internet – Ready, set, Joe.

A little Internet background history

The LA Times had a great piece about the formation of the Internet (the one Al Gore built, that is, the DARPA funded initiative). Tomorrow, October 29th, 2009 the Internet turns 40 (my how it’s matured in the last few years). The article is a quick and easy read about how a few (much younger then) professors and researchers at Stanford and UCLA first sent packets of info from LA to Palo Alto through an “Interface Message Processor”. One of the protagonists was Leonard Kleinrock (who taught CS at UCLA and still does).

Their goal was to login remotely from one computer to the other. Even in failure was their first success:

What happened in that big moment? All we wanted to do was log in to the second host computer at SRI, 400 miles to the north, to see if one machine could talk to another. You have to type “L-O-G” and then the remote machine types “I-N.” We typed the L and [called SRI and] said, did you get the L? Yep, got the L. Get the O? Yep, got the O. Typed the G and craaaaash. But the message couldn’t have been shorter or more prophetic: LO, lo and behold. You can’t beat that. (LA Times, “Net worker”)

He also recounts the first time he and his crew ever came across spam. Their response to the culprit? “You can’t do that. Bad. Stop. Horrible”. Then they sent so much email back to the spammer that it marked the first denial of service and crashed their networks.

So much changes just to stay the same.

Here’s to you, Internet. May you grow and grow but never become self-aware.

Ben Franklin sucked at advertising

For being a pioneer in printed news papers (creating one of the first papers in PA and infamously publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac), Ben Franklin, in all modern measurements, sucked at ad-copy. I might go so far as to say that he would have been canned by any current magazine, newspaper or even blog for the wordy ads he put out.

Of course, back in the day (circa 1755) his long winded “advertisements” were the norm (perhaps even cutting edge) but these days any reader would probably just stop reading after the first line…see if you can make sense of this ad he ran in 1755 seeking to hire horses and carriages for General Braddock (who was “stateside” to protect the colonies from the belligerent French–obviously before they became the war-dodging country they are today. Brush up on the French-Indian War here).

ADVERTISEMENT. — LANCASTER, April 26, 1755.

Whereas, one hundred and fifty waggons, with four horses to each waggon, and fifteen hundred saddle or pack horses, are wanted for the service of his majesty’s forces now about to rendezvous at Will’s Creek, and his excellency General Braddock having been pleased to empower me to contract for the hire of the same, I hereby give notice that I shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this day to next Wednesday evening, and at York from next Thursday morning till Friday evening, where I shall be ready to agree for waggons and teams, or single horses, on the following terms, viz.:

1. That there shall be paid for each waggon, with four good horses and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem; and for each able horse with a pack-saddle, or other saddle and furniture, two shillings per diem; and for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen pence per diem.

2. That the pay commence from the time of their joining the forces at Will’s Creek, which must be on or before the 20th of May ensuing, and that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for their travelling to Will’s Creek and home again after their discharge.

3. Each waggon and team, and every saddle or pack horse, is to be valued by indifferent persons chosen between me and the owner; and in case of the loss of any waggon, team, or other horse in the service, the price according to such valuation is to be allowed and paid.

4. Seven days’ pay is to be advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of each waggon and team, or horse, at the time of contracting, if required, and the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army, at the time of their discharge, or from time to time, as it shall be demanded.

5. No drivers of waggons, or persons taking care of the hired horses, are on any account to be called upon to do the duty of soldiers, or be otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their carriages or horses.

6. All oats, Indian corn, or other forage that waggons or horses bring to the camp, more than is necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be taken for the use of the army, and a reasonable price paid for the same.

Note.–My son, William Franklin, is empowered to enter into like contracts with any person in Cumberland county.
B. FRANKLIN. (From the Dailylit.com version of Ben Franklin’s Autobiography)

No way that could be a Google Ad. The 425 words/2300 characters are a far cry from meeting Google or Twitter standards, but if Ben had asked, I could have helped him trim it down. Here’s the same ad as it might have been formatted for the internet-age.

Google Search Ad:

Twitter Post:

And finally Facebook:

Fair? Not really. Fun? Certainly. Franklin probably would have been a media powerhouse today (he was in his own time, amassing a fortune by 40 just through smart printing and by staying sharp). Perhaps we can take a hint from his eloquent, flowing writing style. Sure it’s formal, but it’s cordial and personal at the same time. Which says a lot more than the ad samples above.

That being said, I don’t think many people answered his original ads. After that “ad” appears in his book he talks about how he had to publish a warning to the people of PA after letting them know that the Brits would take their horses and wagons by force (since they had already asked so nicely and offered to pay).

The Golden Age of Education

In a recent “Open Education” post, the concept of TMI “too much information” was discussed in context of our ability to make sense of the news in front of us, buffetting us, surrounding us. The article is a great read about how lots and lots of information has changed the game (for good or bad, well, that seems to be in the eye of the beholder).

The article ends with this, a discussion of “A Golden Age”:

A Golden Age

If knowledge is truly power, then we should be entering a golden age, one where everyone has unlimited access to the authority once held only by the elite in society.

The fact that we seem to be far from such a place does beg several questions.

And the biggest one befalls education – many have written that the next phase of schooling must move towards a focus that places the information age at its core for the next generation of learners. In fact, it would seem that the words of Postman are most prescient – twenty years ago he noted the volume of information that was being produced and the issues that it would present.

But education changed little over those 20 years. So we now have a large group of citizens unable to emotionally and intellectually handle the breadth of information available to them.

The answer is certainly not to limit information. The answer is in creating an educational system that helps individuals understand how to best make use of the knowledge.

The power that today’s information-rich society has available is truly unprecedented. As always, education is the great equalizer, but now we must turn our attention towards helping our young people learn how to filter, reduce and use the knowledge that is accessible to them.

I’m good with that. The issue I see though (and I see this everyday) is that the realm of education by default, places itself outside the information. It’s a walled castle with limited access and filtered news. If you were to make a little venn diagram of “Information” and “Education’s Information” (which represents what students and teachers have at their disposal on any given day) then just their edges would be touching.

Early in the Open Education post it talked about the Davinci Institute’s stats on blogs, books, and videos. At best, few schools provide their students access the complete library of information available through video and blog posts (blogger and youtube are often blocked completely).

I agree with the need to have education refocus on the information available. But if it’s filtered what’s the point?

I wish…

Misspelling is a pet peeve. I hate finding words spelled incorrectly on websites (on corporate web pages), in emails or on blogs. I know they are created quickly and each post is a “draft” but with the invention of Firefox and some other browsers spell checkers (WP has one built right in) it seems that we all (internet-users) should not have to see spelling errors. They’re just too easy to correct, prevent, get rid of (and call out).

Students these days have atrocious spelling. L33t speak, texting and perhaps a degraded education system (go NCLB!). I’m privy to lots of discussion forum posts through my job (monitoring an education based site) and some of the spelling errors are deplorable (even for high schoolers!).

Now, I know I’m setting up myself for criticism (just imagine if I spell something wrong in this post! what a hypocrite I will be/am).

Here’s my wish: I wish that the web enforced it’s own spell checking. So that no matter how bad someone’s spelling is, shouldn’t the web be able to correct it before I have to read it. Can’t I go to my “tools” on Firefox of Chrome and choose to have my web filtered/corrected automatically so I get a clean, entirely comprehensible, easy read on my screen?

Internet gods: please deliver me from poor spelling.