We have been attacked. You don’t know how to find your loved ones. You try to log on to the internet to send email. Your access is denied. The President of the United States has disconnected you in the name national security in the middle of a worldwide crisis. In your hour of need, you have been cut off from the web with no immediate expectation for getting back online.
We are reminded of the early, heady, days of the internet when
university campuses were just beginning to provide WiFi access to the
school network instead of requiring a tethered Ethernet cable. Students,
of course, abused the new wireless freedom by bringing their laptops to
class and surfing the internet when they should’ve been taking notes.
There really isn’t any hiding on the internets anymore. There never was any ability to hide, really, but many people tried anyway to hide behind fake names, forged email accounts and IP-spoofing surf sites. Why would someone try to hard to so fruitlessly hide their identity? The simple answer is: They’re up to no good. The more complex question is: Why Are You Hiding When We Already Know Who You Are?
I’m not crazy about at&t as a cellular provider. Their 3G network is awful and slow and shattered — but, I have an iPhone and I have a 3G data plan with at&t as well — so I’m stuck with the service in deulling, two-year, pops.
I used to own the Option GT Ultra Express 3G modem on the at&t network, but my new MacBook does not have a 3/4 Express slot; I needed to upgrade to a USB modem for 3G connectivity. I decided to get the new Quicksilver 3G USB 2.0 modem from at&t.
The newsprint newspaper is DEAD! Let it die! Bury it. Let the bugs and worms eat the decaying pulp and let’s move on with our lives and getting the news quick, fast, and deadly on the internet. As an online author and itinerant publisher, it is delicious to watch the traditional media bandwagon crumble under the weight of their new irrelevancy. They have their worry beads in hand and their self-flagellation in process and they aren’t waiting to sound their own public death knell on your front stoop and in your mailbox:
Continue reading → The Newspaper is Dead: Long Live the News!
Are we in danger of losing our digital memories?
Too many of us suffer from a condition that is going to leave our grandchildren bereft. I call it personal digital disorder. Think of those thousands of digital photographs that lie hidden on our computers. Few store them, so those who come after us will not be able to look at them. It’s tragic.
As chief executive of the British Library, it’s my job to ensure that this does not extend to our national memory. At the exact moment Barack Obama was inaugurated, all traces of President Bush vanished from the White House website, replaced by images of and speeches by his successor. Attached to the website had been a booklet entitled 100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration – they may never know them now. When the website changed, the link was broken and the booklet became unavailable.
The 2000 Sydney Olympics was the first truly online games with more 150 websites, but these sites disappeared overnight at the end of the games and the only record is held by the National Library of Australia.
One of the most frustrating moments on the Internet is wondering if a site is not working of if your local internet connection is wonky. This is especially important if you run a website or write a blog. DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com is the ticket to your online knowing. Visit the site, type in the domain that isn’t working for you — and “Down for Everyone” will visually tell you if the problem with the site you’re trying to hit is “Just You” or if the site is “Down for Everyone:”
Could the Internet have stopped Hitler? If we all blogged about the Beer Hall Putsch — or if we revealed the precision of the train schedules and the suspicious smoke swirling from the Treblinka ovens — could we have stopped the killing of the Jews before the ghosts reached tragic proportions? Nobel prizewinner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio believes it possible:
I know I’m probably the last person in the world to get a Nintendo Wii — but I have one now — and I’ve been weeing for nearly a week with delight.
Professor Tara Brabazon makes a fantastic argument that students
today have no way to discern truth from validity because they have no
training when it comes to judging multiple truths. On
the Internet, and in scholarly searches, all returns are provided back
to the searcher in a “flat mode” where every return appears as valid as
the next.
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