. I don't see how someone who claims to teach and to like books can object to having any knowledge available, any where, any time. That is where the internet is heading, I can't wait. You evidently like science fiction. One of the staples of science fiction is instant access to knowledge akin to that the internet is beginning (and it is only a beginning) to provide. Do you read science fiction out of fear of the future? Or can you only see the value of a thing when it is fully fledged and served up to you on a golden platter? Some of us are pioneers, we can see the potential of a New Thing even if it is more potential that reality right now.

I've driven a lot of miles and I've see a lot of road kill. Dogs and rabbits are both rare casualties of motorist mayhem. People who study urban dogs (who knew) say that dogs are actually smarter about crossing streets than humans. Dogs do what works and if they can cleverly trick you out of a tasty treat by doing something you consider abasing themselves, they consider it a losing trade for you. I never ask my dogs to abase themselves but I do let them think they have tricked me on occasion because it pleases them so and once in a while they actually manage to do it for real. Canine persistence is greater than human vigilance.

I also see a lot of people using cell phones and none of them look afraid, none of them look like zombies, none of them look like they are slaves of an evil empire, none of them look anything like what you try to portray them as. They are just people using a tool, they look no different from the people reading books or listening to Wagner.

On my way home tonight I will carry my phone in my briefcase turned off as I pedal since I can't really answer it while riding. When I have folded/bagged my bike I will turn it on in case my wife needs to discuss our evening plans, in case there is an emergency (does that offend you), in case the woman sitting next to me wants to see some information about my Dahon (happened just last week),.... Mostly though I will sit there quietly reading The Literature of Ancient Sumer, just the book that happened to percolate to the top of the stack this month, and I won't turn to the phone at all unless a question in the text happens to pop up. If that happens a Google (queue scary music) search might help, an email to one of the authors might help, or even a quick call to a researcher at the Oriental Institute (must remember to join first though) could give me an answer. I am sorry if this seems too high falutin' for you. I'm not trying to impress anyone but I will admit to being addicted to human knowledge. I would think you would be too since it was your profession that inspired this love of learning in me. That does not mean that you yourself should use a phone but it does make it so very odd that you rail against them so loudly and inexpertly.

Ken

^

Wow, that's quite a lengthy response for a topic you've gotten bored with.

This is fun. Thanks for writing back. I guess I'll further clutter this thread with my responses I consider the Sigurd stuff to be something more akin to Tolkein's personal sketches, less than fit for publication. Hey, slick, my wife is a Mezzo Soprano. https://ada-artists.com/about-us/shawn-marie-jeffery/ There's a bit more to opera than fat ladies. It's an aquired taste, and I'm honestly not that into Wagner.Time was that I could read beowulf in old English. Well, at least pronounce it. I have a few degrees in English, so it's not exactly above my head. The opening bits of "Sigurd" were polished enough to be called poetry. The other stuff was still rough-- not ready for publication.oh, come on. I can admit to being a little proud of myself for not using a cell phone if you can admit to using your purple prose to impress people.Ok, well, I knew that stuff off the top of my head. I think life is fuller for not needing information from the internet to think with depth and breadth on a topic. I can get into Borders OK. They just want me for my money, and possibly my good looks, not my weschler numbers.PM me if you really want to know.A phrase like "why in my day" pretty much equals affectation. That's where I'm getting the whole posturing vibe. It's the internet and all... so it's all good.The last book In the hands of a student was chosen based on what he said he liked to read while in detention. As in Penitentary. I have to do a whole lot more than wear lace and say "dearie."Thanks for the apology. I'm sorry my Hamlet quotes were too simian for you.To my way of thinking, that's why they call it Kindle.No, I can only understand things that are written to me with derision and sarcasm. Thanks for helping me out. Corporate control of all information. Great. There are some books about that, I think.You don't know what it's like in a "ghetto" (their words, not mine) high school. Zombie land. The wave of your future.I'd rather talk to the girl eye to eye than whip out my lame phone. Much better that way. Do you mean the Oriental Institute in Flushing? I went to a lecture and art show there once. I doubt that the art would have lost a little in translation on the screen of a smart phone. Better to live life in person than over a 2" screen.

When you resign yourself to getting information through a paid portal, you're giving up choice and freedom in what you're shown. Libraries remain a bulwark against this.

I'm convinced that, like the camping trips mentioned above, my experience on the bike is somehow more real for me I think without the umbilical cord of a cell phone.

And it's "cue" not "queue." Maybe an analogy is hiding there, or evidence of what I'm getting at. Spell check = cell phone.

Ok, everyone, Ken and I are going to kiss, so avert your eyes...

My daughter called me while out riding today. I saw it was her, stopped and answered. It was essentially a non-critical call. She was just feeling "chatting."
I listened and we talked for a while.

It was a nice rest, but I think in the future Im letting the voice mail pick up

I agree that this is getting a bit too cluttered, but to answer some of your questions/comments:

The fat lady reference was a joke, son, a joke. No offense meant to the "fat ladies" of the world. I understand that they are not all fat and that there is nothing wrong with "women of girth".

I don't want to know your SAT scores. Another joke, son.

"Why in my day" and "is it only the one then, dear" were allusions, but to a medium you profess to disdain and probably are unfamiliar with.

I did talk to the woman face to face, she found the web references helpful. We spent much more time talking than browsing.

I did not mean to mislead you but it never occurred to me that there was more than one Oriental Institute, especially since the name seems an odd one for an institution of its nature, but I am talking about the one in Chicago, part of the University of Chicago. A reasonably reputable institution by most counts.

Cue/queue, you got me there. Touche! But isn't it more a matter of homophones than spelling?

So, I think I have your story straight now. You are an English major and a teacher in an inner city school. God bless you for that sir, God bless you. Your father works in a library. You hate cell phones, you dismiss the internet as useless (other than Bike Forum evidently), and you have an irrational hatred of Google. You often talk like a 12 year old, you often express the attitudes of an 80 year old, and you claim to be a 32 year old. What an odd, inconsistent mess you are.

And yet when I put it altogether it makes some sense. Someone who spends all day with children addicted to texting or chatting on phones is likely to have a dismal view of them and indeed many adults are little better. As a teacher you constantly have to watch for assignments copied off the internet which makes you angry with the medium. And it isn't your mother but your father and many other people in related professions who are scared to death of Google. So, yes, from your perspective you opinions make sense and are well supported by direct observation.

The trouble is that you only see the tip of the iceberg and what you have seen has jaded your opinion. Vast numbers of people in the rest of the world use cell phones responsibly, effectively, and to their profit (monetary or otherwise). The internet is a remarkable engine of professional collaboration, industry, and business. In my work, electrical engineering, it is an essential and dependable tool. That computer you like would not exist without the constant flow of information between designers, suppliers, managers and factories that the internet allows. And the same story applies to almost all product production. Your characterization of the internet is so laughably far from the truth that I have been unable express it adequately but it may make sense from your point of view. You simply don't know how much you don't know. The future that you fear actually came to pass a few years ago. It is too late to fight that war.

And then there is Google. Libraries have existed since before 3000 BC. They actually existed before writing was invented. In the beginning they were essentially repositories of accounting records, information that could be recorded using only numbers and symbols for goods and services. Libraries are little changed since that time. Writing itself has vastly changed since then as has the media and the kinds of information that a library stores. If you were to dig up an ancient Sumerian library you would instantly know what you had uncovered and if we could plop an ancient Sumerian scribe in a modern library he would instantly know what kind of institution he was in.

The thing that Google is attempting to do is an idea that I had years before the internet existed. In my vision it would have been a dial in service. I never acted on it of course. The remarkable thing is that it took someone like Google and so long for this idea to be implemented. It is the wave of the future, it is what libraries would always have been if it were feasible (Assurbanipal was one of the first to attempt to collect all human knowledge in his library). You are not going to stop it so there is no point in railing against it.

The Google ship has already sailed and a stern chase is a long chase but if your father's library and others want to thrive they are going to have to get their boats in the water soon. Google will only become an evil empire if no one competes with them. My profession has had to reinvent itself several times during my career. Adapt or die, it is a harsh reality but libraries have had an impossibly long run using ancient technology. Surely a good library knows a thing or two that Google does not, they have trusted connections with the publishing industry, it is not impossible that they could build faster boats. They'd better get started or life will pass them by. The time for whining is over, it is time to compete.

Ken

I voted in the category of "other".

In my case, I don't currently consider cellphones as necessary.
I do, however, think they are useful to have.

When not on my bicycle, I carry my cellphone either in my pocket or in a case which hangs from my belt. I often use it while away from my apartment, summoning taxicabs where public telephones are few and far between, and other reasons. When bicycling, I carry a cellphone either in my trunk bag or in the pocket of my cycling jersey. My rides have been uninterupted by it most of the time. When I do hear it ring, I pull over to the side of the road to take the call. I also have it available in case of emergency.

EXAMPLE: I have epilepsy which is controlled by a number of medications. Although the medication levels in my blood are strictly monitored, occaisional "breakthrough seizures" occurr once in a great while. I haven't had a seizure in years. On occaisions when I 've experienced "Petit Mal" or partial complex seizures coming on, I've usually been able to pull off the road, dismount, and sit down before using the cellphone to summon an ambulance. At other times, I've experienced Grand Mal or "Big Bad" epileptic seizures, I was forced to ditch and had to wait until I regained consciousness. Yes, I wear a helmet whenever I'm out riding. If I should find anyone in need of help, I would use my cellphone to contact paramedics or police.

I was the last person in family to get a cellphone

Has the cell phone industry corrected that pesky brain tumor side effect thingy yet?

It sure would suck if a phone saved me a few minutes here and there only to take me out of the game decades before my time.

Yes. I like to keep my Twitter followers updated whenever I change gears. Sometimes I do throw in a few of my 2cents on the Salmons, cagers and my thoughts on the Kardashians. Don't envy my popularity.

Who are the Kardashians? A Star Trek thing, right?

The one that cant be proved?

No they haven't.