HAPPY FRIDAY: How the Internet really started

WELL, you might have thought that you knew how the Internet started, but here's the true story ...

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband: "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her - as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said: "How, dear?"

And Dot replied: "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.

To prevent neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew.

It was called Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS). She also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP).

But this success did arouse envy. A man named Macabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and began to siphon off some of Abraham's business. But he was soon discovered, arrested and prosecuted for insider trading.

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. And indeed did he insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say: "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."

And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel , or eBay as it came to be known. He said: "We need a name that reflects what we are."

And Dot replied: "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."
"YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside. It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).

And that is how it all began.

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ARGUMENT: The Internet impairs our ability to contemplate and concentrate for long, sustained periods of time

AN ex-colleague of mine (Ryan Calder) started an interesting debate about the Internet on Facebook. He was asking whether or not people thought that the Internet (and cyber culture in general) impairs our ability to concentrate. Some of the comments were quite interesting.

Does the Internet impair our ability to concentrate?

Kathryn: It's a complete problem. I actually disconnect when I have to graft properly now. It's to easy to justify looking at loads of irrelevant poop when you're permanently online.

T.J.: I have to force myself to write sometimes in places without the internet, and it's like de-toxing.

Ryan: At least your attention span isn't completely diminished... you both managed to engage in this status update momentarily.

Hayden: Yup, and video games and cartoons too. The brain learns to discard information at the same rate it receives it. What it doesn't learn to do is differentiate between PC time and real time so we end up discarding information constantly even when we shouldn't.

Lesley: Those of us who teach have seen this change for years! Certainly true. Not just the Internet - all technology.

Ryan: But isn't the Internet subsuming most technology? So increasingly, most gadgets have the Internet inherent in them?

Hayden: It is, and I find that the things I want to do have become over reliant on the internet. We have been conditioned into being reliant on the web for many things we wouldn't have been able to do in the past. Also most gadgets don't work without internet connectivity so we're stuck.

Marek: Ryan, I agree with you. People don't read anything else than short status updates and re-posts, moving constantly from one to the next. It is like people develop ADD from the moment they learn to use a mouse.

Tamlyn: Have you seen what it's doing to teenagers' spelling and grammar!? If you look at the Facebook page of the average teenager it looks like the person is half-witted!! I often have to have a 'face break' as I call it and take a week or so of no FB and of read books only.... feels like I'm saving my brain cells when I do it!

Marek: I do not entirely agree with Hayden on the video games and comics, though. Some of these require intense concentration.

Hayden: They do Marek but the rate of information being sent to the brain is so high that one cannot possibly retain it all so the brain sees it and discards it moments later as the games progress. So while they promote reasoning and good response they also train the brain to rapidly discard information that isn't immediately relevant. I see it in my own children and how it affects proper learning. It makes it that much more difficult to teach them when their brain is constantly discarding what they are presented with. As a result I limit video games to just a few hours on weekends.

Marek: Tamlyn, not only teenagers' spelling and grammar, but many adults too. And it is not the internet, but texting on cellphones, which usually with a certain level of maturity improve. It is also linked to social standing, and level of education with certain racial groups more prone than others.

Marek: I agree with you there, Hayden. I personally do not play video games, and I fully agree with you limiting childrens' gaming, using Whatsapp, Mxit and Facebook. I have a 20 year old student recently moving in with me, who in the beginning was constantly texting on Whatsapp. Meals are taken sitting down at the table, phones are left ringing or switched off, plugged out, with me setting the example. Texting now after a mere 3 months has been reduced to the bare minimum. Now I just have to get him off 9Gag :-)

Hayden: In our house too. My children will only get phones and Facebook etc. when there is a need for it. At dinner time Skype etc. gets ignored and we now only eat in front of the TV on a Friday pizza night as a treat. No phones at the table either. They only get discovery channel etc. in the morning as I find the cartoons just pout them in idle mode, which isn't good before school. Two hours of TV at night and that's it.

Andre: Case in point: I just read this thread and can't remember what the original status was. That being said, I do love knowing everything in the blink of an eye.

Marek: I don't have TV. I refuse to have the drone in the background, or constant streaming of propaganda and other mindless rubbish into my home. I prefer to choose what I allow into my home, and that applies to people too.

Hayden: Case in point. I just Googled a quote to "remember" where it was from. Too much effort to remember the old school way.

Marek: hahahahaha, I often have to Google stuff too, but I do have dictionaries lying around on my desk, just in case Google is wrong.

Hayden: I find it easier to type a quote in rather than wrack my brains to remember. Bad news I tell you.

Dave: It isn't the internet per se but our connectedness to it. Change to my provider and enjoy automatically facilitated periods of contemplation.

Hayden: ha ha ha, you mean downtime Dave?

Dave: Yeah. Except that downtime usually only provokes the kind of contemplation that focuses negatively on the service provider and raises blood pressure.

Ryan: Contemplation is becoming increasingly difficult. My brain thinks differently to how it used to. It only functions if there are diversions. It's a problem... I haven't even read all these comments...

Hilary: And I thought it was old age that was doing that!

Barrett: False... I am dyslexic and find it helps.

Galen: Interesting discussion! We are living in an era of instant gratification, which is largely fueled by web-culture. I think the shocking spelling & grammar is not a result of the Internet but rather created by teenagers themselves. Re video games: this really depends on what is played. They can do wonders for lateral & creative thinking, hand-eye co-ords and arguably even improve eyesight. I'd much rather have all the above than be fed television and have my brain die.

Marita: One of the contributing factors is surely that people no longer read books. There are so many digital connections out there that there is never any reason to pick up a book. A book demands that you get involved, concentrate on the characters and remember who they are. When young people come to University they are overwhelmed by the amount of required reading, because they have never developed the skill.

Barrett: The main point is that parents are being ripped off and kids not given the education they deserve. It has been proven that the SA education system is a mess and not worth the paper its written on.

*****

I'd like to note that I had to correct spelling and grammar for nearly every single one of these comments. Case in point?

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Deleting your Google search history and starting fresh

AS from 1 March 2012, it will be easier than ever for online advertisers to target web users, thanks to Google. Apart from debates about privacy, the simple fact is that the majority of Internet users are not experienced webmasters who know how to control and customise their privacy options.

For those rare occasions when we don't just want to buy random crap off the Internet (sarcasm), it becomes really irritating and intrusive to be constantly bombarded by adverts. I spent a couple of hours going through all my Google accounts and finding information from my teenaged years and experimental student days. Any “likes” or “interests” that you may have added somewhere in the webesphere could soon be used to load the cannons of consumerism and bombard you.

If you use Google, you may want to read this is a good article to read (published at The Age dot com) if you haven't a clue what this is all about. But what follows are a few useful places to start if you wish to clean out some of your data and baggage before Google gets a firmer hold on it.

Clearing your Google Search History:
(the info below also appears on The Age dot com):

• Go to the Google History page and sign in.
• Click “Remove All Web History” then “Okay” to confirm.
• Your Google Search History should be turned on by default. You can always click "Resume" if you decide to turn this feature back on.

For more control over your various Google accounts that you may or may not have, try these:

• Google Dashboard: Here you can control the data associated with your Google Account.
• Ads Preferences Manager: Here you can make changes to the ads you see, including blocking specific advertisers or opting-out of seeing personalised ads completely.
• Eject button: If you decide you want to opt out altogether, Google provides a one stop shop to opt out of everything and take your "data dandruff" with you completely.

For blocking ads, there is also a useful plugin for Firefox and Chrome called Adblock Plus, which does as the name suggests: blocks ads.

A final website I came across almost by accident is the Network Advertising Initiative. An article on here called Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising gives a status on which advertising groups you have received cookies from over the years. There is a really useful "Opt-out from all" option here, which lets you remove most (if not all) of these.

And before any of you haters start bashing out comments, understand that this is not about "having something to hide"; it's a much more complicated issue around privacy, freedom of information, and how we are treated as Internet users.

Peace out.

Free smartphone app alerts users of nearby deals

TARGETED advertising has always been the major goal of advertisers, who have to try damn hard these days to grab our attention. Amassing a target audience has lead to abuse in the past, such as the selling of personal information to third parties.

Some may argue that Google's recent private policy changes, whereby a user's Google accounts are all merged together to create one neat profile, is aimed to aid the cause of targeted advertising. If you watch a lot of skateboarding videos on YouTube and email friends about skateboarding via Gmail, you're likely to be targeted with skateboarding adverts.

Some may find this intrusive whereas others may view it as convenient. We all have that one friend who gets everything for so cheap; the one who makes use of Groupon and who always knows where to get a great special or discount on something. If you are that sort of person (or want to be) then there is a smartphone app just for you.

DialMedia Deals is a free smartphone app that has been developed in South Africa by SA company DialMedia. The smartphone application informs subscribers of relevant deals and specials available at major shopping centres around the country. Consumers are able to download the application for free to their smartphones, which runs silently in the background without negatively affecting battery performance.

Download DialMedia Deals Free Smartphone App

DialMedia spokesperson and co-owner Philip Bartholomew explains how the DialMedia Deals app works:

“On entering a mall, using geo-location, the application alerts the customer to nearby available specials which are tailored specifically to the user. Listings are categorised and ranked to easily find the best specials from their favorite stores and restaurants.”

DialMedia Deals allows consumers to always be up to speed on the latest specials, sales, discounts, restaurant specials, promotions and events. The service is regularly updated by store owners in shopping centres, who have the flexibility to change deal details on a daily basis.

“The DialMedia Deals app is already available on Apple’s App Store, BlackBerry’s App World, as well as on Android Marketplace. It may very well be the one app that can save consumers money without it costing them a cent”, says Bartholomew.

He added that the application does not monitor or record the location of the user; rather, the app is alerted when the user is in the vicinity of a relevant special. DialMedia state that no information is shared with outside parties (including DialMedia itself).

If you are the type of person who is willing to be paid to listen to adverts, then the rebate feature of the DialMedia Deals application will interest you. This allows you to save on mobile bills by getting paid rebates for hearing an audio ad before your call connects.

For more information, visit www.dialmedia.co.za

HACKERSPACES: What might the public library evolve into?

GOOGLE has announced that it will be digitising a further 250 000 books from the British Library. This is in line with Google’s mission statement to “make all of the knowledge contained within the world’s books searchable online” as part of its Google Books service. Google has already scanned around 13 million books worldwide through partnerships with over 40 libraries. This recent endeavour is predicted to take the company three years to complete.

As part of this new agreement, the texts, pamphlets and periodicals that will be scanned were published between 1700 and 1870 and are out of copywrite. The digitised material will all be freely available online through Google Books as well as the British Library­’s 19th Century Books app compatible with tablet PCs such as the iPad. Readers will be able to view, copy, and share all the digitised texts for non-commercial use.

In an article published on the Guardian­ website, president of the Royal Historical Society, Professor Colin­ Jones, says: “There is no doubt that the digitisation of this unique material­ will greatly benefit the research process. Academics are increasingly using new technologies at their disposal to search for innovative ways of investigating historical material to enable us to probe new questions and find alternative patterns of investigation. Digitisation gives us the freedom to not only do this quickly and remotely, but also enhances the quality and depth of the original.”

There will always be arguments, perhaps moments of reminiscence, over the value of reading a hard-copy book made of paper versus reading an e-book using a digital device. But what will this move towards digitising published books mean for the public library­? Can anyone honestly say that they have made regular visits to their local library since their university, or even school days?

The existence of public libraries today has largely depended on community support and attendance. According to Wikipedia, the formula to get funding was simple: demonstrate the need for a public library, provide the building site, annually provide 10% of the cost of the library’s construction to support its operation, and provide free service to all. It can be argued that the need for public libraries is fast dwindling due to the ever-growing presence of the Internet. So what might replace the public library?

Hackerspaces, hackerspaces and more hackerspaces!

What has emerged, at least in the United States and Europe, are smaller scale centers for learning, funded and operated by groups of people with collective interests. Hackerspaces, Fabrication Laboratories (Fab Labs) and TechShops have been sprouting up in just about every state in the U.S. according to a blog called makezine.com

"There are hundreds of hackerspaces that have appeared, almost overnight, around the world. From my re-collection over the past decade, the ones in Europe were really appealing. Many makers were travelling around the world, and eventually word spread. Now, just about every state in the U.S. has one, and most large cities have hackerspaces.” — http://blog.makezine.com

The concept of a hackerspace sounds really appealing and seems like a productive and worthwhile civic building for any city to fund. Hackerspaces are membership-based operations that generally consist of tools, workshops, computer networks and people with common interests. Members share rent for the building(s) utilised as well as resources and information that they have accumulated.

“A hackerspace or hackspace … is a location where people with common interests, usually in computers, technology, science or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and/or collaborate. A hackerspace can be viewed as an open community incorporating … machine­ shops, workshops and/or studios­ where hackers can come together to share resources and knowledge. Many hackerspaces participate in the use and development of free software and alternative media and can be found in infoshops or social centres.” — http://blog.makezine.com

Fab Labs and TechShops

The Fab Labs that have emerged are similar to hackerspaces. They can be thought of as small-scale workshops that create products that are generally limited to mass production.

TechShops, on the other hand, are commercial ventures that provide all the tools and equipment needed to make almost anything. They are also funded by membership but go further by offering classes and workshops and provide members with access to a library of tools and equipment, instruction, as well as a community of creative people.

The author of makezine.com Phillip Torrone, explains that TechShops are designed for everyone, regardless of their skill level. TechShops are “perfect for inventors, makers, hackers, tinkerers, artists, roboteers­, families, entrepreneurs, youth groups, arts and crafts enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to be able to make things that they dream up, but don’t have the tools, space or skills.”

So in considering the role that the public library can or should have in the future­, it may be useful for members on the city council to consider the value that hackerspaces, TechShops and Fab Labs have to offer in educating future and current generations. Perhaps public­ ­libraries could provide this space to fill the void as more and more books go digital.

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