Asking out of curiousity, do you purposely not capitalize “Internet”?
Yeah, that’s by design.
In my academic writing about the Internet, I did capitalize it, because that’s the “correct” thing to do. (Aside: as a psych major, I did some stuff on social development of introverts on the Internet. PDF, 1.9mb, my stuff starts on page 28.)
But I think it looks dumb for a blog. To me, it has a connotation of out-of-touch-ness, as if the Internet is a strange land we must refer to formally, instead of our native environment.
This is what I think of:
Uppercase Internet: “The Internet is a series of tubes.” Or maybe Fox 11’s news report on Anonymous.
ElectroCity is a flash-based game designed to teach students “common knowledge” about energy sources and their environmental impacts. It’s also entertaining for adults… actually, it’s totally addictive. Think SimCity, but prettier and way more hip to the energy crisis.
The game was developed Genesis, a big energy company in New Zealand. Genesis is also awarding up to $10,000 of technology to the schools of the kids who do the best job of balancing green with growth.
Here’s a city built by 3 middle-schoolers, which won the first competition with a score of 96/100. I dunno how these kids did it… so far my best score is 84/100.
I read (and watched) a lot of science fiction growing up. I was in it for the adventure, the aliens, and the thinly-veiled social commentary. But mostly I was in it for the technology, which was really neat.I wanted a holodeck to play in. I wanted to travel in a spaceship that would talk to me. And I wanted a transporter to take me to school so I could sleep in for 20 more minutes each morning.
Imagine my delight as I grew older and realized that many of my sci-fi dreams were coming true. We have cell phones that fulfill the function of Star Trek’s communicators. We access extraordinary amounts of data through personal terminals. We have machines that learn, robotic pets, and mechanical replacements for human limbs.
Technovelgy.com is a fantastic catalogue of science fictional concepts that are becoming reality. Of course, not all of these were inspired by sci-fi. But some of them definitely were: for example, the US military’s PHASR gun.
Technovelgy summarizes the inventions, usually with photos or videos, and connects them to the sci-fi “source” of the idea. For example, if you’ve read Frank Herbert, you’ve probably read about chairdogs. From The Tactful Saboteur, first published in 1964:
He indicated a chairdog against the wall to his right, snapped his fingers. The semi-sentient artifact glided to a position behind McKie. “Please be seated.”
And yes, here’s an awesome concept video for an implementation of chairdogs:
In conclusion, Technovelgy rocks. Hat-tip to Prof. Stephen Burt for showing us this site in English 182, Harvard’s first course on - you guessed it - Science Fiction.
I’ve been silent largely due to final papers, but PostSecret (one of my favorite corners of the internet, and a phenomenon that definitely deserves a post of its own sometime) just made me grin like the sleep-deprived sugar-high riding paper writer that I currently am, and I had to share:
I hope that my fellow crazy college kids can draw some comfort (or at least, some perspective) from this “secret.”
I love social hygiene posters. For years, the US government produced hilarious PSAs and posters in an attempt to clean up social relations. Naturally, they were preoccupied with sex. Here’s one of my favorite pieces of social hygiene memorabilia, an abstinence poster for 1922. Remember, this is a government publication:
On of my favorite hidden gems of the internet is the large number of archived social hygiene materials that are available for my entertainment. For example, the University of Minnesota has scanned and cataloged a large collection of these posters. I highly recommend the “Mental Health” category, for example this 1918 image. But dig around - you’ll find instructions on how to bath, how to dance properly, and lots of advice about syphilis. Think of all the uses for these pieces of history… facebook profile picture? Sign for your dorm room door? Sign for someone else’s dorm room door? …the possibilities are endless.
To inaugurate this blog, I feel like should write something about myself. But that would be boring. I’d rather tell you a story.
When I was 13, I went on an overnight winter camping trip to Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State. This trip traditionally involved cross-country skiing to the campsite and then spending the night in tents. To my friend Eliana and me, though, this was incredibly stupid.
Why would anyone sleep in a cold tent when you could build a warm, cozy igloo?
Not that either of us had ever built an igloo before, or even seen one built. Or talked to anyone who’d built one, or even seen one in person. But that didn’t deter us: we were two smart kids, and more importantly, we had the internet. In the week leading up to the trip, we read dozens of web sites about igloos. We learned that a single burning candle could raise the temperature inside an igloo by 15 degrees Fahrenheit every hour. We reasoned that two humans would emit much more heat than a candle. Especially two humans that are all sweaty from building an igloo. It’s going to be a sauna in there, we thought. Maybe we should pack t-shirts!
I printed off several sets off igloo-building instructions, and even laminated them. We borrowed an ice saw. We were all set.
On the day of the trip, we set out a few hours ahead of the group to start construction. Pretty soon it became clear that as knowledgeable as we were about igloo-building, thanks to the internet, we were going to have some problems.
We lacked the physical strength necessary to deal with ice. Specifically, it’s really hard to saw through ice. It’s even harder to carry large blocks of ice. Have you ever carried a big bag of ice to a party? Imagine something like that, but way bigger and way harder to get a grip on. Also, imagine you’re a 13 year old computer geek whose worst subject has always been P.E.
In short, we were totally screwed.
The rest of the group arrived around 5pm and started setting up their (wimpy, freezing-cold… my god, did they really set that up in 15 minutes?) tents. After a while, we sucked it up and asked for help. Pretty soon the igloo was nearly complete. I stood inside and supported the last few blocks of ice from below while Eliana and a few of the adults present tried to wedge them together so that they would support each other (I’d spent quite some time doing geometry in preparation for this moment). It worked! The keystone was in, and we had a roof! The smaller kids started packing snow into the cracks between blocks.
“Um, guys? I’m kinda stuck. Can we build the door now?” I yelled. Eliana and I started digging a tunnel - first down, then towards each other (to block the wind, you see. The classic cartoon igloo with the above ground tunnel is really a pretty poor design - or so said the geocities page I’d found using AltaVista.) Success! I saw light on the other side. Then my shovel collided with a large tree root.
Eliana, ever resourceful, grabbed our saw and reached down into the tunnel with it, hacking blindly at the inconvenient root. After a while, though, she stuck her head down the tunnel and yelled “I don’t think this is working.”
I concurred. We started again on the other side of the igloo, where Eliana swore there were zero nearby trees. This time, the tunnel worked! I crawled out and took a look at the beautiful (and by now, pitch black) sky.
The others had already eaten and many had gone to bed. I was really looking forward to my instant ramen, and was about to go in search of a stove when an adult came over to check out our igloo… and stood directly on top of our tunnel, which promptly collapsed. We starred at the igloo in silence. The adult, guilt stricken and profusely apologetic, offered us space in his tent. We declined. We’d spent more than 7 hours on this igloo, this superior shelter, our internet-powered masterwork - and we were damn well going to sleep in it.
The floor was slanted. There was a hefty draft coming in through the hole we’d punched in the wall (dig a third tunnel? No thanks!) The diameter of the igloo ended up being slightly less than 5 feet - insufficient. Also, the igloo was raining icy water all over us.
We were so cold we were afraid to go to sleep. But we’d done it. And when it was over, we just had one entity to curse and thank for our “character-building” winter wilderness experience: that endless dumping-ground of knowledge, the internet.
