Not riding a bike, we've been there. Posting on the internet. We've seen the frequent random irrelevant comments, the repetitive threads, etc. This isn't a major issue compared to trolls, braggarts and those who would argue with a stump. It's not really a "problem" for other members since we have the wonderful ignore feature. More the hope of not shaming oneself, even if anonymously. Like not wanted to pee yourself in the checkout line or drool over your Big Mac. Anyone in 50+ think about this? Is it Winter?

Yesterday we got 12" of snow and it -14* (wind chill). Cable news is 24x7 love him or hate him.

I reach out to the interweb for entertainment.

Bring on the cat videos.

Is there a point to this?

Simple. I stop when I get busy with something else.

Maybe you need to take up a hobby? Start attending evening classes? Shovel some snow for your neighbours?

And yes, apparently it is winter in the northern hemisphere.

That's what I'm talking about. I seem to have lost the ability to clearly make my point

40 degrees (F) is roughly where I draw the line. Colder than that and I head to the gym spinning classes a couple of times per week.

I've been wondering about the opposite problem.


Thread titles make it easy for me to skip, as can certain posters starting a new (BTDT) thread, but thread drift can be interesting. Most predictable posters will only fill up a couple pages when one of these click-bait threads comes up, although there are a couple of "Somebody made a mistake on the internet" types that will keep going indefinitely. But after a few more pages show up, I start wondering, "Did the conversation veer off into something that might be interesting to me?" Maybe 2/3 of the time it's just the snapping turtles biting down and hanging on, but the other third I'm glad I started reading again.


So how do you know when it's time to restart (reading)?

It's nice sometimes to have a second set of eyes.

I can relate to that. Our 18-year-old Siamese "catmudgeon" no longer tries to interfere with typing on the keyboard, but some of our previous cats certainly did.

It's been so cold in the Carolinas that the greens at our golf course have been covered for over a week They will keep them like that until the daily low temperatures get back into the 30 so probably another week.....So missing my daily 18 hole walks. To keep my mind on cycling (and this thread) I found that it's a great time to build up a new bike. Just waiting on the hydraulic shifters/brakes from Europe and carbon wheels from China. I think I'll hold off on mounting the RD until I have the shifters just to minimize the chances of it getting bent.


IMG_0461 by joe price, on Flickr

Anything more that two posts to express your point of view, or to explain something you know about, it's probably gone wrong and time to stop. Speaking for myself, not necessarily other respondents here.

I'm on the internet when I'm supposed to work. I guess the day I can retire and go on extra long trip is the day I will severely reduce my exposure to the internet :-)

I would agree with this. Seriously.

Also, if your replies begin to look like an essay, you might consider paring it down a little because a lot of people won't bother to read it.

Most of us ride a bike by choice. That means we use the same basis to stop at any time for any reason, or for no reason.

So, it's not a matter of "knowing" when to stop. It's about deciding when to stop. How and you you make that decision is entirely up to you, and you're only answerable to the guy in the mirror.

Usually after 7 or 8 beers.


What I really don't understand is the people that write several paragraph posts here. if I want to impart that much my wisdom, I'll refer someone to the books or vids I learned it from.

Yeah, we had one of those here for awhile. It could be amusing but the threads got locked pretty quickly.

I'm sorry, that's all I have.

Is BF a twitter alternative?

I love this question. I try to limit myself to one point per reply. I try to avoid being drawn off topic. I try not to be the Nth person to provide same answer in a thread. I pretty much at one time or another fail in all these areas.

Seriously, I've wondered about this myself. Until the past three years I never gave much thought to the notion of not knowing when to say "when" on the internuts. Senility wasn't a thing in my family, on either my mom's or dad's side... or so I'd believed until very recently.

Personally I cut way back on my internet participation a few years ago due to physical pain from 2001 car wreck injuries. I used to moderate a couple of niche hobbyist sites and was an active blogger but quit that around 2012 when neck pain was too debilitating. I was becoming grumpy and it showed in my posts and handling of moderation chores. Nobody likes an immoderate moderator, so I stepped away from that role. Since then bicycling and careful exercise has helped but I'm not interested in resuming that kind of commitment of time and energy.

Most folks in my family died at a ripe old age with most of their marbles intact. My grandmother was somewhat active online into her mid-80s on poetry forums, where she participated with her usual grace, tact and intelligence. She only stopped her last couple of years because she lacked physical energy to sit for long at the keyboard. She'd have enjoyed the convenience of tablets nowadays but those weren't around when she died in 2004 at age 89, just a week shy of her 90th birthday.

My granddad was always a curmudgeon and I doubt he'd have had the patience for or interest in the interwebs. He died a few years before the whole web thing, and never showed any interest in the pre-web stuff like CompuServe when I mentioned that stuff to him. I thought he might be interested for genealogy research but he preferred books and visiting the county courthouses and archives for the real thing.

But in 2014 my maternal uncle died of a stroke in his mid-80s after bouts with dementia and Parkinson's. That was a difficult transition. He'd always been a brilliant and gracious man, and a good storyteller in that slow Southern way of drawing out a tale. He'd been a fairly early adopter of pre-web and web access for his business (nuclear energy safety consultation) and pleasure (music and other stuff).

But by around 2010 he'd stopped emailing us and we spoke only by phone. By then dementia had slowed him down to the point that he needed several moments during every conversation to process what we'd said, and our conversations lacked the range and depth of previous phone chats. He repeated himself a lot and went off on tangents unrelated to what we'd been chatting about.

And in 2012 my mom suddenly and very dramatically began showing early warning signs of dementia. By around 2007 or so she'd already lost interest in using the computer for emails, researching favorite topics or just for amusement, but at the time I didn't connect the dots. In retrospect she'd already been very gradually, almost imperceptibly slipping away in her mind. It just took a few dramatic declines to make it more obvious.

A few times over the years mom has asked about using Facebook but I always distract her toward some other topic. Social media and forums would be a disaster for mom. She overreacts to every minor annoyance as it is, let alone stomping through the social media minefield of daily hot button arguments. She usually agreed and also agreed that in a few years she'd probably need to transition to a nursing home.

And now that time has come.

Now, recovering from a December surgery to fix a snapped femur and old knee injury (mom has severe osteoporosis), mom is constantly grumpy about her nurses, physical therapists, doctors, pretty much everything. When I visit, several times a week, she insists every five minutes she's ready to go home... but she no longer remembers where "home" is. She know longer understands that she's declined so badly that she cannot live alone anymore. It's everyone else's fault.

So now I do ponder whether I'd even recognize the signs that it's time to step away from the internuts. That's the unfortunate side effect of senility, dementia, whatever we want to call it.

We probably won't recognize that irreversible turning point.

That's the nature of the indomitable human spirit. We're always convinced that the solution to regaining our physical vigor and mental clarity is only a supplement away. We just need a little more sleep. We'll be good as new tomorrow... next week... next month... next year... we don't need to step away from the internet just yet. We don't need to stop driving just yet. We don't need to stop venturing out alone to the store at night just yet... we only need one of those magic twanger buttons to summon help. We'll think about curtailing some activities next month...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/7b45fec...o-killing.html

Not so sure 'bout dat !

My neighbor across the street called from Key West. He was in short sleeves drinking a Margaretta and asked me to shovel his driveway because he wasn’t coming home until midnight and didn’t want to get out in the snow. I got the shovel, headed out the door, and explained all that to my wife. She said I’m crazy.

Initially, the thread title led me to think it was about when to leave a career.

I enjoy looking at photos of members' bikes and learning from them here.
However, I learned a while ago not to entertain the prospect of some kind of affirmation from random anonymous persons online.

A return to civility in discourse and behaviour would help everyone.