Good riddance, Internet Explorer!

Catweazle

@Priest72 , curious with Germany, a name that designates them almost as savages German is translated Men with Spear, In German Germany is Deutschland, and Alemania in Spanish.The latter on the other hand may be funny to the British

jamesbeardmore

@JohnConnorBear said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

The Internet is becoming IoT and moving away from Internet of people, because people must live inside a fence and do only some things decided from above and do things only through the provided gates.

^^Nice summary of what's going wrong with the net. Companies want everyone to be passive consumers of content, rather than to have any meaningful participation. Even social media "influencers" can only express themselves in certain prescribed ways, via certain prescribed channels. which are naturally subject to their censorship (whether direct, or indirect via demoted search results). It's becoming increasingly difficult to be the master of your own devices, because every manufacturer is trying to trap you in their walled garden, with their narrow set of apps for permissible use-cases... and simultaneously they make it just that little bit inconvenient (or impossible) to interact fully and efficiently with other "ecosystems" (vendor lock-in).

For example... As a Linux user, I have no trouble sharing documents with Mac users, whereas we both know if we give the document to a Microsoft user, MS-Office will save a broken copy of the document. Then there's other restrictions, e.g. To block spyware on your cell phone, you have to root it (or install a custom ROM), which is difficult (impossible for some phones) and voids your warranty, because many manufacturers provide no means for uninstalling spyware such as bundled social network apps or games, and no means for blocking connections to spyware hosts via a hosts file.

The net is supposed for be connecting humans, and computers are supposed to serve us. Either you are in control of your devices, or the device manufacturer is in control of you.

Unfortunately people are now being conditioned. Often, people are not even aware that there are other options than the ones Google and friends set out for you. If isn't meaningful choice, if the options are carefully crafted to direct you towards the ones that the technology provider wants. As an example, when I last visited a foregn city, someone searched their phone for nearby bars. The list that came up was instinctively believed to be "all the nearby bars" by everyone but me. I wandered off to have a bit of an explore, and found a much better one that clearly just hadn't paid Google enough money for adverts...

jamesbeardmore

@Priest72 I think some people without an ear for it can't tell the difference between various British accents. Being a filthy heathen northerner, my accent is very far from the 1950s BBC "RP" accent, but my Spanish friends tell me I sound like "the guy Charles from the language tapes we had at school". Even Americans sometimes think I'm Irish or Australian.

I can speak a little German, but I can't tell the accents apart. I can normally tell if I'm speaking to an Austrian or a Swiss person, because I can't understand a single thing they say, but that's about as far as the distinction goes for me! I guess non-native English speakers probably have the same level of granularity in their understanding of "British accent". We probably all sound the same, apart from the Brummies, Scousers and Geordies who speak some sort of unintelligible alien-speak! (To be fair, that's how the rest of Britain probably sees them too )!

jamesbeardmore

@Catweazle or would "man with spear" simply refer to the general warrior-culture? Rather than the name meaning "the savages", it might just mean "the warriors" / "the fighting-men"?

Another thought might be along the similar lines to the Vikings/Russians being referred to as "Rus", or the "rowing men" because of their explorations. Perhaps one of the Teutonic tribes favoured spears as weapons? So were known as the "spear people" rather than the "sword people" or "axe people"? Or perhaps they were referred to as the "spear people" because their chief God (Odin/Woden) famously possessed a magical spear.

Wikipedia seems a little sparse on the origin of the name "Germany" or "Germania", although a passing reference suggests it is a Gaulish (Celtic) term meaning either "our neighbours" or "noisy/shouting".

So maybe we are literally just calling you our "noisy neighbours"! I think I like that explanation best, given that the connotations of "neighbour" are friendly and positive, and your country has produced the likes of Rammstein and The Scorpions. Please continue making that sort of noise!

Catweazle

@jamesbeardmore , Ger is an old german word for Spear and man, well, man.
It is only curious that the drastic change of the name in different countries for Germany, while that of the other countries the designation only has small variations in different languages.

Priest72

@Catweazle Historically we english have a closer relationship with germany then perhaps other nations.Very unfortunate we took up arms twice against them.
our royalty has german ties.Literature and other things.

Catweazle

@Priest72 , well, humans have always had the urge to stamp pointy things on each other's guts, throughout history.

Priest72

@Catweazle sadly true and we still do not learn from it.

Catweazle

@Priest72 , the human is the only animal that does not trip over the same stone twice, but 50 times.

mossman

@JohnConnorBear said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

@mossman
As englishman you probably know english much better than me. But I strongly doubt you are fully aware of the cultural colonization Europe is experiencing and the two examples you made, "music" and "TV shows" are perfect.

Well thanks for a) talking down to me, b) making incorrect assumptions about my knowledge and c) taking the point I made ("a question of" is valid English) and making it about something completely different.

If you must be so condescending, I would suggest you note that I said I lived in France and the Netherlands. With 25 years of being an immigrant you can't lecture me about cultural differences - I've lived my life around them (friends with people from all over the world). Furthermore, while my conversational French (with genders) is merely passable, I'm fluent in Dutch - which happens to have THREE genders. You don't know about anyone's background on a forum and you shouldn't make such baseless assumptions about them.

mossman

@jamesbeardmore said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

@Priest72 I think some people without an ear for it can't tell the difference between various British accents. Being a filthy heathen northerner, my accent is very far from the 1950s BBC "RP" accent, but my Spanish friends tell me I sound like "the guy Charles from the language tapes we had at school". Even Americans sometimes think I'm Irish or Australian.

I'm from the South of England - used to happen to me too (even though I really softened my "sahf inglund" accent to something like BBC when I first moved abroad). Despite this, when my wife first met me she still asked why - if I'm English - didn't I sound English ("like Hugh Grant")?

We probably all sound the same, apart from the Brummies, Scousers and Geordies who speak some sort of unintelligible alien-speak! (To be fair, that's how the rest of Britain probably sees them too )!

Using my wife as a touchstone again - she absolutely notices the regional accents (she used to hate them "why can't they talk properly like Hugh Grant", etc. ) - now having lived in the UK a while, she hates the American accent (though she used to have a twang herself) and prefers the various milder local accents on TV. She has trouble with the stronger ones, and somehow always gets Irish and Scottish accents the wrong way round!

Priest72

we english don't all walk around with pin stripe suits and bowler hats you know.

Steffie

@jamesbeardmore said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

Even Americans sometimes think I'm ... Australian

Oi! Fair suck of the sav, cobber. Don't you go coming the raw prawn with us, otherwise you'll wind up finding yerself flat out as a lizard drinking. Stone the ruddy crows! Time ter get a bit fair dinkum, mate.

Priest72

@Steffie In the 70s as a child i nearly became what is known as a £10 pommie...a tenner to be resettled in australia..

Steffie

@Priest72 Thank your very lucky stars you avoided it. So many of those poor kids were victimised badly, in all the ways you might imagine that term to imply. People are monsters.

Priest72

@Steffie I don't know,i think australia is a great nation.wish my folks had taken the plunge..literally begging for poms to resettle in oz during the 70s.

Steffie

@Priest72 Oh i see, sorry i misunderstood stupidly. If your whole family had come, you'd have been fine & safe. I was alluding to the poor kids who were sent out here alone, no parents/family.

@Priest72 said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

australia is a great nation

Apart from the ghastly anti-science flat-earth fossil-fool pinstriped-suit xenophobic misogynistic fascists in charge atm. Yeah, we're ok, otherwise...

Pathduck

@Priest72 said in Good riddance, Internet Explorer!:

wish my folks had taken the plunge..

Imagine, this could've been you!

alt text

Steffie

@Pathduck Yeah, we all look like that... especially as we browse the interwebz on our IE4.

Priest72

@Pathduck wow i could of been a star in neighbours or home and away lol