Leaderboard

I like trains.

omgye. Reminds me of popping carrots and/or parsnip in an oven with a chunk of butter and honey, syrup or brown sugar. I'd just take a dump or something, like reading CaNz stuff, and I'd come back and have awesome.

I actually meant Brazil and Mitch more than anyone else, but I guess I could see you post shirtless pics to make a point.

Haha, sorry, CaNz, it seems like your thread has been hijacked. Who knew the topic that could draw the most posts is a discussion about why nobody posts anymore, eh? =P Anyway, James touched on (and Shy and TrollBoo expanded on them a little) essentially everything I was thinking about, but I think everyone keeps missing another major point. I totally agree that social media was and is a huge factor in the decline of message boards in general, mostly because it caters to the quick, stream-of-consciousness style postings that, let's be honest, don't require a whole lot of effort input for a whole lot of potential positive feedback. Of course, this is me speaking from my vast, extensive knowledge of .... uh ... three separate message boards, so, you know, take that as you will. Mostly I just couldn't get into any others, to be honest. Ironically, it was that "excessive" quality of effort that drew me in here, since I found an outlet for more straightforward, thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions with people who actually understood their opinions. I still think James and I could get into a fairly good debate if we set our minds to it, haha. I think it was a rarity for us to ever agree on anything, and I definitely remember nitpicking the crap out of him on just, you know, a regular basis, but I could always count on him to make stellar points. Usually. Heh. I've also noticed that, as I've bopped around the internet, I really haven't seen any other boards with as pleasant a design as OB. I still half-consciously judge boards I look at against this one. We've gone through, what, five different iterations, and that's just since I started lurking back in Fall '07. I didn't even join until '08, I don't think. But the point I think people miss is that we all just grew up. College took some of us away, but really the workforce took the rest of us, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed "man, I can get so much more done when I'm not sitting there glued to my F5 key waiting for someone to respond to my post". Being a student in the Navy for two years and a nonqual for the last year has usually left me with around three to four hours of free time per day, including transit to and from base, shopping for stuff, and, you know, general life necessities other than goofing off, which was much easier to do in college when I had a cafeteria and a living space I didn't have to pay for. That, or families. It's not exactly simple raising a kid and maintaining a highly active internet social life. I'm pretty sure that's where Indi went to, and I think a few others hit that milestone as well. I think this really applies to me, to be honest. It wasn't always intentional, but I can't deny I have a tendency to deliver certain of my points in a stark, brutal fashion.

I think that trains are generally a good idea. Here in Australia, there has been a big push for a long time to build a high-speed rail line that would run along the east coast, from Melbourne to Brisbane. Apparently the flight corridor between Melbourne and Sydney is the busiest in the world; I can believe that. We have large numbers of people who need to travel between cities, but our continent is very large, and our major cities are very far from each other.   The problem has been that building a high-speed rail of that scale in Australia is astronomically expensive. So, that has really restricted governments in the past...who knows what will happen in the future.   But I don't think trains can outright replace aircraft, at least for a lot of things (especially overseas travel). But in cases where you're doing, say, only a one hour flight somewhere...then a high-speed train might be a better choice.   I also have some hope for the really advanced planes that various groups are researching at the moment. There's a plane concept (I forget the name), which involves very high-altitude flight and would apparently result in a Sydney to London flight of something like 4-6 hours (versus... maybe 24 hours at the moment!)   I think those are the kinds of technologies we should look at (unless someone invents teleportation...) ^_^