I’ve looked at prefab type housing from time to time – I don’t have the skills to build from scratch but I can follow directions and use basic hand tools – I look at http://www.yurts.com and think about a much simpler lifestyle away from the big city – and then I remember kids and family and work etc … and life goes on
many aspects of human communication are visual – body language, facial expressions – there’s also the audio aspects of communication like inflection, pauses, rate of speech – all of this is lost in this blog – all we have is the written word to communicate with
the bantering that you refer to allows us to use all aspects of communication and it also allows for quick exchange of ideas – it is sort of like mental sparring and like you, I enjoy it and I might say things just to get a rise out of somebody (if you don’t want someone to get your goat, don’t tell them where it is tied!) – the written word results in slower and more cumbersome communication – ideas that might be explored in depth during a hallway conversation with the guys get lost on the blog because it is hard to put words down in print
and if it wasn’t hard enough to put our thoughts into written words, we have to worry about having our ideas trashed as well as being the butt of ridicule and scorn – I have a perception that some people would post more (or post for the first time) if we could lessen the fear of being trashed and made fun of – that is what I am working on for myself – being slower to pounce but still having an expectation that data is required and that new ideas are easier to read when they are presented as “IMO” or “it appears to me”, “in my experience”, etc
as Chris Scoreboar said recently, we come here looking for new / different ideas so it benefits us to encourage as many viewpoints as possible
