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Saved!I've been in a couple of different environments lately, and I've figured the internet is the greatest thing ever invented by mankind, but it's also the worst too.
Socialising is the absolute loser here. Apart from the obvious like internet dating and chatrooms where people just don't go out to meet and practice social skills it affects socialising in other real life ways. Like I was in a group today chatting and I was about to say something but I just held back, even though I thought I was right I just kept quiet( I was right). Because I spend time online where a random bit of chat is a quick google from humiliation away I know it puts people off. How many of you have done it right here? You go to reply to somebody then think hang on, I'll just google that my memory might be wrong. You know you're right but you have to check. It's a killer in a real world situation.
I remember the old days before internet when we walked to school in snow uphill both ways. But the socialising was so much better! Sure, people were wrong about things. But you couldn't just whip the phone out and humiliate them, you'd end up in a conversation instead, which led to thinking. Thinking is good. Having the abilty to crush somebody stops people from even thinking, they'll just google it instead.
I have a theory about pubs too! It all fits in to my big picture don't worry, I'm not going off on a random. Depression! Everything today is mental health and depression. Was it as prevalent back in the day? I know some people will claim because this or that, but listen to my theory. Men went down the pub and chatted with their best mates, they moaned about "her indoors" and got it off their chest. They basically got to see their best mates everyday, get drunk and get free therapy! Sound good? But now all the pubs are disappearing rapidly and depression is rising exponentially. Coincidence?
So I've come to the conclusion that socialising is extremely important, in many ways and it's dying out. Who gives a fuck if you're wrong about some dudes birthday but having a good time with your friends or family?. Who cares if you need a break from some family shit if you make a marriage last? The internet is killing this kind of thing. Sure, we meet people on the other side of the world but it's not as real. As much as the lack of physical contact, it's the freedom thing, where you can't just say whatever you think all the time without fear of everybody laughing.
The flip side: The internet is a fucking awesome tool, every bit of information you could ever want is there waiting whenever you want it 24/7 and I don't ever want to live without it.
I guess I'm saying use the internet as a tool only to complement your real world life, don't let it become more than that.-
Saved!KlemoibEditing … Since the beginning of the unikgamer days I have been very clear. You all are internet people. You are not really real. :-P In all seriousness I agree. I think it’s a shame that what the internet is good for (meeting people you will never see irl and talking your mind) is largely replaced by opinion making and group think. You guys are really the only internet people I talk to online. I really don’t like the internet for socialising. If I know someone irl I’ll just talk to them and not on social media. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to humiliate or “crush “people with a Google search. I still don’t own a smartphone anyways so it wouldn’t even be possible for me. People really don’t give a shit about facts. It’s always about feelings and understanding those feelings. It’s why people get angry. If you step on our feelings we close our ears and our screaming hole opens. Having conversations with strangers is still possible but it somehow does not happen so much anymore. Nowadays people go straight for their smartphone and don’t even look up. People are also not used to respecting other opinions than their own. People used to be a bit more accepting of different thoughts but now people seem to think to have figured out how the whole universe works. They just want to be “right”. And they of course are “right” all the time and everybody else is wrong. There are not a lot of people I enjoy talking to anymore. Most of them are old grey artists who are somehow still looking for new answers in life. Plenty of people seem nice, but… I really can’t speak my mind with a lot of people anymore. I think I could live fine without the internet. It’s good for finding things, content and ordering online but search results are manipulated to the extreme and it’s getting more and more difficult to navigate. I like having access to it but if you were to pull the plug I would be able to manage just fine. I'd just spend more time looking at birch trees or something. -
Saved!NodleyEditing … Internet socialising is like road rage. You know how people turn into massive cunts because they're in their car protected, the internet protects them. They say things they wouldn't dream of if face to face. If society is getting more and more like this is it really a good direction? It's going to get to the point where it's so normal people will act like that face to face too without even thinking. It's something I'm going to try teaching Isabella instead of just letting her go along with the world. -
Saved!KlemoibEditing … I dunno. I was optimistic years ago and I am always an optimist, but from what I saw humanity turn into slowly I can’t say I’m all that hopeful. Maybe in 200 years time things will be great again for a while…. Or were all robot cyborgs living in a dystopia. I see a lot of people my age and under struggling to find meaning in life and struggling to find ways to communicate face to face. When people do communicate it’s all internet speak. I can’t say I’m a fan of that. I think it’s weird but at least they are talking so I guess I’m just a grumpy pants. It’s not like young people suddenly genetically became more inept at socialising or more susceptible to depression. It really is the environment that caused this. Not to say people are powerless to help themselves. And I think a lot of people are trying. What exactly is the cause though we can’t say for sure of course but no doubt shifting societal importance to the internet is an important piece to the puzzle. I’m sure I would be worse off if I were to grow up now. I really hope young kids somehow are resilient to all this. Taking the importance of human interaction and worldview building and simulating it in a virtual space disconnected from actual physical life is a weird thing to do and very confusing. I still can’t really believe society at large has accepted the internet as their new reality and the speed at which we’ve all accepted it is surprising. Sometimes I really wish I could be adopted by Amish people. It’s almost as if they were right all along or at least that they did not lose something that we have lost. Plus plowing seems fun to me. I could do that all day.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Who'd have thunk that drinking cider in the park with your mates at 15 was a better grounding than having free unlimited knowledge at your fingertips. Jessica is 18 now and she likes drinking with her friends, I've passed on some good sensible genes :D
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I think most people will always like drinking. :-P Having information at your finger tips is not really all that handy I think. You can not process all that info. It's not of much use if you don't digest it. You can watch a thousand video's and still know nothing.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I need the internet, especially for work. If I go to a new place I get it up on google street view see if a truck can get in there. I check traffic reports and closed roads too, no point driving a truck 200 miles if you can't get there, which has happened a couple of times. I remember back in the 80s in trucks with my dad getting lost and stuck up a hill and allsorts. Outside of work I guess the main use is Netflix, I can't stand normal TV and all these reality shows and pure garbage. Gimme a good selection of classic movies and shows and I'll pay for it. Also it's really handy for checking info, like if Iz wants to go swimming on a Sunday. Or internet banking, fuck yeah! My bank is miles away, internet banking is so good.
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … Growing up as a TV nerd, I could never really socialize well. Especially not with large gatherings and alcohol involved, like most people love it. Most of my friends-back-then certainly loved it. That was surely depressing. If I didn't have the internet I don't think I would be alive anymore. Entertainment content, programming web tools and small online communities like ours have always helped. But partially, I'm glad I lost contact with those guys – with big platforms like Facebook, Instergurm and such I don't enjoy the way people like them choose to socialize, anyway. TikTok is a weird one I don't even understand. — On the other hand, I feel like this development of people become more inept to socialize, and to value humanity is actually quite dangerous, they way it's happening. I feel like there's a storm brewing with so much hate growing all over the place, and antisemitism, anti-LGTB+ ideologies sprouting all over again in so many countries simultaneously … I worry a lot that a WWIII is where this is headed – but not one where countries fight each other, like with Ukraine right now (although that might also happen on top), but where there are several occurances of simultaneous, extreme unrest and even civil wars. Especially with climate change around the corner, where solidarity is much more in need … And then I think that maybe that's a good thing in the long run, as sad and unfortunate as it is: if lots of people die, that will radically shift some people's thinking and values for the better. Right? I feel like that's what has often happened historically, in one way or another. That's just nature's course: that new generations of people grow up in peaceful times, not realizing how good they have it; that they are more and more dissatisfied with that life; that it somehow comes to a violent conflict; and that wars make people reevaluate the things in life. — But the internet is a new parameter in this. There has nothing been like this before, so I don't know if it will work out differently because of it. — … I guess you can see that as a "pub mate's" random therapeutic rambling. -
Saved!NodleyEditing … Great reply, and exactly what we'd chat about down the pub in real life. We're definitely thinking along the same lines, I have thought about it all coming to a head at some point too. Society as we know it can't continue, something needs to change or it will destroy itself. Whether we recognise it and fix it ourselves or just let it run it's course is another thing entirely. I don't think we will be allowed to fix it though, you try suggesting something online and all you get is hate from one group, another group don't want to lose what they think they're entitled to, another group will have nothing to win or lose but will get offended just for the sake of getting offended. So any genuinely good ideas get shot down or people just don't voice them because of this.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Another thing the internet has ruined. In the old days you could disagree with people but still stay friends, you saw each other every day and just agreed to disagree. Online there's no real consequences for anything so people rage harder and then never speak to the person again.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I don’t think it’s something we can fix like that. I think it’s the whole structure of the internet that has this baked in. You’d have to strip the tech monopolies of their power, make sure the government does not get involved and make the internet completely open and then maybe try to talk to each other. The craziness is also bleeding into real life. There are so many things you can’t say. I really have to watch my word choice or I will upset my classmates. They are so incredibly sensitive but also intolerant of other ideas and they don’t even realise it. They are nice people but it’s hard to have a real conversation with them if you have to mind everything you say. The internet was a safe haven for people who did not fit in. A place where weirdos found each other and it was good. But then the real world that those people were escaping from came to the internet. It’s like the two worlds merged and brought the bad from both sides together. I really liked it when people made their own websites and their own communities. Now the internet has become a place mostly for consumption and not for creation. I too was a weird kid and I still am. As a teen I spent way too much time online. Even when I thought it was my escape it actually made my life worse in the end because I did not have to confront the things in my life that I was having difficulty with. I am not on the internet as much as most people now and I really could do without the internet if I had to but I still don’t feel like I’m fully in control of the time I spend online. I do my best but it is very easy to get into a spiral of finding new things online, new video’s new this and that and new information. But when I stop and think most of what I do online is not really contributing to my life or to anything and finding new interesting stuff does not really make me happy it’s just amusing me in the moment. I made a little shelf to put my laptop on so it’s not on my desk all the time. It helps me a lot. Somehow it makes it easier for me to think. It helps me to set clearer boundaries between real life and the internet. I check the internet in the morning and evening and I try to keep it at that but it’s damn easy to get stuck on the internet. I can’t believe they let kids grow up without educating them how to manage their internet usage. If I as an adult am having a hard time keeping it in check how do we expect kids to deal with something so addictive that also has their social relations tied to it? It’s a recipe for mental health problems. I’m happy I somehow was able to cultivate a somewhat healthy distance from the internet but man do I worry about the kids and teens. I see many kids in the train scrolling through tiktok the entire 1,5 hours. All I see on their screens is twerking teens and people making weird faces. Tiktok just has to be the worst invention known to man. Please burn it for me.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … You could argue that TV isn't contributing to life, but it's a major talking point for people that do socialise. I don't think the internet itself is so bad, people just need educating about real life. Instead of teaching kids in schools something they may never use we should be teaching lifeskills. That's how I see my job as a dad, my job isn't to provide Isabella with everything she wants and needs, it's to prepare her for the day she walks out my front door for the final time, or starts work. I want her able to handle real life in the real world. What would stripping the tech monopolies achieve klem? I'm not really getting your thinking here.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I can see how it does not seem logical to you at first sight. I’m not saying the internet is bad by definition. It is a complex question but one I fear people will choose to ignore. Tech monopolies are creating the environments that dictate the way we interact with the internet and each other and they create systems to collect our data with which they can and do manipulate us. In a sense the internet has largely been taken out of our control at least a large part that shapes our culture. Not all of our control is gone but a lot of it is. You can talk about whatever topic you like but are you really in control? Did you really choose? For example are you really in control of your YouTube browsing if the algorithm is made so you see the things youtube thinks are best to show you? Are you really in control if you just wanted to see one video but are watching more videos because of the side bar and auto play? Even the content people make is influenced by youtube. Content creators adjust the length of their video’s, format and content to fit into the algorithm and monetisation rules. At the same time the more data that is collected the more predictable peoples behaviours become and the easier it is to manipulate people’s behaviours. I really don’t think tech giants care at all about creating better products and insuring they make healthy online environments. They have become incredibly influential and powerful in seen and unseen ways and it all adds up. Governments and the internet are also a dangerous combination. You could look at China but there were some papers released by court order here that show the blatant disrespect the Dutch government has for its citizens. Regular innocent citizens have been monitored and categorised and followed online by our current government. I know this all is not a fun topic for most people but I really do see this as a problem that is slowly getting worse. I think the internet could be a great thing and that’s why I’m critical of the way it is now. It’s not pretty and I can’t just ignore it or pretend it does not exist. Ther are good things but I don’t like being manipulated by my technology. I don’t want my technology to use me. I want to be the one in control of my own online interactions. The tech giants will probably never fall, only be replaced by new ones. What I think can be done is people taking back control of their own culture and technologies. Actively shape the internet and share it with people and not consume it in its most convenient or expected form like Facebook and twitter. I remember a lot of great communities going under because the internet traffic moved to larger more popular sites. Now almost no one visits people’s personal blogs and sites. It’s all the same media outlets people visit. It’s become very homogenous which I think is a shame and it's easy to shape opinion there when large quantities of people are in the same internet place.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I don't think it affects me. I'm pretty certain I know what I want and what I like. And I'm sure any data they collect on me is worthless. I don't click adverts that appear on my Internet, I'm not that dumb. Nobody made a penny outta me so far. And I know the government collects data for security reasons but there's not somebody going through your personal data looking and laughing and sending your nudes to their mates, we'd need another 7 billion people. Only if you get flagged up do they look. And they absolutely fucking should do too, I want to go to a music concert in safety.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I like to think I'm in control as well but if you look at society at large you really do see an impact. The privacy thing is not about people laughing at you but algorithms analysing the data and using that data to make decisions. Vast quantities of information are processed and analysed no need for people doing the work. These algorithms are not neutral. They are made by people and people will be tempted by the power they can gain from it. Our government has also actively tried to manipulate public opinion through analysing (and actually reading) what people talk about. That is not something a government should do. They will always say it’s for safety but if you look at what they actually did it had nothing to do with safety and a lot to do with covering their own ass and manipulating people. These were not suspicious people but random ordinary citizens they looked at. I think it’s good to at least consider the possibility of the abuse of these powerful technologies. It’s not like people are angels. People are cunts all the time especially when those people have a form of power and authority. I think you should develop these technologies with that in mind so it can’t be abused so easily.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … But you could argue people in power have abused it since the beginning of time I guess. And modern day people get away with it less than at any point in history mainly due to the internet and the way things can spread so fast. I think the targeted ads on soicial media can influence people sure, it definitely does, politicians are all over that shit. But people are dumb as fuck anyway, Hull has always been Labour and always will be because their dads voted labour and their grandads before them. People are sheep with or without the internet.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I agree. People have always been this way and probably always will. Though technology makes things more complicated I think. Give a cunt a rock and he can throw it at you. Give a cunt control over the internet and data and he can all sorts of things to you. “And modern day people get away with it less than at any point in history mainly due to the internet and the way things can spread so fast.” Yeah the internet has great potential for us in that regard. That’s why if I were to be a cunt I’d like to have power over the internet. Luckily for everyone I’m not that big of a cunt but I know there are cunts out there for sure.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … What do you guys think about everything being linked? Like cars for example. In the not too distant future every car will be connected to everything, if you drive into a 30mph zone your car will know and you will not be able to go too fast, and you will not be able to tailgate the car in front like Audi man today, they'll enforce a safe gap between cars. This part I think is fantastic! I wish it were ready and available now. People are saying the police could just switch off your car and you won't have control of it etc, but just like the government checking online for terrorists, I don't see how that is an issue to me.
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … Maybe a solar superstorm will help, in a way, if it takes down the internet that, everyone takes for granted to keep existing forever. https://youtu.be/85-p9EIEVUA
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … "… your car will know and you will not be able to go too fast" — People do not like getting their control taken away, regardless of whether they should have had it in the first place. Because of that reason alone, stupid reasons like laws, politics and lobbyism will prevent such a thing to ever become a worldwide reality.
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … I don't like the idea of my hypothetical car being constantly connected to everything / the internet. Police, government, marketing companies, criminals will be able to track my every move. — Also, something like this is already happening with smartphones. It is *already* a reality. Sure, personal ads aren't a big deal on a surface level, but those have trackers in them. Every site you visit displays an ad, reads the URL you're on and sends that information back to the Facebook data collection cunts (also known as DCCs). Their algorithm learns all about your dating contacts, your purchasing behavior, your political motivation. Then those DCCs sell that data amongst each other to get even more knowledgable about you, and make manipulating you even easier. Before you know it, you can't find the search results for the medicine that your daughter needs, or the worldnews because those immoral profit-driven assholes actively hold back the information from you that you need. — Ugh, I'm ranting myself into an embarrassing situation I feel already ashamed for.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … If you have a smart home you can be hacked. Some early adopters already experienced this and have been terrorised that way by the hacker turning all the systems on at night and filming the residents with the built in camera's in the home. I personally would not like it if smart cities became a thing. We have lampposts somewhere in Dutchland that track the paths people take just because they can. The people introducing the lampposts were already calling some paths or ways of walking “abnormal" or "deviant". I say, let people skip on the grass if they want to without some shady lamppost keeping tabs on their movements. It’s not necessary and it’s creepy. Safety is an illusion I think. Sure, hide knives away from toddlers and regulate some important things but if you let every part of your life be regulated in exchange for a perceived gain in safety, I think you don’t really gain much and lose more than you might think. These systems themselves could also introduce new safety hazards of their own. (Also yet more ways to control people.) In case of a power outage or other problems with the system, all of societal activity crashes too just because you have built a single weak point in your infrastructure. In a perfect world with only good people maybe this kind of technology could be implemented in a good way but I don’t think we live in such a world. I think smart cities are utopian way of thinking. Utopia’s always turn into dystopias when confronted with reality. I say first find a way to feed all the hungry kids in the world then you have already have enough work on your plate. You can think about fancy smart cities later.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I like the idea of smart homes to a point. Being able to set the heating to come on when you're late stuck in a traffic jam is great. Why would you have cameras inside your home though? That's just weird right away. I have CCTV covering all of the outside and garden to stop intruders coming to the house but that's all, I wouldn't dream of installing internal cameras. That kind of thing speaks more about the person installing them then anything else, like perverts, stalkers and control freaks. But the thing is this - criminals have always been around and will never go away. In the old days they used to break into your house when you was asleep so burglar alarms got invented and they just found other ways. You can't hot wire cars now so robbers just got technoligical and scan for the frequency and copy it, it takes 20 seconds to steal any car. People stopped carrying money so cybercrime. You can't fully stop crime and never will. I think a lot of people's worries about loss of control and safety and all that are just people scared of new technology partly, like a grandmother being given a computer for the first time.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … There are legitimate dangers. Even something simple as a smart printer can be hacked to set your house on fire. Connecting things to the internet when it's not necessary is just creating more weak points. You can make your home smart without it being hackable. You can just install everything yourself using sensors and maybe a secure way to "call" your devices if you are into that. Everything being connected to the internet is not necessary. You can have the benefits without the negatives.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … It's like anything I guess, you wouldn't walk in a rough neighbourhood holding a wad of cash. I use Internet banking but I'm really careful, I don't have that app to pay using my phone. And I have my bank cards blocked abroad. And I have an instant text everytime I use my card my bank texts me where and how much. I'd know instantly if somebody used one of those machines to get my card in my pocket. Dumb people still get robbed, but internet banking is massively superior and more convenient. We should be going with the technology just looking for ways to protect ourselves too.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … I like cash though as an addition. I've not been able to buy things many times because of problems with the pin system. Cash saves the day every time. Also a solar flare can't wipe it out. :-P
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Can't lose Internet cash in a fire though :P Nah, I love the Internet as a tool, and I don't have many concerns on safety, I'm mostly cool with it all. I've definitely got no plans to buy a smart oven.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … OK, we ragged the internet to death, we're all aware of the evils now. So let's discuss your favourite parts! I LOVE it when somebody famous interacts with you over social media or Youtube or wherever. At no point in history could you ever interact with them like this, it's really cool. I've had personal replies to comments from a few top bands or band members, I always run to show Claire with my phone like a little kid would run to show their mum lol. Maybe it's because I was born in the 70s when we wrote letters but I like being able to get so close to the people I admire.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … People pay tribute to the interne all day every day. People are always busy with the things they like on the internet. A small moment of reflection is not going to hurt anyone’s “faith” in the internet I think. :-P I dunno…. What do I like. I like that you can find out how to do pretty much any skill if you look hard enough for good instructions. Oh and the “daily dose of internet” channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/DailyDoseOfInternet/videos Daily dose is a good curator of funny/interesting videos. No need to roam the YouTube streets anymore if I want a “quick fix”. “Oblivion npc” video's (for educative purposes naturally). I also like https://wiby.me/ it’s a search engine for old html only based websites (so websites which look old as fuck and are mostly run by random simple people)
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Yeeeees, this is more fun! Good wholesome stuff! Here's my little dose of internet for today, can't get this on MTV cos it's all Kardashians and these guys been dead for over 40 years. Without internet nobody could see things like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GxWmSVv-cY&ab_channel=LynyrdSkynyrdonMV
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Hmm wiby is a cock. I like this search engine
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … Those poor hippies. They had no lipsync or autotune. How ever did they manage? Mmmh... yeah...I guess wibby is a cock. Funny I never noticed and I always notice cocks.
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Saved!KlemoibEditing … Don't type in "penis" in wiby. It's like I found the old internet again.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I had to after you said that
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … Jenna Haze wrote me once on Twitter … 'twas pretty epic … No big deal (›_‹ )
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Saved!WoodrowShigeruEditing … The internet is a great tool to learn languages. Thesaurus, wiktionary.org, even google images can help get a deeper understanding.
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