Slashdot Mirror
Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of NSFnet, Internet Origins
The NYT and news.com have up an article looking back at the NSFnet's influence on the development of the internet. From the National Science Foundation's gamble came the TCP/IP standard we know and love today; when NSFnet was shut down in 1996 it was apparently connecting some 6 million computers. The piece also talks about the (sometimes tense) relationship between private and commercial interests. "The Internet 'was an alien concept to the communication industry when it began growing.' While there was no risk for MCI, which was then an upstart trying to gain ground on AT&T, that was not true of IBM. The company played a crucial role in the development of the Internet, and it did so despite the fact that the new network was a direct competitive threat to its multibillion-dollar communications networking business, based on a competing standard known as Systems Network Architecture, or SNA."
Al Gore. ;)
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
That the first person who makes a predictable Al Gore joke be taken out and shot ;)
Don't listen to him. He's just a troll trying to disrupt our /. discussion. Whatever you do, don't encourage him, because then he might start doing even more disruptive things, like bringing facts into the discussion.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Nah, you just have to tell two Bush jokes to make up for it.