In class, we have talked about many different aspects of how the internet has come to be, what has caused it, how has its development and our development coincided or differed and plenty of other heavy topics. Several topics and areas of interest are very pertinent in discussing the internet as either positive or negative and the respective reasons for either claim have weight no matter how one looks at them. In my case however, I feel rather strongly that the internet has a negative aura about itself. The vast entity that is the internet almost indescribable when viewed as a whole. Besides describing how it works, which would take quite some time itself, it is a source of almost infinite information and at present, essentially is limitless in terms of its ability to store information or access it.

There were two articles we have discussed so far in class which pertain to this subject, along with one activity we’ve taken part in. The activity is blogging, which if one wanted could be an adventure all its own on the internet, which is a form of exposing anyone with internet access to one’s personal thoughts, ideas or basically anything in visual or text form. This form of media is a very interesting thing. A personal diary or journal for anyone to read and potentially see; the idea suggests that our society is becoming so open that no thoughts are kept personal anymore or that one of the new an major ways to experience life is by typing thoughts and experiences into a machine upon which others must also access a similar machine to read and possibly reply.

The relevant articles are an article from The Atlantic Monthly about Vannevar Bush, a revolutionary man who created and thought up creations of things both mechanical and electronic, sometimes a combination of the two. The other is short story/essay by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Fire-Worship”, which entails a story about the distaste about a technological innovation, the wood stove.

While Vannevar Bush’s article may seem more relevant to the subject of the internet and blogging, it happens to be very far from what I believe he originally intended. He suggests in the article, “If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's efforts could be produced on call,” that a device similar to a computer or more accurately the internet would be most suitable for researchers dealing with large amounts of information and the ability to access that information in seconds rather than researching, pulling texts, copying information and such(Bush, 1). The internet is now a wasteland for people’s ideas, boredom, and a place to suck away their time. While the internet has vast amounts of information the fingertips of anyone using a computer with the simple know-how of using a search engine, much of the information is inaccurate people are becoming too lazy to do real research in libraries and

Hawthorne’s, “Fire-Worship”, describes a similar event but with a wood stove. A very efficient and worthy invention, the wood stove not only heated the home more efficiently and allowed cooking but was far safer than a fireplace. Anyone who constantly had to burn a fire and deal with the worry of potentially burning down their home would be grateful. Similarly the internet can be viewed the same way, far safer than getting out, extremely useful for the home, more environmentally friendly to trees. But Hawthorne is distraught, missing his old friendly fire with a bright and warm glow, “I miss the bright face of my ancient friend, who was wont to dance upon the hearth, and play the part of a more familiar sunshine. It is sad to turn from the clouded sky and sombre landscape--from yonder hill, with its crown of rusty, black pines, the foliage of which is so dismal in the absence of the sun; that bleak pasture-land, and the broken surface of the potato field, with the brown clods partly concealed by the snow-fall of last night; the swollen and sluggish river, with ice-encrusted borders, dragging its blueish grey stream along the verge of our orchard, like a snake half torpid with the cold--it is sad to turn from an outward scene of so little comfort, and find the same sullen influences brooding within the precincts of my study,” and only having the ugly blackness of the technological feat to look at in his home(Hawthorne, Fire-Worship). You can tell by the lengthy description how saddened he is. Similarly, the internet and blogs more specifically can be viewed in the same light. You may be able to read someone’s thoughts and ideas online and their sometimes cute or sometimes frightening emoticons, but you can’t see their handwriting, can see potential tears that had fallen on the pages as they wrote or where they stopped writing to leave the journal or where there is particular wear on a page that much thought was put into. There is a certain magic in actually writing with your hand and someone reading that writing, knowing there is only one copy instead of one anywhere there is a computer. The internet is kind of destroying writing on all levels.

Citations:

Bush, Vannevar. “Untitled.” The Atlantic Monthly. 1945. August 1995.
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/%7Educhier/pub/vbush/vbush-all.shtml

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Fire-Worship.” Mosses from an Old Manse. 1856.
http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/fw.html

The Early Computer Adventure

Before the Great Web:

My first encounter with a computer was not with the internet. This computer was an old fashioned computer with DOS and could take I believe (it was quite some time ago) that both the still standard floppy disks and the old floppy's (like 5 1/4 inch or something). It had games on it like Leisure Suit Larry, a football game with only X's and O's for the graphics and various other games of simple design and great fun. However the internet, at least to everyday consumers was unknown to me at the time.

My next computer experience was a Compaq. It had Windows...3.1? I'm not sure, but it was whatever version of Windows that came out before Windows 95. This computer could play games far advanced to that of the old computer I had before. It had early word processing programs and an array of programs that I, at the time, had no real use for. Shortly after my family acquired the computer, it became useful for another reason besides games. It had THE INTERNET! We had some sort of dial-up service, the only type of internet connection offered to really anyone at the time. As opposed to modern times where you are connected to the internet at all times if you have a broadband connection, the computer was required to dial in through the phone lines to some computer far away to keep and hold the connection while the internet was being used. A password prompt came up, guarding your internet from unknown use by someone who might enter your house with intentions of accessing the increasingly useful tool. We used Netscape. I had no idea what it was besides a program that let me access the internet. I particularly liked the ships steering wheel they used as an icon which I'm not sure if they still use today. I remember over the young years of my life, using that computer and the same internet from what I assume was the same provider, but little things (that eventually became very unlittle, were growth. The internet seemed almost like a plant. Things grew, the plant was receiving copious amounts of fertilizer in the form of information from all different sources and parties. Not that the internet couldn't have been something of a community garden, but the additions of information from anyone who had access and the know-how to the internet made for certain areas of the internet to become unhealthy. Broken links were everywhere, false information seemed to grow exponentially, pornography started infiltrating seemingly respectable sites in the form of adds and banners and in the present day pop-up windows. However, it wasn't all bad. Certain areas of the internet were flourishing brilliantly, growing fruit and flowers and looking very healthy. Someone had tended to these branches of the vast virtual organism quite well with proper information, know-how and design. To this day, it had gone on almost exactly in this way with the only difference in the speed and growth of the internet as a whole. Pretty impressive whether for good or bad.

Down with Death Eating Soul Goblins

Riding to school isn't quite the picnic I was hoping it would be. I traveled from 105 Bypass to the Student Union this morning to open the coffee shop at 7. 20 minutes flat. I had time to clip both my toenails and fingernails. Have to keep them short. An attractive girl walked by while I was doing this and pretended I was invisible. I stared her down for intruding. Had to skip my first class today because of a mishap involving the schedule. The ride home....well. What a treat. For those of you who don't know about Earl Lyons and White Oak roads, they are quite steep, especially on bike. I looked as if wrapped in Saran wrap when I got to my gate. Yuban was leaning on the fence staring me straight in the eye. Hours of playing ensued.