What's your favorite thing about the internet now that most of us have had it for 10 or more years..

[WCGreen]

To me it is watching the weather radar in real time dropped over a map so you can literally see where around you the weather is happening and can track it to see if you are in the thick of things...

That's cool.

So what everyday thing changed for you since you first heard that modem connect you to AOL...

[antiquie]

1. Quake monitoring.

Look it was a quake -- 1.9 right under my feet.
(See, I was right.)

[WCGreen]

2. I am always checking the weather...

I have become my father...

[laundry_queen]

64. LOL!

Me too! We are weather obsessed. We are both news obsessed too.

Except instead of spending all evening watching the news on TV and ignoring the kids like he did, I spend it looking around DU all evening (and only kind of ignoring my kids).

[zen_bohemian]

44. I am always looking at the real-time quake map

I didn't realize just how many quakes there are in a day on this big ball.....

[HopeHoops]

3. Porn downloads faster now.

- come on. You KNEW someone was going to post that.

[sharp_stick]

12. Not someone

somehow I knew it was going to be you.

[HopeHoops]

13. Who ME?

[loli phabay]

16. plus a brazilian

[Locut0s]

29. People still download porn? i thought it was all streaming now. nt

[HopeHoops]

30. No clue. Those were my floppy drive days.

[Firebirds01]

45. Those were my floppy drive days.

They have a pill for that now.

[HopeHoops]

49. Well, fortunately that drive isn't floppy.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Here's a link to my favorite weather radar:

http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php

I can check all over the country and it's cool to look at too...

[GeorgeGist]

82. Thanks Peggy ...

that's very cool.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

5. You Tube

so's I can listen to EVERYTHING, if I want to............ like this

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. Cornography

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[marzipanni]

43. LOL!

It took me a second to notice.

[Aristus]

7. Online flirting.

I know, I'm a terrible human being...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. You are NOT a terrible human being, my dear Aristus!

Besides, both you and WCGreen have done your share of online flirting...

[Aristus]

10. That's for sure.

Edited to add: I never flirted with WCGreen!...

[WCGreen]

23. Neither did I....

[Baitball Blogger]

9. wiki movie plots.

I don't like to be kept in suspense.

[Wait Wut]

11. On the spot fact checking.

It comes in handy when you live in Arizona. The look of fear that comes over a Republican friends face when I say, "Honey, let me borrow your iPhone a sec." Priceless.

[MiddleFingerMom]

15. !!!

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[laundry_queen]

66. LOL! I do that to my parents all the time.

Growing up, my dad was ALWAYS right, even when he wasn't. Now with instant fact check, he doesn't argue with me as much anymore (yes, he's a conservative, are you shocked?)

[Wait Wut]

69. Damn, I wish I had the internet growing up.

My father wasn't dumb, but he was friggin' stubborn. A Democrat, though.

[begin_within]

14. Meeting people

[loli phabay]

17. worst thing is google instant experts

You know the person who just because they can google suddenly sets themselves up as annexpert in everything out there and they never tire of trying to show they are the smartest person around.

[NightWatcher]

18. Instant access to information and worldwide communication

Who was that guy in the movie with....? Boom, look it up on the smartphone in less than a minute. I like having instant access to facts and information where before you had to find a book or ask someone who you hoped would know the answer.

Also, I like to keep up with friends/family who have scattered all over the country or world. Plus I used to stay in touch when I was on ships in the middle of the Gulf just like they were in the next room.

[RebelOne]

21. You read my mind. That was my first thought.

I love having information and news at my fingertips.

[shanti]

32. yes, exactly!

it's like having the library at my fingertips. i am never bored with my 'net. there's always something to read for this inveterate bookworm!

[Phentex]

19. No more phonebooks - HOORAY!

Now you can find out where the place is, what time they are open, names/email of people you need to reach...etc.

That's been a huge time saver for me.

[Scuba]

20. DU.

[LiberalLovinLug]

22. Instant product consumer reviews

Whenever I am going to purchase a product whether it be a hard drive or a car its so easy to find multiple sources of opinions to help me decide.

Same goes for movies. Rotten Tomatoes rules!

[Moondog]

24. Elimination of the need to maintain massive

hard copy reference libraries that are kept up to date. Did a bit of pro bono work recently, and it came in very handy to be able to do the basic research online from home, and not have to travel some distance, or hit up a local private law firm with a decent library for a favor. One never knows what the quid pro quo will be, after all.

On the everyday side of things - yeah, real time weather radar is a pretty big deal here in hurricane country.

On the fun side - my favorite comic strips, not carried in the local rag, are just a mouse click away.

[alarimer]

25. The fact that I can look up anything at anytime that I might need to know.

Or want to know. Like IMDB for identifying the names of actors in films or TV.

Indulging my crush. Photos, articles, TV appearances, whatever. It is a bit unhealthy, but still fun.

Twitter, especially during the debates; it was hilarious. I love it, even though I don't say much or have many followers. I use it for entertainment purposes.

[kwassa]

26. Meeting my wife-to-be 18 years ago on Usenet.

Just as the web was being invented by Al Gore.

[WCGreen]

38. Cool....

[dimbear]

27. Buying really obscure things you would never find otherwise.

World's biggest fleamarket.

[Locut0s]

28. Collaborative web sites like wikipedia, crowed sourced projects like kickstarter and microloans,...

And Google and their pettabytes upon pettabytes of free data and online tools.

[sanatanadharma]

31. Cool would be a spherical flat screen technology...

...globe (two flat screen hemi-sheres actually) where so many computer driven over-layers including the weather could be projected.

I like Google Earth and street view tourism.

[Bertha Venation]

42. Wow.

What a great idea.

[WCGreen]

51. I walked around Rome.....

[avebury]

33. Information Instant Gratification

I like being able to look something up in an instant whether it be checking out a book, news story, politics, or just researching whatever tickles my fancy. I am a multi-tasker at heart and I love being able to watch a political date while keeping an eye on comments on FaceBook, Twitter and DU.

[Flaxbee]

58. yes, I agree

I don't remember what it was like before I could access information instantly. Frustrating, I'm sure.

[AsahinaKimi]

34. I M V U

[Neoma]

41. I liked messing with air heads on there.

Got boring after awhile.

[nolabear]

35. Shopping! And endless cocktail conversation.

Not that I love shopping. I hate shopping. Which makes it all the more pleasant to have things arrive at my house.

And from Day 1, on Prodigy, some 20 years back, I got a kick out of being able to dip into forums like DU and have it be like walking into a rolling, endless cocktail party where people trot out their best lines and act silly and share fun bs and confess their hopes and fears and get all sloppy and engage in virtual singalongs.

Yes, I love access to info. DAMN I love access to info. But the fun part is the conversation. And the shopping.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

37. I LOVE the conversations too, my dear nolabear!

And DU has the best ones.

[Nye Bevan]

36. NO MORE TRIPS TO THE MALL.

Duh.

[WCGreen]

39. Seriously....

I do like to go to the B&N just to browse but I order a lot of stuff off the internet...

[BarbaRosa]

40. Google maps satelite

So many cool things out there. Places I have lived, racetracks, trip planing, natural and man made stuff, and so on.

ie: I was surprised to see the great pyramids are right at edge of town, I always imagined they were in the middle of the desert.

[Firebirds01]

46. JSTOR

and any other method to get real time and accurate info

[Iggo]

47. YouTube.

It's what television should have been.

[zen_bohemian]

48. LOL urban dictionary

whenever a younger person says a word or phrase I am not familiar with, I consult the urban dictionary so I know what they are talking about

[WCGreen]

50. True Dat..

From one old fart to another... WORD!

[zen_bohemian]

53. WORD!! LOLOL

[WCGreen]

52. There is Zillow as well so you can really see how much people you know paid for their house....

[Rambis]

54. I can climb virtual 14ers with Paul Ryan

If I ever get to do a real 14er with him well....

[GoCubsGo]

55. Live TV.

One can watch TV on one's computer now. I love the live radio streams, too. I love that I can get TV and radio from just about anywhere in the world. Pretty cool. So is live weather radar.

[mykpart]

56. I don't have to speak to people on the phone.

All information can be relayed by email.

[Media Lies]

57. I like everything about the internets...

especially the little information packets AT&T decides to unwrap like Christmas presents and slow them down.

[progressoid]

59. Finding new music.

And old music.

[Arugula Latte]

70. That's right up there on my list, too.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

60. Seeing phenomenal musicians' performances on youtube

Last edited Wed Oct 24, 2012, 11:59 PM - Edit history (2)

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[jonpaulprime]

61. It has the potential to change the world

but weren't not quite there just yet....

[vanlassie]

62. FaceTime. Talking to my daughter in London while I walk around the house in California.

Unbelievable. I'm so grateful. When I think of all the mothers who had to say goodby to children they might never see again or only get a letter once a year... This is a truly amazing gift.

[WCGreen]

63. That's really cool....

The internet makes the geographic distance in this world a little less daunting and just a little closer. And it saves energy by cutting down just a bit by taking a few people off the planes...

[vanlassie]

67. Remember when a long distance call was so expensive that we tried to keep it to three minutes?

[Art_from_Ark]

68. That reminded me of an old Dr. Hook song

"And the operator said, '40 cents more, for the next...3...minutes...'"

[WCGreen]

73. Slyvia's mother...

Great song...

We would around stoned off our minds and when this song came on we would all start singing and good old Clay would start in to cryingby the end of the song.

[laundry_queen]

65. Favorite thing: stormchasing streams.

I've always wanted to be a tornado chaser. Now I can, kind of, thanks to the internet

[Arugula Latte]

71. Come on, Loungers. Obviously the only correct answer is ... KITTY VIDEOS!

That's why Al Gore invented the Internets, ya know!

[okwlc21]

72. Slash FanFiction ;)

[Habibi]

74. Scaring the shit outta myself

looking up all my symptoms.

[WCGreen]

79. That's classic....

[Arkansas Granny]

75. I love the amount of information that's available.

You can answer almost any question by searching online.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

76. Being able to look up damn near anything.

[Art_from_Ark]

77. I like YouTube

especially checking out videos that I remembered, or may have missed, from the '60s.

Until Bagdasarian Productions had them removed ( ) I particularly liked the clips from the old Alvin Show, because they took me back to my very earliest memories and helped me understand why I did some of the things I did as a kid (I was imitating things I saw in the cartoon). They also helped me place some of the fragments of memories in my mind (like Alvin enticing a bull to run into a china shop, and the chipmunks playing with a wrecking ball).

[csziggy]

78. Being able to interact with people without actually having to

Meet or know people. Yeah, I like being alone but I love online forums where I can read other people's opinions and experiences and share some of mine. I hate having to actually be WITH other people and spend time in groups, though.

I predate AOL by quite a bit though. My first modem was a 300 baud and the conduit to the internet was through the state library. By looking for things to request through interlibrary loans you could get to library catalogs all over the place. Somehow once day we (husband and I) managed to connect to the University of Macao library and rummaged around their catalog for a long time. Most of the time was waiting for the page to refresh, even if it was just green text on a black screen.

300 baud is very, very, very slow.

[zanana1]

80. I'm a lot less interested in it now. nt

[luv_mykatz]

81. Live weather, especially visible water vapor pics via satellite.

I love to be instantly up in space, looking down on the clouds. Oh, and cameras for the river bars on the coast and also into one of our local volcanoes.

I love youtube for all the great music from the '60's and early '70's. I like being able to find out who the group/artist was that performed those songs...often the DJ's back then either didn't announce who the group/artist was, or they said it so quick I couldn't catch who it was.

A new thing I love: Pinterest. I can pin information about all kinds of stuff on an on-line board, which saves me bundles of $ I would otherwise have to come up with for printer ink.

I also like on-line shopping. Can't afford to do very much of it, but I love to have things come in the mail besides bills! And I hate to go out to shop...love having stuff come to my home.

And all the rest of the things everyone else has posted: DU , Google; browsing and reserving books at my local branch of the county library and then getting email when the books/CD's/whatever is ready for pick-up; researching everything watching old cartoons or movie clips; watching clips from Stephen Colbert or Rachel Maddow; emails or chats with absent friends and family, and reading posts from like-minded people. I love DU, and I love the internet.