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Why I'm excited. (post created 03/22/2007, published 05/14/2025 with no edits. raw, uncut version) [1]

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Date: 2025-05-14

today, I am more excited than i was yesterday. yesterday, I was more excited than the day before. and so it goes like that back a few weeks or months, when the true power of the internet began to sink in through my thick skull.

A while back, around the turn of the millennium, historians were asked to rank the most important figures of the last 1000 years. the number-one most influential person of the last 1000 years was judged to be Johannes Gutenberg in this contest {1, links posted at bottom of page}; When he was chosen, it made me pause and consider his contribution;

After the printing press, books were cranked out of a machine, so the cost came down, and books became more widely available. Literacy went up, and the spread of ideas via this new media was revolutionary. The year was 1450.

Newton in 1687; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton these are only 2 of the multitude of major contributors. in some way, every working person who ever lived has contributed in some fashion to bring us to where we are today. When someone said that "Newton could see farther..." Newton replied, "that was possible because he was standing on the shoulders of giants" Indeed, the "state of the art" technology we have today was built little by little, day by day, going back through the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution, the agricultural revolution, back through the stone age, and really back to the origins of life itself. In 1903, the Wright Brothers invented the airplane. you may read their bio here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers The airplane was invented just over 100 years ago, yet today we have helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, cargo planes, the new airbus jumbo jet, and even space shuttles and satellites, not to mention the entire worldwide airline industry. The aviation industry is only 100 years, and look at how much it has evolved. When i think that when i graduated high school, the internet didn't even exist, i am in awe at how quickly it has developed itself, and excited about how it will look when it is 100 years old. We are all riding the front edge of a wave of change. it will only grow. My family has had a long-standing interest in computer technology, so I have been around computers most of my life, and lived through the early days of BBS's, AOHell, etc. I just assumed that everyone else was into the same things, but i must say that by my informal survey of people i know proves otherwise; There are still lots of people who have never even touched a computer, much less can conceptualize its possibilities. This may be a macabre observation, but when i read the obituaries and i see day after day the pages and pages of dead people, i notice they are usually our most senior citizens; citizens who are probably more conservatively minded, for better or worse. in the last few years, i have lost a grandpa, a grandma, and an uncle, too "natural causes". they were all rush's "dito-heads". And moving into their place is a fresh crop of 18 year old citizen-voters, who probably will be more liberally minded, and, more importantly, more familiar with todays technology. Myspace and other social networking sites are building a real life model of the concept of "6 degrees of separation". you can read about that here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_seperation Other people, like my brother and some of my friends, play these online games that connect you with players all over the world. here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg my brother probably has as many "online" japanese playmates/ friends as he has "real life" friends. Oh yea, and they get off topic and talk about life; an ordinary american guy and an ordinary japanese guy, getting comfortable with one another. On web sites like http://digg.com/ american, english, canadian, citizens regularly engage in conversation. it would be no stretch so say that our communication skills and abilities are evolving at an ever accelerating pace. more and more, ordinary people are communicating with one another on a "grass roots" level, as opposed to "by proxy" via our respective governments current foreign policies. This helps build the concept of the "world wide neighborhood", where our "leaders" are stripped of their ability to demonize anyone who is "not us", and split We, The People, with their abuse. There is widespread dislike for RIAA, and the concept of "licensing" in general. browse these headlines from the last 30 days; http://digg.com/search?s=riaa&submit=Search§ion=news&search-buried=1&type=both&area=all&age=30&sort=most http://digg.com/search?s=piracy&submit=Search§ion=news&search-buried=1&type=both&area=all&age=30&sort=most We recently discussed the fact that there is an eastern tradition of "giving away" knowledge, as opposed to hoarding it, which is why "piracy" is so rampant in China. Here is a popular web video that gives a "tour" of the internet,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE If you are reading a blog, chances are you are familiar with many of these features, but i think we have only begun to scratch the surface of possibilities. Recently, the New York Times was in discussions about the future of the print edition of the newspaper. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/822775.html {1.0} http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060823164203AAUNS86 {1.1} Gutenberg, Johannes( c. 1400–68), German printer. He was the first in the West to print by using movable type and to use a press. By c. 1455, he had produced what later became known as the Gutenberg Bible. {1.2}

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