I just had the humiliating experience of being dumped via email. I’d been seeing the guy for three months. Just days before, we had a romantic date and he kept saying things like “We’re so good together” and was very lovey-dovey. In the email, he said he realized that we aren’t compatible because I’m too […]
Internet
Posted inOpinion
Telling good from bad
“Everything’s on the Web.” It’s laughably untrue, but there is still too much stuff for most of us to make sense of. Thus the debate now raging on the Internet – by which I mean a lot of people are talking out loud to themselves – about the rise of the online curator. Curators are […]
Posted inOpinion
Superfast road to the future
James Krohe Jr. In “Unplugged” (March 28, 2013) I wondered aloud about why Illinois’ internet service is so backward. Certainly one of the factors is the near-monopoly of such service enjoyed by the big telecommunications firms. It’s an interesting topic about which more might be said. Is the solution more competition to bring down prices […]
Posted inOpinion
Unplugged
We all live in a brave new world, but the future is happening sooner in some places than in others. As you might expect, the planet is home to many nations where connections to the Internet, the highway to that future, are slow or costly compared to the advanced nations, if they are available at […]
Posted inArts & Culture
babblepoem #1
you word lovers out there have youdiscovered babble on the net it’s freefor a bit then continues so withoutstats to help but life membership ispeanuts it’s a combo boggle-scrabble new grid daily it’s challenging but here’s what’s most fascinating the babblechat bar where clever clues are given babblers greet old friends welcome new pepper gridbabble […]
Posted inNews
Springfield small business owner lobbies in Washington, D.C.
If there’s a stereotype of a men’s clothing salesperson, Brandi Tolley of Springfield isn’t it. A work-from-home single mother and a military veteran, Tolley started her online eBay-based business about 10 years ago, and she quickly found her niche: buying and selling “big and tall” men’s clothes, sometimes even acting as a personal shopper for […]
Posted inOpinion
Accidental sagacity
I was looking up something else on the web a couple of months ago when I ran across a reminiscence by the veteran Tribune writer Ron Grossman. “Like Columbus, I’d start with a destination in mind but wind up someplace else,” he recalled about his boyhood explorations of the family encyclopedia. “‘Pericles,’ the Athenian statesman, […]
Posted inNews
Springfield businesses say Illinois’ Amazon Tax not enough
It’s a battle already decided in Illinois, but the winners say they are still suffering. Now they’re preparing for a renewed fight in Washington, D.C. At issue is whether Internet retailers like Amazon.com, Inc. should have to collect state and local sales taxes. Illinois’ own “Amazon Tax” took effect in March 2011, but some Springfield […]
Posted inNews
Springfield blogger cleared of electronic harassment charges
The pen is mighty, says Scott Humphrey of Springfield, but he’ll be more cautious when he uses it from now on. The 58-year-old construction worker and blogger learned that lesson after his recent acquittal on charges of making threats on the Internet. Humphrey’s case is among the first local tests of a 2008 Illinois law […]
Posted inNews
Telecom law revamp needed
Illinois telecommunication laws need a rewrite, technology providers say. Outdated legislation means the state is losing jobs and business growth, members of the telecom community told the House’s Bipartisan Job Creation Task Force at an April 14 meeting. The state’s telecommunications laws haven’t changed since 2001, when land lines were prevalent and high-speed Internet access […]
Posted inNews
Blogger busted
On April 2, Scott Humphrey was visiting his next-door neighbor Sandy when she looked out her kitchen window and noticed that an unfamiliar man and woman were standing on his front porch. Humphrey stepped outside and called across the yard to them, and the man replied that they had been looking for him. When Humphrey […]
