On this date in 1969, the first RFC, or Request For Comments, document was published. The RFC in question contained many of the first protocols and guidelines for how the Internet would eventually operate, and so some people consider today the birthday of the Internet. (January 1, 1983, when the National Science Foundation‘s backbone became operational, is also a contender).
In honor of this occasion, I present a list of the ten things for which I’m most grateful about the Internet, today. In no particular order:
- Email with my friends, family and loved_ones.
- Reading newspapers without buying them on paper
- Ordering books online
- Blogging
- Watching user-created videos that give me hope for the future
- conferencing with colleagues and friends via instant messaging services
- searching Google and other resources for visual imagery to enliven my teaching
- collaborating on writing projects with a world-wide team of freelancers
- getting reliable directions to the places I’m going
- editing and annotating photographs
What’s on your Internet? This is a Request for Comments. Wish the Internet a happy birthday, link to the place where you first saw it, and report the ten things you most value about this Marvel of the World.
Re: Thanks…
lame bastids…
Thanks for the comment. It’s worth thinking about how much this little baby has grown up into a delicious monster.
Thanks…
Thanks for answering the poll. I’m sorry almost no one else did. 🙁
Things have changed very fast in the Internet world. I got my first email address back in 1989 (weasel@numm.oz – how I miss the .oz domain for Australia). In those days, the WWW hadn’t even been thought of, let alone existed. In those days, having a 2400bps modem was considered pretty fast (it’s what I had). Anyone with a 19,200bps modem was considered a god.
Sometimes I look at what the net has become now and I pine for the old days of character based interfaces and people online who actually knew shit.
Happy Birthday, Internet! Al Gore must be proud.
1. Staying in touch with people
2. Ordering obscure cd’s/comics,etc
3. Meeting people virtually then meeting them in the real world.
4. Youtube
5. A way to talk with my sons, and play games with them while they are 500+ miles away.
6. Reading the poetry of hundreds of poets.
7. Netflix
8. Porn, porn, porn….ha! Kidding! …just porn.
9. mapquest
10. LJ, MySpace, etc.
happy birthday, oh time sink and vast useful repository!
Whee! It’s nice to look back and see how far it’s come in such a short time (if you go by the 83 date, heck, even by the other date – we get so much from it!).
Thanks for bringing this one up. 🙂