Entries tagged with “internet”
Nerve has a list of the top 20 Internet lists of 2009. Nice of them to put all of the Internet gold in one place.
Additionally, Time has The Top 10 Everything of 2009.
To prove their point, a South African company used a carrier pigeon to fly a 4GB flash drive 60 miles while at the same time transferring the same data using an aDSL connection. In the same amount of time it took the pigeon and the staff to transfer the data to/from the flash drive, the aDSL connection completed 4%.
And I complain about YouTube freezing up for a moment?
Michael Jackson’s death overwhelmed various Internet sites
Linnie Rawlinson and Nick Hunt:
How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it’s just one—if that one is Michael Jackson.
The “web” is 20 years old today
It was 1989 and Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted a plan that would make information sharing easier, and that would eventually become the graphical World Wide Web as we know it.
My first exposure to the Internet was in 1993 in college and there was nothing graphical about it; everything was text-based using telnet, ftp, and gopher, and there wasn’t a whole lot of interesting stuff out there (ah, the good ol’ days when nic.funet.fi was the place to connect to). Later, when Trumpet Winsock and Mosaic 2.0 were available, things got interesting. It’s hard to believe, but back in 1996, I thought the NY Times had the coolest site (and it took forever to load on a 9,600 baud modem).
Several days ago I was trying to figure out the elevation of an elevation marker near my apartment. I couldn’t read it off the marker itself, so I scoured the Internet to see if I could find a topographical map of Manhattan. No matter what I searched for, or where I searched, I couldn’t find a map that displayed what I was looking for. I got tons of topographical maps for sale, but that really wasn’t what I wanted. After trying for what seemed like days (in actuality, it was 63 minutes), I broke down and asked my father if he had any idea on where to look, or even if he could look next time he was in or near the library. Less than a day later, he e-mailed me back with an answer to my question. He had gone to the NY Public Library and found the answer to my query in a matter of minutes using nothing more than the map room and a verbal question (thanks Dad).
In contrast, the first published collection of the plays of one William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon is generally known as the “First Folio”. It was published in 1623 and of the roughly 1,000 copies produced, about 230 are known to be in existence. In 2001, Christie’s auctioned one of the two still in private collections for over $6 million. Next to the Gutenberg Bible, it’s probably the most famous printed book in history. The NY Public Library has a copy, but access to it is limited to researchers “who demonstrate a need to use this irreplaceable material”, which is why I would probably never be able to see it. However, thanks to the University of Victoria, a scanned copy of a First Folio can be browsed online, in all it’s glory; and unlike the printed facsimiles available in bookstores, the resolution of the web copy at the large size is very, very good, and you certainly can’t beat the price.
Sigh.
Update: Time Warner Cable just called to tell me about the benefits of home phone service (the only reason I answered the phone was because I thought they were calling about my issue). I interrupted the woman from her script to let her know that my internet service through them was quite bad at the moment and that the only reason we were able to talk on the phone is because I don’t have phone service through them. She was quite flustered at that. I also tested my internet connection while she was on the phone, and it’s even worse.
Update: Yay!
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