{"id":1759,"date":"2011-12-01T23:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T23:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tom-nan.com\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2011-12-01T23:16:31","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T23:16:31","slug":"revisiting-the-internet-bah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/01\/revisiting-the-internet-bah\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting “The Internet? Bah!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently ran across an article from the February 25th 1995 issue of Newsweek (http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/newsweek\/1995\/02\/26\/the-internet-bah.html<\/a>) written by Clifford Stoll entitled \u201cThe Internet? Bah!<\/em>\u201d.  In it he asks \u201cDo our computer pundits lack all common sense?\u201d and states that online databases won\u2019t replace our daily newspaper that CD-ROMs can\u2019t take the place of a competent teacher and that computer networks won\u2019t change the way government works\u2026<\/p>\n

Funny thing is that he\u2019s dead wrong. Many daily newspapers have resorted to putting their news online, you can read for a fee, or sometimes you can go to sites that have it up for free\u2026 Yahoo News, CNN, and many other places put it up for free. Computer based training supplements competent teachers now, there are many colleges that offer courses online where you do the same work as you would when attending classroom based instruction, except that you have to be more motivated to not procrastinate your work. Finally, government has moved many (not all) functions online, You can eFile your tax return.  If you\u2019re unemployed, you apply online, most interaction with the Social Security Administration is accomplished online\u2026 the list goes on\u2026<\/p>\n

Stoll complains about how \u201cword gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers\u201d, about electronic publishing and how the \u201cmyopic glow of a clunky computer\u201d is unpleasant compared to the \u201cfriendly pages of a book\u201d.  Funny thing is that Mr. Stoll didn\u2019t take into account advances in technology; we now have sleek elegant e-readers like the Nook, the Kindle and the iPad. In 1995 he doubts \u201cwe’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet.\u201d He couldn\u2019t be further from the truth\u2026<\/p>\n

Another complaint is about how the \u201cInternet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data\u201d.  Enter Google\u2026 Mr. Stoll was writing about things as they were in February 1995.  The Internet was a fledgling network with only about 5.8 million machines hooked to it\u2026 Today we\u2019re rapidly approaching the exhaustion of nearly 4.2 billion IPv4 addresses.  In 1995 we didn\u2019t have Google to filter, index and catalog it.<\/p>\n

Mr. Stoll complains that \u201cWhat’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact\u201d. Now we have Facebook\u2026 Instead of telephones, families and friends keep in contact with each other from across town, across the state, across the country or around the world. Today, many people use the Internet to remain in touch on his \u201celectronic wonderland\u201d of the so-called information superhighway.<\/p>\n

My opinion is that Mr. Stoll didn\u2019t take innovation and invention into account. He could not possibly have seen Google, or Facebook,  He couldn\u2019t have seen the potential for video on demand through YouTube.  He couldn\u2019t have seen smartphones, digital cameras or any of the other advances in technology that we now take for granted.<\/p>\n

So where will we be in another  16 years? I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ve always been an early adopter and in the words of Timbuk 3, \u201cThe Futures So Bright\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently ran across an article from the February 25th 1995 issue of Newsweek (http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/newsweek\/1995\/02\/26\/the-internet-bah.html) written by Clifford Stoll entitled \u201cThe Internet? Bah!\u201d.  In it he asks \u201cDo our computer pundits lack all common sense?\u201d and states that online databases won\u2019t replace our daily newspaper that CD-ROMs can\u2019t take the place of a competent teacher … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-stuff","category-technology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom-nan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}