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[oneoff]

Does the season make a difference in level of apathy?
The cell phone is not the ultimate answer to all of anyone's communication wants and needs.
It is evident that most people's priorities do not include much outside their personal spaces.
Examples of constructive actions (and same goes for downright negative behavior) can be contrasted and compared to one's own local situation.
The examples are only used to point out a general set of problems that appear to be spreading. And very few apparently want to recognize or talk about those problems.
First there must be an admission that that something isn't right; and I guess not many people are at that stage yet.

[freewheat]

Don't get me wrong, oneoff, the world is
going to crap, on that I agree. I detest
the way most things are going.

[oneoff]

Granted, not everyone is is a techno-geek". There may not even be one on your local council.
But I submit to everyone; before significant taxpayer dollars are spent on a project such as a library; I would hope those non "techno-geeks" would would bring themselves up to speed (or take the advice of "techno-geeks") so that they realize how current state of the art technology can deliver everything (and more) that a conventional library used to only be able to provide.

[checking]

hppt://www.IFpress.com/news/london/2012/05/10/19744236.html

Information superhighway often doesn't reach rural routes. Only about 45% of farms have high-speed access.

This, according to this article, is a huge problem for farmers running their business.

From my take of freewheat's response, this is no problem at all.

[freewheat]

I loved with dial up for several years. Do
I NEED high speed to farm? Not really, but
we have it now, thanks to yourlink. The
only thing about high speed is that, well,
it is not so annoying waiting on dialup.
Otherwise, I don't NEED it to farm.

What I said, is not what you guys think I
mean apparently. Guess what? We paid for
it ourselves.

[oneoff]

With respect; do people know what they are missing in rural internet service. First you must know what is available; what the possible uses are available now and will be in the near future; what bandwidth requirements are a minimum; what the cost is; are multiple users going to be able to be accomodated; usage caps and throtting to high volume users and so on.
And since it apparently turns off readers when you become more specific; it is indeed hard to discuss any workable solutions.
But salesmen just love potential customers who are overwhemed by so many unanswered questions.

[oneoff]

I well remember a fellow with a DOS based computer nearly 10 years ago. He had exactly the same argument even though windows was well established. Today we surely all agree that "windows" is absolutely essential; but guess wha;t we had better not totally throw out the "command prompt" just yet.

Similarly we absolutely need high speed internet; with its always on feature; doesn't tie up the phone lines; unlimited plans; vastly superior speeds etc. You just can't run the weaterbug station; stream live video in high definition; or even dream of surveillance and a low latency necessary to have a pleasant experience with internet telephone. And that latency is why satellite solutions will probably never make a good solution for telephone or two way local communications.

And please don't forget the fact that farmers are still poorly served by high speed internet service; and it won't be generally provided anytime soon. That problem reaches well beyond any single persons private solutions.
And that is the point I am trying to convey. Looks at the big problem of a general comparative failure of access to affordable widespread high speed internet that more urban people have had in abundance for years.