Amusing anecdote: The computer that hosted the original WWW is in a little museum at CERN, open to the public. When my family saw it several years ago, it still had a hand written note taped to the side of it, something to the effect of "Please don't turn this computer off." It still amuses me to think that at one point, the entire WWW depended on someone remembering to not shut it down. Edit: See below. Reality is m…
30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
51–60 of 78 posts
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blackberry and Treo from the early 2000s certainly gave you "easy to access" email and some limited browsing. The iPhone by the late 2000s though was a very different experience. There was definitely a gen 1 of smartphones and then a gen 2 ushered in by the iPhone.
That’s certainly true. But you can say the same of early 1990s www. My point is that the idea of having a multifunction tool in your pocket that could connect to the internet came as early as it was technically possible, long before Apple released the iphone.
Probably predating the web.
I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get online with a Poquet PC.
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#53Does anyone know if there is a URL for Tim Berners-Lee's book "Weaving the Web", where it is accessible over HTTP? Not even talking about gratis open access, just whether or not the Web-of-documents vision is actually in practice for TimBL's book itself. Also not talking about a link to a storefront that sells it, or a promo site, or a faithfully reproduced but non-canonical link to a warez'd copy. Specifically askin…
https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/
It’s not great
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#54I clearly remember when I first saw the www, a few years into its life, at a meeting in the Mac users group my dad was a part of, probably at a university department or similar that had internet access. I thought it was one of the dullest things I'd ever seen anyone do with a computer, and I didn't at all understand what was so interesting about this Netscape programme. I must have been about ten. I did grow to find…
I remember one of the first things I wanted to actually see on the web was the Orbitz (drink) website (96/97?), although I remember seeing yahoo ~two years before in elementary school.
I vaguely remember it actually being orbitz.com.
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#55It makes me feel strange to think that all these industries, all these jobs, and all these companies didn't exist just 30 years ago. Nowadays everyone says the web. It seems very hard to predict what technology will be dominant in another 30 years. It is fortunate that I will probably still live by then to witness the future. Anyway, congratulations to the web.
> It seems very hard to predict what technology will be dominant in another 30 years
The web seems to have bootstrapped entire industries who rely on its infra to operate. This will be the same story in the next 20 years. The web is the foundation, the innovation you will see, will piggyback on top of it, unless something else serves as the underlying basis (cough blockchain).
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#56Does anyone know if there is a URL for Tim Berners-Lee's book "Weaving the Web", where it is accessible over HTTP? Not even talking about gratis open access, just whether or not the Web-of-documents vision is actually in practice for TimBL's book itself. Also not talking about a link to a storefront that sells it, or a promo site, or a faithfully reproduced but non-canonical link to a warez'd copy. Specifically askin…
https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/ It’s not great
That's very obviously not a URL for the book. That's a URL for a promo site, i.e., one of the things explicitly listed as something not to reply with, since it's not an answer to the question being asked.
"Specifically asking here whether the book has a URL."
(Being a promo site, it is a place where we should expect the URL to be linked to, if it existed, but there is no such URL to be found on that page, hence the question...)
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#57Amusing anecdote: The computer that hosted the original WWW is in a little museum at CERN, open to the public. When my family saw it several years ago, it still had a hand written note taped to the side of it, something to the effect of "Please don't turn this computer off." It still amuses me to think that at one point, the entire WWW depended on someone remembering to not shut it down. Edit: See below. Reality is m…
It said "This machine is a server". Isn't that still true for any server ? I mean if you power off a server, it stops serving. I guess the what makes that note truly unique is that it was THE only server at that time ?
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#58Amusing anecdote: The computer that hosted the original WWW is in a little museum at CERN, open to the public. When my family saw it several years ago, it still had a hand written note taped to the side of it, something to the effect of "Please don't turn this computer off." It still amuses me to think that at one point, the entire WWW depended on someone remembering to not shut it down. Edit: See below. Reality is m…
It said "This machine is a server". Isn't that still true for any server ? I mean if you power off a server, it stops serving. I guess the what makes that note truly unique is that it was THE only server at that time ?
I guess it just means "even though this machine looks like a desktop computer (which it very much usually was as a NeXT station), it's actually acting as a server, so please don't shut it down like you would with a desktop machine".
It by far wasn't the only "server" at that time. The WWW may be 30 years old, but the Internet is much older.
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think smartphones might be a bit older than that. I remember using some phones in 2003 that already had a basic internet connection (wap), camera, and on which you could check your emails. The first versions of a blackberry that could do emails was 1999 I think. And PalmPilots in 1997. The iphone was just a cooler and more powerful toy.
The Wap, or even the Blackberry, didn’t have an impact on society. It just enabled a few more usecases for the owner but not for the group - like carrying your work with you. The iPhone 2007, and moreso in 2010, was an entire leap forward: It enabled dozens of usecases at a time, such as using Maps, online dating with photos and geographical distance, writing reviews of restaurants… and it triggered efforts in the du…
Yeah, it's a bit like mobile phone didn't have an impact while it was radio phone or during the first years of modern-ish mobile networks; it was de facto reserved for specific professional use and the happy few. It took 10 years or more to expand the networks coverage and drop prices, and then only it had a very noticeable public impact.
Re: 30 years on from introducing the Web to the World
#60I’m more impressed that the first smartphone is only 14 years old and it has changed so much to our lives: - First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), - Second, Youtube was the world wild web of all politics and militant movements, - We’re in a third phase wher…
Allow me to offer an opposing anecdote: smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Most of the time I don't even know where my smartphone is (except for car navigation). Do people really consider smartphones "more impressive" / impactful than the World Wide Web?
> smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life.
Sure, that's the same to me, I don't even own one. But that's not how the majority feels and acts. And there's been another acceleration in the last 2-3 years, where more business and, worse, official administrative stuff is pushed on the smartphone (as mobile-first).
One fresh anecdote. 2 hours ago, I watched the news, and the presenter was explaining how you didn't actually need to have you Covid Pass on your mobile: "you can have it on paper, on a sheet you know, and then er... you fold it and put it in your pocket, er... like we used to do in ancient times."
"Like we used to do in ancient times", she said. And she felt the need to explain how to carry a stupid paper... (she was that close to tell people how many times they should fold it, and how to unfold it.) At home, we were like WTF? For many people, doing everything and the rest on the smartphone has become not only normal, but the primary way of doing, and the only way of doing they know. Other ways are already being marginalised.