What has the Internet meant to you?

[marketeye]

Agriculture.com is celebrating 25 years, this year. We would like to ask what has the Internet meant to you? More specifically, what has it meant to your farm operation?”

Thanks,

Mike

[Hobbyfarmer]

Means finding these little teasers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-30/want-to-move-to-south-america-uruguay-may-have-a-...

[Hobbyfarmer]

They raise corn beans and cattle also

Have been eating "angus" branded beef last 10ish days.

Very fine print on packages says product of Uruguay.

Hamburges have been good and steaks tender.

[sw363535]

Did you have to declare a political preference or would they have known it  by your choice of a politically incorrect main course?  

Like here in the third world where we have been accepting large investments of foreign nationals to buy citizenship for an investment in business for decades.  We are way ahead in third world membership.  Funny that Mr Bloomberg's messenger left the US out of that list.

[Hobbyfarmer]

Technology means i cN sit here on the veranda of my overwater bungalow while on break from getting wet and post and talk to people 13 flight hrs and on the otherside of the equator.

Watch the markets deteriorating all the while watching the most beatiful blue waters lap against the sand beach behind me.

Ice cubes dont survive long here, snow flakes...only in pictures from home...

Aquired all this with just a few touches on a tablet and an eletronic transfer of some didgal didgets.

[BA Deere]

[k-289]

Leaves  me  wondering  ,  IF,    Nick  &  Charlie  Mathis  cartoon  of   Dick  Tracey's  wristwatch  had  a  solid  patent  infringement  clause  - ?     

[BA Deere]

25 years ago the mailbox was full of farm magazines, some of them I paid a subscription even.  I`d get the little cards to renew where I`d answer "over 10,000 acres, 5,000 acres of corn, 5,000 acres of beans, 1,000 acres of hay, 50,000 hogs fed annually"  between the FSA office and filling out free magazine subscriptions all the lying I`ve had to do, I most certainly will be shoveling coal one day  🙂   Now with the internet we don`t have all those magazines to recycle. 

What`s handy is if I need a belt on the combine I can call from the field and the dealer says "we can get one tomorrow or it says there`s one at Hampton if you want to drive over there".   And texting, that way you have a record of what you need right there, to find a ad on Craigs List you drop a pin and go right to their place.    None of that "south of town about 3 miles turn left at the old tree stump, then go north and I`m the 3rd place on your right past where the old corn crib stood....you can`t miss it...unless you come in on highway 30 from the east....."   🙂

[sw363535]

The obvious stuff like great spreadsheets, emailing documents so I don't have to drive hours to see my cpa friends.  The ability to watch every mlb game at a reasonable cost like each one is the world series.  A picture of everything.  All creatures great and small.  Everything is special yet nothing is special when there is so much of it.

Vacationing in Iowa  with friends you don't know, when Mike says, "lets have a get together".  How weird is that?  Looking forward to meeting friends who have fake names, that seem to be good friends.  Yet I protect their anonymity..........like they're bank robbers or congressional witnesses.....  Then become real friends and take you to far places.  Yet you can never trust technology.  Because it has no moral basis...... it fits every potential purpose, Good or bad. Has no respect.

Technology takes you there........ or pins you in a corner at home when 50 friends you don't trust sinks in.  You miss 6 good friends that you share all with ------Miss the seclusion(closeness to God) of fighting mother nature with his help.  Tech. puts the world looking in on you.... on your shoulder...... on your back.

Tech enhances our best and our worst.  Enhances our vision of everything.  Steals our ability to "gloss" or "repaint" that vision.

Tech distorts language, takes over lives like a drug addiction, a drug sucked in through the eyes with your grandkids picture on it,,,,,,, withdrawal is maddening.  Seeing young females with children in the back spaced out by a cellphone addiction talking to no-one ........at any speed.  The zombies at the store talking endlessly  like congress needs their opinions.  Distorted, meaningless language that never stops.  .............. If we can control this drug it has boundless limitations.  If we can't it will render life meaningless at one missed stoplight.  

But when harnessed the internet is amazing as hobby points out in the example of skipping through times limitations.

We are on the edge of discovery or the abyss (that may be real or just mental).  

Farm operation,     it balloons endless costs and makes our time more efficient. Makes us think we can do things we shouldn't or maybe can.............. makes it possible for everyone, big or small, to mentally overload trying to maximize potential.  Now everyone can be an overworked mogul even if he doesn't own the truck he's driving.

Efficient managers harness it, the rest of us don't.  And the difference is the abyss. 

[lsc76cat]

Ease of access to info is a 2 edged sword but what I like is the ability to go closer to

the source of actual news and cut thru some of the media filters.

Recent example is the fire news out of Australia.  Internet provided the abiltiy

to go direct to local news.  We need that ability to "filter" for ourselves.

We can establish/maintain contacts with real people all over the world.

Tech also gave me one of the greatest laughs of my life last summer.

Wife and I took our 4 youngest grandsons on vacation to Duluth and the

Norwegian Riviera (North Shore of Lake Superior).  On our way back south we took them

fishing at my sisters place in Wisconsin.  Our oldest son had bought a wristwatch for his

9 year old son so he could call dad and talk to him about the trip.  After they finished fishing

off the dock and we were walking back to the house the 3 year old (daughter's boy) pretended to

talk on his watch and told daddy all about the fish he caught. 

There is no substitute for that kind of entertainment.