> While I didn't read the journal or anything, I can understand someone leaving the net. It's really not as vital to everyday life as some would believe. There ARE other things to do, and there ARE other ways to do research even!

At this point, I have to agree. But if there is one thing that even the youngest of us know by experience, it is that society changes quickly. If we weren't around when television first propagated through private homes, we still have a pretty good idea how radically it changed society. Besides the information dispensed by television itself that was a factor, it changed our lifestyles, changed politics, homogenized cultures, broadened horizons, created couch potatoes, and so on. Sure, it was possible to be a functioning member of society without a television for a long time, but it's downright impractical now. It's the only place to get audio-visual news (now that newsreels are gone, and those were never real-time anyway). Household appliances and corporate training programs come with how-to videos. Home movies exchanged in the mail allow grandparents back home to see their grandchildren grow up, even when, as is increasingly the case in an increasingly mobile society, they live thousands of miles away.

I don't think any single thing invented since has had as much impact as television, but the Internet has the potential to be in the long run. In any case, technology is changing faster and faster, and it's changing our lives faster and faster. Even the youngest of us should remember the days before the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, GPS's, digital cable, DVDs, electronic books, and photo CDs.

It's impossible to predict where we will be in ten years, but it's not hard to imagine. Information technologies are combining. Cell phones are starting to become cameras and faxes and email clients. Televisions are starting to become computers, and computers are starting to become televisions. Console gaming systems are becoming DVD players. DVDs come with features you can only access from a computer.

It is either impossible or short-sighted for anyone middle aged or younger to say they will never get on the Internet again. The combination of technology and mainstream culture will make it more and more difficult.

ang may not be back at RinkWorks, but dollars to doughnuts she'll be back on the Internet somehow.

Anyway, as far as ang goes, I wish people would stop acting like she died. She did not die. We go through this every time somebody, for one reason or another, leaves RinkWorks forever, even the ones that have left RinkWorks forever multiple times. Expressions of sentiment and offerings of prayer are perfectly appropriate when parting ways, but refraining from pursuing entire threads of conversation out of respect for the dearly departed is putting nails in the coffin just a bit prematurely, I think.

ang, if you're reading this, know that I always enjoyed your presence here, and I hope someday you change your mind, or circumstances change to permit you to. Leen will miss you as well. Luck to you.