Tag Archives: interweb
Credit where credit is due, both the major ideas in this post come from Fareed Zakaria on his CNN Sunday program, GPS. If you follow TV news at all, you know Sunday mornings have such long-running standards as Meet the Press (on NBC since 1947!) and Face the Nation (on CBS since 1954). (Or was it Meet the Nation and Face the Press?)
Zakaria is one of the good ones: very intelligent, highly educated, calm and measured. He’s well worth listening to. (I’ve realized one attraction to TV news is the chance to — at least sometimes — hear educated, intelligent talk. It’s a nice respite from most TV entertainment.)
Two things on Zakaria’s last episode really rang a bell with me.
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23 Comments | tags: AI, computer code, digital computer, DNA, electrons, Face the Nation, Fareed Zarkaria, fire, genetic code, genetics, internet, interweb, language, mechanical physics, Meet the Press, printing press, quantum physics, robotics | posted in Science, The Interweb, TV
Last week Vinton “Vint” Cerf was the guest on The Colbert Report. The elegant Mr. Cerf is one of the two acknowledged fathers of the internet (the other is Bob Kahn). Among other things, those two invented the TCP/IP protocol that allows all internet communication.
Briefly, the need to connect different computers together goes back to the 1960s. Researchers in the 1970s sought to create a network for government (especially military) and academic computing (the ARPANET). The 1980s saw the birth of the internet — the first “dot-com” name was registered in 1985. And only six years later, in 1991, the “interweb” began!
It got me thinking back to those early text-based days before “the web”…
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19 Comments | tags: ARPANET, Colossal Cave Adventure, computer games, George Carlin, internet, internet communication, internet tubes, interweb, punch cards, text adventure, The Colbert Report, Vint Cerf, Zork | posted in Brain Bubble
Every generation “can’t imagine what it was like” with regard to something. Various generations have recently gone through not knowing what it was like before automobiles, before flight, before black and white TV, before space travel, before CDs, and — increasingly —before social media.
The thing about being plugged into the interweb is that you’re plugged into something very, very big. Not just big, big and fast. Lots of information rushes by very fast all the time. Drinking from the interweb — as those they that say things say — is like trying to sip from a firehose.
So what about a generation that’s never known the quiet?
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12 Comments | tags: advertising, change, internet, interweb, loud, modern life, noise | posted in Brain Bubble
In 2006 Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill) wrote and directed a film called Idiocracy. It postulates a future 500 years hence when, due to “The Marching Morons” theory, the world is entirely populated by extremely stupid people. In this dystopian future, advertising and commercialism have run rampant in an anti-intellectual culture devoid of intellectual curiosity and thought.
As I watch what passes for communication or discussion on the interweb, as I watch in horrified fascination at the complete failure of nuanced — let alone deep — thought in people today, I begin to realize one thing:
The Idiocracy is here; I live in a world filled with morons.
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24 Comments | tags: Cyril M. Kornbluth, education, Idiocracy, idiots, ignorance, intelligence, interweb, Mike Judge, morons, stupid, stupid people, stupidity, The Marching Morons | posted in Rant
What a thing to behold: 2014! I found it a bit startling to reach 2010; by now these high numbers seem almost normal. Some born in this millennium are already teenagers and aren’t far from voting age. For those of us born back in the fitties, it can be a little eerie.
When Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in April 1968, I was in seventh grade and already a hard-core science fiction fan. Back then, 2001 seemed so far off that anything was possible. We first walked on the moon just over a year later in July. (My beloved Star Trek had been on the air since September 1966!)
I even remember when George Orwell‘s 1984 seemed very far off!
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7 Comments | tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2013, 2014, Arthur Clarke, Code of the Bushido, internet, interweb, Mr. DeMille, Rick O'Shay, Stan Lynde, Star Trek, The Jetsons, Toyota Jan, Unix clocks | posted in Life, Writing
I’ve noticed over the years a drift in term (Internet) Troll. It’s possible the original sort of Troll isn’t around much anymore — for several reasons I don’t hang out socially on the internet much anymore. There is also that not everyone agrees with the original definition (although I think the evidence is clear).
So this is either a commemoration or a bid for language purity, I’m not sure which. Actually, it hardly matters which; the point is incredibly trivial, but it’s Sunday, and I’m feeling too lazy for serious thought. (It’s funny, but even in retirement I find I keep a weekly cycle in which the weekend signals different activity — time away from the computer mostly!)
My point is, an Internet Troll is a very specific creature.
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4 Comments | tags: discussion, internet, Internet Troll, interweb, social media, trolling, trolls, USENET | posted in Brain Bubble, The Interweb
At some point the phrase, “liberal media,” became part of the accepted public dialog.
Perhaps “accepted” isn’t the correct word, as some have taken the tack that, “No, this statement is false, the media isn’t liberal at all. Here’s proof…” I have never found their arguments convincing, although obviously I have my own bias on the situation.
For purposes of this Brain Bubble, I’m going to take it as given that, as a rule, the media really does lean left (for common definitions of “media” and “left”).
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Leave a comment | tags: cable news, CNN, conservative, Ellen, Fox News, Fox TV, internet, interweb, liberal, media, MSNBC TV, news, Northern Exposure, Will & Grace | posted in Brain Bubble, Rant
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