The Internet
 

Well, I don’t know about the “urges” part, but it’s true that technology is weaving humans into electronic webs that resemble big brains — corporations, online hobby groups, far-flung N.G.O.s. And I personally don’t think it’s outlandish to talk about us being, increasingly, neurons in a giant superorganism; certainly an observer from outer space, watching the emergence of the Internet, could be excused for looking at us that way. In fact, the superorganism scenario is in a sense just the cosmic flip side of the diagnosis offered by Carr and other techno-skeptics.

So at present this organism is mostly North American. I am taken by the idea that we are headed for a coherent unity. Cool or scarey or a catastrophic failure of tech coming?

That's funny, because every now and then I stop clicking, sigh, and think to myself "I think I've finally reached the end of the internet."

China and Russia are both at odds with the English based internet and are in danger of prodcuing one based on their own alphabets. I think the regualtiong authority recently allowed some Chinese characters in web addresses to try and keep the Chinese 'in'.

What's out beyond the edge Shawnee? You may be the only person who has seen it. I think there may be monsters there.

I noticed some errors on that page. For example, in #2, Internet Population, it says "American (sic) makes up 76.2% of the world's internet population... " but the numbers in the table add up to far more than 100%, so I think the table shows % of people in each region that have access to the internet.

Remember, Google has only indexed 4/10 of 1% of the intermet.

I still blame Al Gore....

DAMM YOU AL GORE!

I knew someone, who in the 1989-1990 time frame worked as an intern for Al Gore on Capitol Hill, and at the time, they said that they were extremely impressed with how much he knew about computers and the internet. This was back before the web existed, and back before AOL existed, and back before 99% of the population had even heard of "e-mail." Al Gore was in to all this stuff back then, and he was instrumental in getting the legislation in place that set up much of the web as we know it today.

I remember when he made that comment that he created the internet, and all the political pundits were mocking him at the time, and it pissed me off because I know they were using manual typewriters at a time when Al Gore was all wired up in computers.

This is the interesting topic.
This is the bait.
This is us rising to the bait. Let's enjoy our vacation from him instead.

A wholly Chinese net would be interesting to watch if we knew any Chinese. A censored net would be such a different paradigm. It would grow more slowly and be more directed and less flexible, a great tool for state propaganda... the dark side of the force anyone?

Vacation sounds good, Griff. Thanks for the reminder to step back a second. You're a good egg. :)

Griff - I disagree. (Shock)
I didn't take Mercs post as bait. Just a joke. He posted something similar here about 40 mins earlier.

Thats been a long running joke with him.

However, I do agree with you on this
as I said here

And as far as glatt's post goes... just informational. :thumbsup:

Griff, you're the griffiest. :thumbsup:

glatt, you're the glattiest! :thumbsup:

GAWD I love all you g-guys.

I have to agree with you on this one, just a joke.

Prolly right, I can't say I ever got mercs humor.