I was stupid enough to, out of habit, use the -wraplatest switch for
my phlog index generator script when I uploaded the last post from my
486 laptop, forgetting that I'd written it using hard line wrapping
instead of soft wrapping. Too lazy to fix the double-wrapped mess
manually, it's taken me until now to boot up the laptop again so as
to re-upload the single-wrapped original. So as long as I was here I
figured I'd write another entry.
I'm actually trying to cool down ready for an early night. It's been a
stinking hot day today and normally on a Friday I'd stay up late until
the house had cooled down properly, but I've got to get up at 4AM
tomorrow to help with setting up a family garage sale (not that I'm
expecting anyone else to be there when I arrive at around 5:30AM to
help). I don't know why I get so caught up in these things, nobody
else in the family from my generation does, but as it'll be a hot day
tomorrow as well it just seems logical to get things set up when it's
cool. I'm too practical for my own good I suppose. Anyway I'll finish
off this little ramble and set the old evaporative cooler blowing onto
me, either keeping me awake with the sweeping airflow back and forth,
or by freezing one part of my body while the rest bakes, depending on
the setting. I do have a proper air conditioner but unfortunately it
doesn't reach the bedroom at the other end of the house.
Well that's all a whole lot of nothing. I'll quickly sum up one of the
thoughts that's been on my mind today just so that this post feels
like it has some purpose. I was thinking about how neat the internet
is as a product. At least back in the dial-up era, you basically just
needed a machine plugged into the phone network, and the users
generated all the content. By using your product they made the very
product you were selling. It's facinating that just adding advertising
to that mix allowed Google and Facebook to grow massively bigger than
the ISPs themselves. Advertising which is for all the things people
don't just automatically make by being on the internet, for things
like movies, music, and physical goods. They're making money by selling
the old wares of the pre-internet days in the world of this new product
that is shared digital communication. There must be a next step to this -
how do you distribute the making of higher-value wares across the user
space of the internet? How do you make a shirt like you make a web
forum thread?
But of course personally I try to avoid all that higher-value stuff
anyway (or buying it new, at least) and just satisfy myself with
user-generated stuff like these phlogs, dutifully pouring my own
nonsense back out as well. Plus I'm not even wearing a shirt! It's
interesting to ponder where the mainstream will go though, there must
be something next...
- The Free Thinker.
PS. I uploaded some pics of this 486 laptop from 1994 (unknown make,
it's one of the anonymous Taiwanese imports that seem to have been
popular with Australian IT equipment contractors in the 90s) in
the photos section, as per the NoViCoCh rules.
