A More Civilized Age
Last week I had some slow time at work. So I start looking up random stuff on the Internet and I come across this (http://www.getty.net/texts/seinfeld.txt), a Seinfeld FAQ written in the summer of 1993.
I’m reading the FAQ and come across the following tidbits (abridged):
This FAQ List and Info File is presently available through anon FTP
| at: quartz.rutgers.edu
| in: /pub/tv+movies/seinfeld/
|
It is also possible to retrieve the file using gopher by connecting to a remote gopher server, e.g.:
telnet gopher.uiuc.edu
or:
telnet consultant.micro.umn.edu
And log in as “gopher”. You will be presented with a full-screen menu which you can select “Files through Anonymous FTP”, and then you can search for all sites which have “seinfeld” files. Look into the help files on the remote servers for more information on this service.
All the “Seinfeld” files are now available through anonymous FTP at: quartz.rutgers.edu in the directory /pub/tv+movies/seinfeld
Note that all the files at quartz.rutgers.edu are compressed using GNU’s gzip command, so you must have the gunzip program to uncompress them, or as an alternative you can get the files uncompressed directly through your FTP session.
I was hit with a rush of nostalgia. Who writes stuff like this anymore?
I felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi explaining the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker; “It was a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age.”
This document was talking about anonymous FTP downloads and Gopher logins. No one knows that stuff anymore. This was written when the main Internet tools were FTP, Gopher and IRC, when you had to know how to use a computer to use the Internet.
My first time online was in November 1992, as an AOLer. Don’t laugh. I’m still an AOLer. And while things are in many ways better today, there’s still nostalgia (maybe only in my head) for the olden days. The Internet may be flashier, faster and more fun today, but back then was definitely a more civilized age.
One of the best things about that more civilized age was that for the most part, people weren’t trying to sell you stuff wherever you surfed. There was no spam, nor spyware, nor pop up ads.
Most of the resources online were deep (for the things that had resources). Let’s start with the easiest- the Usenet. Bandwidth was at a premium. Most people did not want to waste their time with “me too” postings- for the most part, discussions were in-depth and civilized. This trend carried over to the other early message boards. I still (for some reason) have printouts of postings from AOL’s Star Wars message board from 13 years ago. The postings are well-written, and even though in some cases, they’re off-mark, they were entertaining to read.
By the time the web rolled around, for a short time, this in-depth ethic remained. Say you’re a huge Saved By The Bell fan. In late 1995, you’d log on to Yahoo!, or this new search engine at http://altavista.digital.com and search for SBTB pages. Your search would yield five simply-coded pages that people actually took the time to put content on.
If you wanted to do that same task today, you’d google SBTB and come up with the following:
-1,750,931 pages selling SBTB DVDs
-7 episode guides
-Dustin Diamond’s home page
-Dennis Haskins’ blog
-One fan site put together by Joe. It’s a good site, good information, some essays, in other words, he put some work into it.
-Ten sites ripping off Joe’s site.
Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s probably not far from the truth. The content and hard-working people are there, but it’s diluted by all of the pages trying to sell you things and people too lazy to create on their own.
In spite of this, the Internet is better today. I do owe a lot to it. But there are lessons to be learned from the Internet’s early days. In Obi Wan’s words, it’s up to us to keep it elegant and civilized.
Words I had to add to my Word dictionary while transcribing this article: Seinfeld, Kenobi, lightsaber, Skywalker, google, blog
Songs during the transcribing of this article:
-Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
-No One Else, Weezer
-Terra Trip Machine, OC Remix from FF6
-One More Minute, Weird Al Yankovic
-Revolution #1, The Beatles
-Beverly Hills, Weezer
-The Promise, When In Rome
-Dead, The Pixies
-Pantera Fans In Love, Nerf Herder
Don’t even get me started on on-line writing. I have been conducting training classes recently introducting folks around the company to our enterprise intranet.
Not only have I been teaching the ins and outs of specific tools, but also trying to plant a seed of informative writing.
E-mail has made us all lazy. Mail being so easy, so fast, and the ability to string conversations together has turned our writing into crap…and this includes myself.
Subject lines that act as the first sentence in the body. Replies that simply read “Yes”, thus assuming the reader remembers what they preivously wrote or have to go back and re-read in the quoted reply.
In a time where information can be created by the bums in New York for all to read, cutting corners on the quality and organization of this information is just going to lead to mindless chaos that not even Google could traverse.
The analogy I used in a few of my classes goes as so:
Imagine if you walk into a public library and every book is randomly stacked in multiple piles in one large room. No rhyme, no reason, just stacks of books. Let’s say you need a book on humpback whales - where do you start?
Simple. You’d just have to pick a pile and go book by book. Actually, you’d probably just turn around and convince yourself that the humpback whale just isn’t that important.
Much like going wireless is not an excuse to not run cables; Google is not an excuse to not organize information.
And by the way, I’d like to welcome Tom to the Morning Toast staff. A man well versed in importance of nothing and one that made a living at writing news should enrich the Toast beyond its worth.
Welcome!
Songs played during my reply:
“Starry Eyed Surprise” - Paul Oakenfold
“Down By The Shack, By The Sea” - Don Ho
“Monteverdi Domine Ad Adjuvandum” - Wendy Carlos
“Get Back” - The Beatles
Uh-oh…who let the nerds out?
;-)
Just wait until that car ride to Indiana. Ha! You’ll get the total nerd experience then.
Jen, I feel sorry for you already. Not many normal women would be “brave” enough to go on that trip.
Ahh… those were the days!
Back when everything on the internet could be accessed with text based software on a command line OS. :O) (yeah, I know, Thee will disagree)
The GUI and the graphical browser are nice and all… don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good multimedia experience as much as the next guy… but there was something to be said for having to know how to use a computer in order to use a computer.
G+
The nice part is you can still browse the web in text. Just grab a copy of Lynx and have at it.
The problem is that few web sites are text-browser friendly. All these Dreamweaver-esque products make it easy to build sites but that doesn’t make them easy to use for visitors - especially if they legitimatly use text browsers.
And I’m happy to say that the Toast reads great in Lynx :) Too bad the New York Times can’t say the same.
For Lynx:
http://csant.info/lynx.htm
I guess we all know that I’m not normal. What was I thinking? Really, though, I’m doing it for the laughs.
Jen, just remember to take (lots of) pictures. Some 40 years from now they will be priceless!
Oh yes, I will be taking lots of pictures assuming I can hold the camera still enough since I will probably be laughing. Brian, are there any “keynote” speakers at this shindig?
I’m not sure - probably. If I remember from reading a while ago, the actor that played Wicket the Ewok in “Jedi” is the MC. The same actor played Willow as well - so double bonus! ;)
You can read more here I’m sure:
http://www.swcelebration.com/
I’m not sure if anyone of stature is showing up, shy of Lucas himself. From what I’ve heard in the past it’s always the stunt coordinator or the sound guy - i.e., no one cool. But we’ll see.
Actually, I just found a daily schedule, so you can plan your fate before we even get there.
http://www.starwars.com/community/c3_schedule.html
Maybe George Lucas will be there on the day we are also there. He’ll be impressed with my Princess Leia braids. I’m going to bring books and my mp3 player for the car ride…just in case the music is bad and the conversation gets too nerdy.