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Imagining the Internet

oDDmON oUT writes ""Imagining the Internet", an ambitious project patterned after the book "Forecasting the Telephone: A Retrospective Technology Assessment" by Ithiel de Sola Pool, examines the potential future of what some deem the most revolutionary technological innovation of the 20th century, while providing a peek into it's history. Nearly 1,300 technology pioneers participated by responding to a survey posing questions about the effects of the internet on a wide range of topics, as well as giving their comments and impressions. Those predictions are indexed into a searchable database, and there is a report available as a pdf file."

58 comments

  1. Imaging the Internet? by Frightcrawler · · Score: 5, Funny

    I use Norton Ghost.

    1. Re:Imaging the Internet? by puiahappy · · Score: 1

      The question is not "how?" is "WHY ?"

      --
      Think like a hacker, act like a hacker, but never become a hacker !
    2. Re:Imaging the Internet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Jesus H. Christ! Not another fucking story about Google!

      Oh wait. Never mind.

  2. It makes sense that it would be in PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have to wade through a lot of crap (PDF) to get to the good stuff (the contents).

    1. Re:It makes sense that it would be in PDF by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 1

      Personally, I like PDFs and how they work - you know, the way they seem to look exactly the same on every system? (unlike MS Office Docs). On Linux, PDFs are rather fast to render. So, what's up with the official Adobe one? Does anybody know of a muchfaster PDF renderer for Windows?

    2. Re:It makes sense that it would be in PDF by PaschalNee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually Adobe Acrobat will load very fast if you disable a lot of the plugins that it normally loads. I've done this and have yet to come across a case where the lack of the plugin causes a problem so I can only assume most plugins are required only for more advanced features. Quick search on Google will list a load a programs that will do this for you e.g.

      http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/PDF/PDF- SpeedUp.shtml

    3. Re:It makes sense that it would be in PDF by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 1

      Thanks you.

    4. Re:It makes sense that it would be in PDF by Bambi+Dee · · Score: 1

      Try Foxit PDF Reader; I love it. Displays PDFs nearly instantly (though I don't know how fast Adobe's is on this machine as I've never installed it).

    5. Re:It makes sense that it would be in PDF by CrazyTiger · · Score: 1

      Yes-Acrobat Reader 4.0. (At http://oldversion.com/program.php?n=acrobat) Turns out Adobe stuffed a lot of crapola into 6.0.

  3. PDF text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  4. I just know I'm going to regret this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "badger-badger-badger-badger-mushroom-mushroom"

    What the HECK does this mean?

    1. Re:I just know I'm going to regret this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      It refers to this.

  5. Imaging or Imagining by goombah99 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Headline is botched

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  6. In case of slashdotting, here is the image by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    01001000100101001010010100100010100010100101010101 01010010101010201010100000011110010101001010101010 1010101010101010101...

    1. Re:In case of slashdotting, here is the image by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      aaaaahhh i know i saw a 2 in there!

  7. for those who dont get the subtitle... by doormat · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    The Doormat

    If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
  8. innovation? by null+etc. · · Score: 1
    examines the potential future of what some deem the most revolutionary technological innovation of the 20th century

    Which innovation is that?

    1. Re:innovation? by Hymer · · Score: 0

      You know that thing invented on the request of the US military... DARPA NET i think they've called it... for connecting different kinds of computers with eachother...

    2. Re:innovation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Television?

    3. Re:innovation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The machine gun.

  9. its dieing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Its kind of sad but if buisness dosnt stop trying to take over the internet it will be dead I think. With all the adware ect. on line I know a lot of people that don't even use it anymore.

    1. Re:its dieing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's kind of sad the English language is dying.

    2. Re:its dieing by ianalis · · Score: 1

      With your argument, does that mean that Firefox. is the saviour of the internet? ;)

  10. Grab a sock or a tissue. by dauthur · · Score: 0, Redundant

    And the greatest feature the internet has ever spawned for itself: Pr0n!

    1. Re:Grab a sock or a tissue. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      perhaps they would to have a copy of all the pr0n ? hehe...

  11. Ing the Internet by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    I'm much more interested in "imaging" the Net, some current traffic/protocol/fiber maps, than in yet another bunch of pundits' breathless spin on how the Internet "will change everything!". The maps will help change things, and the yakking is more of the same.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Ing the Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well maybe you want to check out the Opte Project http://opte.prolexic.com/ for that type of thing.

  12. Maps? Get you Internet maps by the_seal · · Score: 1
  13. boy, this is predictable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    a bunch of Internet experts say the Internet is great.

    Worst. story. ever.

    In other news, firement declare great Chicago Fire to be worst disaster of all time and cooking experts declare cooking to be the greatest accomplishment of all time.

    1. Re:boy, this is predictable by mtz206 · · Score: 1

      How did this story get approved?!?

    2. Re:boy, this is predictable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Taco fancies himself to be a Great Thinker. Sorta like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.

  14. Historical, not predictive by mtz206 · · Score: 1

    What the lede of this story doesn't tell us is that this "Imagining the Internet" project is merely rehashing predictions of the Internet from the 1990s, not what today's thinkers imagine what the Internet will be in the future.

  15. They're using Lucene by dilute · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I see they are using Lucene as their search engine. Lucene a powerful open source indexing system from the Apache Jakarta project written in Java. It's nice to see this, rather than MS indexing service or some other proprietary search solution. Lucene, with the appropriate open source plugins, can index a wide range of content, including MS Office and PDF files.

  16. Most powerful technology of the 20th century by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yet asshats everywhere still can't tell the difference between ITS and IT'S.

  17. Here's my image of the internet! by Nifrith · · Score: 1

    I already got an image of the internet! Here!

  18. Allready happens by va3atc · · Score: 1

    Allready happens, its called the The Way Back Machine

    --
    Candle burns its brightest in the dark
    1. Re:Allready happens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet asshats everywhere still can't tell the difference between ITS and IT'S.

      (Get it right allready!)

  19. Who invented imaging? by LokieLizzy · · Score: 1

    You silly! Of course Al Gore imaged the internet! Every inventor always makes a backup.

    --
    My digital rights don't need management.
  20. How many of you actually RTFA?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's pretty damn long.

  21. My panel answer.. by Deal-a-Neil · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..I imagine the Internets of being a place where politicians can invent parts of it, or the entire Intneret's invention alone can be credited to a single person or executive administration. That's my image of how I imagine the Internets.

  22. Neighborhoods and Communities by Al+Mutasim · · Score: 1

    The experts rank change to neighborhoods and communities as almost least likely to change (second only to same-users-manual-for-centuries religion). How many slashdotters are going to agree with that? If you include the change in the definition of a community, that category should high on the list.

  23. Too Late by Wes+Janson · · Score: 2, Informative

    William Gibson already thought of that idea long ago, in his Sprawl trilogy. I believe it was in Mona Lisa Overdrive, that one of the characters spends all of his time locked up in an abandoned building, trying to find the "shape" of the matrix (aka internet).

  24. Re:CHECK OUT MY BLOG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Excuse my while i gouge out my third eye with a gapefruit spoon that doesn't exist.

  25. Re:You FqAIL It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That made no sense. No sense at all.

  26. Sing along with Strong Bad... by Caspian · · Score: 1

    ...while providing a peek into it's history.

    o/~ Oooooooooh... if you want it to be possessive, it's just I T S, but if you want it to be a contraction, it's I T apostrophe S... scallawag! o/~

    <Homestar>Seriously</Homestar>. If SlashDot wants to get taken seriously outside the geek community, shouldn't they employ editors who can, well, edit?

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    With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
  27. 'Net: Not most important, but most revolutionary by CGameProgrammer · · Score: 1

    I assume you're trying to be smarmy or something, but while the internet (or the world wide web) isn't the most important creation of the 20th century, obviously, it is arguably the most revolutionary. Transportation? OK, now we can get places quicker, encouraging growth outwards instead of concentrating in cities. Quite revolutionary. Better medicine? OK, people die less, or at least they cease dying of certain causes and instead die of different ones. Important, but not exactly revolutionary. Television? Mostly just for entertainment... even the news is for entertainment. Newspapers remain the best source of news, excluding the internet. Not revolutionary.

    --
    ~CGameProgrammer( );
  28. Ominous by wowbagger · · Score: 1

    The fact that the results are in a PDF file is somewhat ominous, given that this is a group dedicated to the purpose of predicting the future of the Internet.

    So, instead of posting their results in a form that is easily browsed, cross-linked, and generally made a part of the Internet, they use a format which has as its primary claim to fame the ability to be printed out.

    Perhaps I am just grouchy because I am still working on my morning coffee, but it would seem to me the future of the Internet looks like a lot of proprietary file formats locked up behind walls of DRM.

  29. Al Gore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just as the development of the Interstate Highway System led to the creation of McDonald's hamburgers, Holiday Inn and a thousand other new commercial developments that would have been impossible without the Interstate Highway System, in the same way we will see the emergence of information services on a nationwide basis that will be extremely profitable and nearly ubiquitous. Al Gore, 1993

    Not bad, for a politician.