Ah Love Star Wars

From a Slashdot story on more changes to the later Star Wars movies.

Maury: How did it feel when you saw how much Episode 1 sucked?

Nerd: Ah felt betrayed, and ah felt abused. He abused me like ah was a wet food stamp!

Maury: But you stood in line for weeks to be the first nerd to see Episode 2!

Nerd: [Nods, weeping]

Maury: Well, why do you keep going back to him?

Nerd: Because ah LOVE him! I LOVE George Lucas!

The general connectedness of all things

I have MSN Messenger.

I have email.

I have newsgroups.

I have IRC.

I have SMS.

I have telephones.

If the worst comes to the worst, I can actually talk to someone in person.

I find myself hitting Send-Receive, to see if someone is sending me a message. I say hello to people I don't even want to talk to, so that someone else will pay me some attention. I am never, ever alone, because I was once alone for far, far too long, and it scares me. I don't want to go back to being alone again.

In The High Cost of Living, the main character (who's name I forget, my copy being in Kent) says something along the lines of (the specifics I forget, my copy being in Kent) of "I don't believe in Love. I just thinking peple get lonely and horny and tell themselves it's love."

I don't believe that, because I think love is stronger than even a potent combination of horniness and loneliness, but I do think that loneliness is an incredibly powerful spur. I miss people when I'm not around them. If I come in and there's nobody in, I tend to go out and find someone. With MSN, I feel like I'm always kinda in company - if I'm bored or lonely or whatever I can always start chatting to someone else who's almost certainly just as bored and lonely.

The only time I'm really out of communication is on the train, when I'm down to my mobile and SMS, and even they become dramatically erratic for bits of the track. I'm sure the coverage is going to improve though, and when I saw a review recently for the xda, which uses a packet based communication system to make sure that you're always connected and supports MSN messenger, I realised that we're rapidly approaching a future where you are always in contact, where you're only alone if you deliberately choose to be.

Geographical communities don't suit me terribly well, outside of cities there's not a large enough supply of the people I want to hang out with, and even in cities they tend to be spread out. Virtual ones are a lot easier, because I'm always with the people I want to be with (even if it's not very 'with'). I'm just wondering what the psychological effect is going to be on the kids who grow up always with their friends, who are never alone. What kind of communities will they build, what kind of relationships will they form. How much will they differentiate between the people they can touch and those they can only see and hear.

I really am looking forward to seeing where this all ends up.

Pictures

Various artists produce pictures of literary people, both real and not. Recommended by the fantastic Mr Gaiman.