Have worked from 9.15 a.m./ to 10.30 p.m. non stop today (apart from replying to comments on my yesterday’s post).
So no time to do the blog post I planned. Just time for this:
Radio 4 told me the Internet is 15 years old today.
Ian McMillan read out this poem:
CONNECTED
Before, when you got mail,
It was a chap in a cap with a sack packed full;
Before, when you researched
You sat and sweated in a library that was just this side of dull;
And when you booked your holidays
You stood there in a queue
Behind a family of five and a pensioner or two
And life seemed so much slower, somehow;
There was acres of last week and just half a glimpse of now;
Today you click
On a mouse
And you can shop till you drop without leaving the house
And now you send
Your blogs
Right across the globe and the photos of your dogs
Can appear on your site in the twinkling of an eye
And in a tick you get a picture back of Grandma saying Hi!
Framed against the backdrop of a California sky…
And it’s been fifteen years from before to this
And now we’re living in a universe of constant cyber bliss!
And like the first fire in the cave
Or the first turning of The Wheel
The internet is changing how we think and speak and feel
And in the next fifteen years the net will turn and twist again
And go down murky sidestreets far beyond this Barnsley brain
And one thing’s certain: the net is here forever,
Constant as taxes, unpredictable as weather…
And before I’m dragged right under in a growing tide of spam
I’ve time for just this one last post: I click therefore I am!
Great Poem. I love Ian McMillan.
I cannot go in to the office this week as they are removing asbestos from the building and it is VERY DANGEROUS for ordinary people to go in.
Nevertheless….
#The beauty of the web is that it allows me to nevertheless work 12 hours at home:0)
#The Internet also allows me to be bullied into responding to around 50 e mails on average per day.
#It allows me to receive info on more conferences I can go to in a life time.
#It pounds and pounds me with assignments and drafts from students who somehow think it is OK to repeatedly ask for help when they would not have dreamed ofgiving me that number f paper based drafts and pre drafts and plans, and diagrams.
The Internet is so lovely in so many ways - linking me with lovely people on my blog and through Flickr. But it has changed the work space into a relentless thing with no bounds at all - crossing into my home, my home life and giving me deadlines and infomation I cannot cope with at all.
But apart from that I am fine.
Isn’t the internet just great? Wireless technology even moreso!
Here I am sitting in a cafe, “aquiring” someone’s wireless connection and posting about my day’s experience whilst I awat to do other tjhings. What would I have done in this situation fifteen years ago??
Comment by Chris Best — August 9, 2006 @ 7:41 am
I think there are many people who would sympathise with you! I like your digital literacies photo.
Just to be boring, the term Internet (capital ‘I’) is arguably 11 years old! The term was officially coined in 1995, when the Federal Networking Council formally defined it. The internet (small ‘i’) is arguably much older - originating from the US Department of Defence experimental ‘ARPANet’ of the late 60s and early 70s. I am sure others would argue this (-:
Comment by Peter Stordy — August 9, 2006 @ 8:02 am
Ah that’s interesting. I wonder why they said it was 15 years? Anyway what’s the difference between Internet and internet?
Comment by DrJoolz — August 9, 2006 @ 12:17 pm
I was afraid you would ask this question … A ‘network’ is two or more computers connected together so they can share resources. Networks can be joined together to form an ‘internet’ (small ‘i’). The term ‘internet’ (small ‘i’) is frequently and incorrectly used to mean ‘Internet’ (capital ‘I’). The “Internet” (capital ‘I’) however, is one particular ‘internet’ (small ‘i’) that connects computers around the world using TCP/IP protocols (it’s the one you are using now). I bet you wish you hadn’t asked!
Comment by Peter Stordy — August 9, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
Hmm, strange about the internet thing. I see that Tim Berners Lee says that the first web page was created in 1990, but that isn’t 15 years either. I found the audio snippet on the BBC website, and enjoyed listening to the poem, but it didn’t clarify things… I think someone in the BBC must have made it up! I agree with all your bullet points! It is a part of my life, but also overwhelms me. I was just emailing someone and mentioning Continuous Partial Attention (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/03/etech_linda_stone_1.html) which I definitely suffer from. I think that’s one of the reasons I enjoy photographing things, it helps me focus on where I am right now.
Comment by Sheila Webber — August 9, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
Ah. Thanks for clarifying. I will now act as the Internet/internet police.
Seems totally abitrary to say the internet is 15 years old; I agree, I bet someone in the BBC just made it up.
I ususally have a target of keeping my e mail in tray messages down to 40 but at the moment I cannot get it under 80. It is driving me round the twist. I just can’t get through it all.
Comment by DrJoolz — August 9, 2006 @ 7:55 pm
I think you sound fantastically well organised. When I was forced to abandon Pegasus mail in June I had an in tray with 1165 items, and at the moment I’m having to use webmail and I’ve already got 145 items. I do delete hundreds of the things, but there’s too many where I think I ought to something with them but just not right now….
Comment by Sheila Webber — August 9, 2006 @ 9:49 pm
I really like that poem (I’ve stolen it for a future post!). I posted a comment to this post yesterday but it obviously didn’t get through. Ah well
Comment by Chris Best — August 10, 2006 @ 2:25 am
I thought you would like to know they had the internet in Estonia iat least by 1991 so they were one of the first countries to have it - 15 years is perhaps a bit too short a time for them.
Comment by kate — August 15, 2006 @ 5:47 pm