The Internet is 20 years old, and I can barely remember the world without it.
Our first Mac (1997-ish) came with a super-fast modem (1400bps). We signed up for AOL, plugged it in and stared at each other in amazement at the staticky "connected" sound. We finally cancelled AOL after we got DSL at the cabin, and the customer service woman seemed genuinely sad. We'd had the account for 13 years.
In my web development class, we looked at the evolution of the White House web site from 1996 to 2009. It started out as a plain gray window with black type and a few blue, underlined hyperlinks. The following year, it featured a small color photo of the White House, and then gradually became more colorful and full of information. Today the first page of the site contains slide shows, video clips, and an extensive index to rich content.
While the site reveals how the web has changed, the class itself is an astonishing example of how the Internet has changed the world.
For one thing, I couldn't make it to class that night, so I watched it online a few days later. I ordered the textbooks online using a gift card, but I got an email notice that shipment would be delayed. No problem. I discovered that I could read the books for free on Pro Quest with my Harvard ID.
It's possible that I could complete a Harvard course entirely on my laptop without ever leaving the loveseat in my living room. And I don't have a souped-up laptop. It's 6 years old and a little clunky.
But the course is just the beginning.
Spencer was looking online at a house for sale in Vermont and went to Google maps to take an eye-level stroll down the street to the town center, past the newspaper office and the Yummy Wok restaurant.
Want a pair of golf knickers? Google the phrase to find GolfKnickers.com, where you can get knickers in dozens of colors and fabrics, plus coordinating argyle socks and sweaters.
Can't remember who played the father in the first Flipper movie? Ask a search engine, and you'll have the answer in three seconds.
I know I'm stating the obvious. For more than half the people on the planet, life without the Internet never was. For the rest of us, it's becoming a distant memory, but there was a time when you couldn't check the weather in Athens, Greece, and the only way you could find something like knickers was to visit several specialty shops or have them made.
And if you didn't actually go to class, you were out of luck.
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Omaha, October 2009
As my plane descended on its approach to the Omaha airport, it flew over an emerald baseball diamond completely surrounded by farmlands brown after the harvest but still showing their even furrows following the contours of the land.
Reflecting its surroundings, Omaha is an orderly place with clean, wide streets: no random storefronts among the tall office buildings, no irregular jutting in the architecture, no meandering streets. Everything is rectangular and spotless.
The occasion was my niece Julie’s wedding, a stylish celebration in orange and cream that spotlighted the creative genius and profound love the couple shares. On the door of the reception venue, a dance club, a sign said, “Closed for a private event.” What fun to be among the invited instead of the disappointed. We Kush sisters comprised the old generation, the gaggle of aunts at the elders’ table.
Three of us yukked it up in the hotel elevator after the party and told another passenger that we were sisters.
“Who’s the youngest?” he asked.
We froze.
That would be Betty. We had last gathered in Omaha four years ago for her funeral.
But in a flash, we recovered the festive mood and replied with good humor.
I’d opted to return to Boston at the crack of dawn Monday, and by mid-afternoon Sunday, the rest of the family had gone. Alone in a hotel in the heartland, I felt like the last person on the planet.
I wandered the streets of “NoDo,” the up-and-coming neighborhood north of downtown. I saw signs of an artsy community on the verge of bursting out: the Tip-Top Apartments in a rehabbed, 90-year-old factory; a sculptor’s studio in a low, orange-painted building, the lawn and driveway covered with metal creations. The place was deserted; no sensible person walks around downtown on Sunday evening.
At a squeaky-clean bar in the Tip-Top, I drank a Tall Grass beer brewed in Kansas and watched football while waiting for a to-go sandwich.
I was a long way from Boston, but even farther from the Midwest I knew when the nine Kush kids lived in Lake Zurich, Illinois, more than 50 years ago. We were together in that house for only a few years between Betty’s birth and Jackie moving out for college, but the experience still defines a part of each of us. We ended up in nine different states. Betty landed in Nebraska when our parents moved there, and she stayed.
Although Julie and Jason reestablished the Kush connection to Omaha after Betty’s children moved away, I sipped my beer and doubted I’d ever return. I had a strong feeling that at first felt like sadness, but before my sandwich arrived, I knew it was something else, an intimate awareness of the passage of time.
Reflecting its surroundings, Omaha is an orderly place with clean, wide streets: no random storefronts among the tall office buildings, no irregular jutting in the architecture, no meandering streets. Everything is rectangular and spotless.
The occasion was my niece Julie’s wedding, a stylish celebration in orange and cream that spotlighted the creative genius and profound love the couple shares. On the door of the reception venue, a dance club, a sign said, “Closed for a private event.” What fun to be among the invited instead of the disappointed. We Kush sisters comprised the old generation, the gaggle of aunts at the elders’ table.
Three of us yukked it up in the hotel elevator after the party and told another passenger that we were sisters.
“Who’s the youngest?” he asked.
We froze.
That would be Betty. We had last gathered in Omaha four years ago for her funeral.
But in a flash, we recovered the festive mood and replied with good humor.
I’d opted to return to Boston at the crack of dawn Monday, and by mid-afternoon Sunday, the rest of the family had gone. Alone in a hotel in the heartland, I felt like the last person on the planet.
I wandered the streets of “NoDo,” the up-and-coming neighborhood north of downtown. I saw signs of an artsy community on the verge of bursting out: the Tip-Top Apartments in a rehabbed, 90-year-old factory; a sculptor’s studio in a low, orange-painted building, the lawn and driveway covered with metal creations. The place was deserted; no sensible person walks around downtown on Sunday evening.
At a squeaky-clean bar in the Tip-Top, I drank a Tall Grass beer brewed in Kansas and watched football while waiting for a to-go sandwich.
I was a long way from Boston, but even farther from the Midwest I knew when the nine Kush kids lived in Lake Zurich, Illinois, more than 50 years ago. We were together in that house for only a few years between Betty’s birth and Jackie moving out for college, but the experience still defines a part of each of us. We ended up in nine different states. Betty landed in Nebraska when our parents moved there, and she stayed.
Although Julie and Jason reestablished the Kush connection to Omaha after Betty’s children moved away, I sipped my beer and doubted I’d ever return. I had a strong feeling that at first felt like sadness, but before my sandwich arrived, I knew it was something else, an intimate awareness of the passage of time.
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