Who really invented the internet?

Edna Christ, wife of Jesus.

The other day, I forgot to give thanks for the internet. And don't give me credit for remembering it now. This oversight was revealed to me by god, herself.

Yes, Edna Christ -- Jesus' wife -- appeared to me last night. Oh, and you should have seen her! She let me snap her photo for the blog -- that's it at left -- but she looks much more impressive in person. And she smells of cookies -- macaroons, I think. But I digress.

In her omniscient, slightly nagging way, Edna reminded me to be thankful for the internet. She said it is a sacrament. And then she told me the true story of how the internet came to be. Edna invented it! She came up with the idea during one of the long walks she always takes, to get away from Jesus. But let her tell you in her own words. I asked Siri to record everything she said during her visitation. Here is the relevant portion of what she said unto me:

"Keith, you sweet, sweet person, I want to tell you a story...(blah, blah, blah)...and so I came up with the idea for the internet. I whispered the details into Al Gore's ear -- and he took it from there. For years, he was intensely involved with setting up the nodes and protocols. That's why he was so skinny, back then. But you know, the moment he plugged in the final circuit that turned the internet on, he went back to the donuts. Oy. He's such a donut lover, that Al!"

Is that incredible or what? Oh, Edna, now that you've come back to us we are once again hopeful and filled with joy. All hail Edna! (And yes, she told me much, much more. But you can fit only so much Divine Revelation in one post. Stay tuned.)

How SkyNet takes over

Scary story today at physorg. It's called "Machines to Compare Notes Online". Here's an excerpt:

Looking forward, Veres sees the intelligent system discuss its potential upgrades with its users, lifting this burden from users and manufacturers. Long after their sale, machines will read technical documents from the Internet to improve their performance. These documents can be published not only by their original manufacturer but by user communities.

They actually say the "intelligent system" will suggest its own upgrades -- based on its leisure-time reading, apparently. Hmmm. So the very smart machines will suggest upgrades . . . and the dimwitted humans will say, "Uh . . . okay, I guess" and push a button. And that's it: instant upgrade. If they do this with more and more capable AIs, we will soon find ourselves in the same position as the humans in the Terminator movies.

I love advances and am fond of the concept of real AI. But I say, "Danger, Will Robinson!" and good luck to all of us. We're going to need it because a setup like this could easily spiral out of control. And then comes SkyNet.

Brain-dead web polls

People don't know how to create poll questions. I used to do this so I'm very aware of the inadequacies in internet polls.

In my area, the NY Daily News has the worst polls. They loop extraneous phrases into the choices you choose from, so you can't possibly answer the question unless you fall into their ridiculously narrow scope. Today's poll concerns a boat house restaurant. Never mind the issues, just look how they phrase the choices:

Will you be going back to the Boathouse Restaurant?

- Yes, the owner had a legitimate reason to let the workers go.
- No way, those employees should not have been fired.
- I don't know, but I love the Boathouse in the summertime.

See what's wrong here? This is how they should have done the poll:

Will you be going back to the Boathouse Restaurant?

- Yes.
- No.
- I don't know.

See how that works? Note to poll makers: Do not tack on your stupid, irrelevant, qualifying remarks. You make it impossible for anyone with a brain to take your poll. Oh, that's right. I forgot. You only publish for idiots. Never mind.

Internet reality vs. TV "news"

I assume anyone who finds his or her way to this blog is an alert, intelligent person who uses the internet adroitly. We are internet people. We're awake and we know stuff.

One effect of this is that it's very difficult to watch "the news" on TV. Isn't it amazing how what they call "news" are items we've known about for days, weeks, months or even years? They actually present this stuff as fresh, new and vital -- as if all of us alert folks out here don't even exist.

But see, we do. And we find their words to be old, tired and almost always delivered from an obtuse, unhelpful viewpoint. We recognize how uninformed the "news anchors" are, and their ignorance is painful to observe.

How much longer will TV news be around? It's already dead, of course. But what I mean is how long will it be until everyone notices it's dead and stops tuning in? Sense would say "soon" but sense doesn't apply in our insular, knowledge-free America.

I wonder how long NBC's stentorous blowhard Brian Williams will be allowed to pontificate on the air. How many more months or years will I have to watch Katie Couric muddle her way through hairstyles and issues? And, horror of horrors, how can I continue to sit on the edge of my seat each night wondering how long Diane Sawyer's eyelashes will be this evening? One day she'll fall flat on her face from the weight of them. Even now, she can hardly keep her eyes open. Toss them out, woman, and give those eyes a rest!

What is their job supposed to be, anyway? They're introducers? I don't know about you, but these days I shoot through what they say since it adds nothing to the stories. The video that they introduce is "the news", what little there is of it. So what's with the introducers? These "anchors" are models reading words they don't understand (although in blowhard Williams' case, I accept that he's awake and actively evil). Their words don't amount to anything. They might as well not say them for all the effect they have.

The internet has opened our eyes and there is no way to close them again. We are alert, informed and self-motivated enough to seek out the real news. TV can't fool us anymore. So why are these people still on every night? And when will they go away? I won't miss them.

TV news is dead and when death happens, we need to toss out the body and switch our attention to the living. The internet is our only hope of obtaining true information about the world.

However, if the broadcast stations ever decided to present the real news again we'd flock back in droves. But as long as "the news" is just a bunch of mindless flacks presenting pre-packaged, government-approved pap -- we won't be there. Does a broadcast make any noise if no one watches? We'll soon find out.

Because the old-school model of "the news" will soon go the way of the dinosaur, this means the corporate powers-that-be will try to find other means to control our access to information -- and that means that, in the end, they will attack the internet with all their might. It's inevitable.

That will be the final battle. If we lose that one, we lose it all.

TiVo and the internet

I'm an avid baseball fan. I know: you thought all gay guys hated sports. Not this one; I can't get enough of it. But this is a recent phenomenon for me, and for good reason -- baseball was unwatchable until a few, short years ago. The thing that made it palatable was the advent of TiVo.

Have you ever watched a baseball game? There are commercials built into the commercials, which often break for commercials. Even when the game is on, the sports announcers can't tell you anything without first saying "this bit of info is brought to you by . . . (whomever)." It's one big, boring, endless commercial. Enter TiVo.

Armed with TiVo's weapons, I can watch baseball and enjoy it! I just shoot through the commercials and the boring nonsense that constantly spews from the announcers' mouths -- I'm talkin' to you, McCarver -- and go directly to the next pitch, the next pitch, the next pitch, etc. It's seamless and only requires that I press a few buttons.

TiVo did a lot more than this for viewers. It lit up the entire field of TV programming. With TiVo, we can see not just a momentary snapshot of what's on but the whole picture. Suddenly we can call up two full weeks of TV programming and review this block of information at our leisure. This changed TV permanently. Once you've TiVo'd, you cannot go back.

But there is a price to pay. When you can see absolutely everything that TV has to offer, you understand how bleak your TV prospects really are. Before, we only suspected that TV offered little that was entertaining or educational. Now we know for sure that it's a vast wasteland.

The internet did a similar thing for our lives. Before it existed, we only saw bits and pieces of reality -- a story in a newspaper, maybe another one on an evening newscast, or perhaps we were lucky enough to catch ten minutes of a radio news show in our car on the way home from work. But no matter what we did, our view was scattered and piecemeal.

But then the internet opened the window wide and let everything in. Reality itself is now laid out for us in convenient panels so that we can browse it at our leisure. The internet TiVo'd reality for us. It's all there now, every little thing. 

But again there is a price to pay. The panoramic view shows us that American life is even shallower than we believed. Look around the American internet and you learn that we are a mad consumerist society with little regard for others and nothing much in the way of personal values. Oh, we talk about values a lot but it's obvious from our actions and inactions that this is just noise. Nothing truly matters to Americans except their convenience -- and never mind if someone else suffers in the process. That's fine as long as we end up with the best of everything.

Yes, these days it's all out there on the internet. Reality is viewable (if you spend the time looking for it) and we can finally see our world clearly. And it's all me, me, me -- or its about politics, which these days is merely a grab for power, and never mind what for.

I think it's us that we see on the internet. The internet is us. It's a mirror. And I don't know about you but what I see reflected there is frightening. I see a world without intellect, a world without judgment, a world of gullible, greedy, ignorant gits. The internet alarm is ringing loudly. It's saying, "Look at yourselves! Are you satisfied with what you are?" At least, that's the message I see there.

In a similar sense I want my books to be mirrors. I want readers to see themselves from a fresh new angle -- and I want them to ask, "What am I?" I don't think we know the answer to this question and until we do, we won't understand anything -- not the world around us, not our place within the grand structure of reality, and certainly not the value of our fellow man.

Maybe that's too big a job and I'll have to narrow my goals, but it alarms me that we're so terribly off-base. Most Americans believe in both torture and angels; we have a big, big problem on our hands. Can a work of fiction fix this? I doubt it. But when we read a book or see a movie, we open ourselves up to new ideas. I want to sneak some in before our brains shut down forever.

I have grand dreams to share with my readers -- hopeful, possible dreams. I want to wake the world up -- and I want to show them a good time along the way. That's why I write.