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Internaut Day Might Not Be the Web Anniversary You're Looking For (fortune.com)

David Meyer, reporting for Fortune: The web arguably went public before August 23, 1991. Social media users are enthusiastically celebrating "Internaut Day" on Tuesday. They're thanking Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, for first providing public access to it on this day in 1991, precisely a quarter of a century back. The only problem is that the supposed importance of Internaut Day doesn't seem to be supported by much evidence. Berners-Lee submitted his seminal proposal for a new information management system to CERN on March 12, 1989, a date which Berners-Lee celebrates as the birthday of the web. The building blocks were specified and written up by October 1990, and the first webpage went live in December that year. So when somebody celebrates the "Internaut Day" today, it really doesn't seem like the right occasion. The report adds: According to Wikipedia, that's when "new users could [first] access" the web -- and that's what a gazillion news stories on Tuesday are supposedly celebrating. But it doesn't square with what the Web Foundation and CERN say.

70 comments

  1. Shocking. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Isn't swarming around fads driven by shoddy information what 'social media' is for? It certainly seems to be the typical use case.

    1. Re:Shocking. by BringsApples · · Score: 1

      That this is being celebrated on a Tuesday is the only shocking thing to me, as almost all major events, including presidents' birthdays, are celebrated on a Monday.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
  2. The first real breakthrough wasn't the web by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The first real breakthrough that brought digital communications to the masses was the various Bulletin Board systems. What did people do with them? Looked for pr0n, buying and selling stuff, uploading and downloading software, pictures, etc., sending each other messages about what they were doing ... the medium (dial-up or tcp/ip) wasn't important from the people perspective.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:The first real breakthrough wasn't the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I would pin it on the introduction of Usenet News in 1979.

      Prior to that you were limited by the size of membership on the BBS you were dialing into.

      Usenet News made the interactions Global, and we have not looked back since then

  3. Reminds me, I was late to the party in 1996 by raymorris · · Score: 1

    That reminds me of when I thought I was far too late in starting my first web business, in 1996. I lamented that there would have been a lot of potential if I had gotten in early, but the web had already been around for five years. Why hadn't I gotten in early, darn it! :)

  4. Yeah, so? by ilsaloving · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Considering that a large portion of the globe believe and celebrate the birth of a god on Dec 25th, despite the fact that there is no evidence at all that this truely happened, I think we can probably let this inaccuracy slide.

    At least we know the internet really did happen.

    1. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No evidence Jesus was born on Dec 25th? Yes, we already know this.
      No evidence Jesus was born? No, the evidence is pretty solid.
      Evidence Jesus was God? Evidence, but highly disputed.

    2. Re:Yeah, so? by operagost · · Score: 2

      The internet was created so that we could have OT posts like, "Internet Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Have a Religion".

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    3. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is not what the OP referred to; he referred specifically to the date of Dec 25 being inaccurate, which it is widely accepted that it is. Can we let this birth of the interwebs date slide too? Yeah.... seriously, WHO CARES?? If this is a problem worth reading in your life, you have entirely too much free time.

    4. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Actually there is next to no none biblical sources verifying nor attesting to the historicity of Jesus.

      The ones most commonly referenced either refer to Christians, not Christ himself, which no more supports the historicity of Jesus than does the fact that Norse people's mythology involved a god with a hammer. Nor does the bible support the historicity of Jesus anymore than the Vedas, the Sagas, nor other religious texts confirm the existence of deities, nor mythical creatures.

      The Testemonium Flavium is the most commonly sited extra-biblical reference but it is problematic and believed to be at least a partial interpolation of latter scholars as no first century copies of Josephus exist. The other Josephus reference suffers similarly.

    5. Re:Yeah, so? by Calydor · · Score: 1

      Jesus was only a demigod - his mother was human.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    6. Re:Yeah, so? by Maritz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No evidence Jesus was born on Dec 25th? Yes, we already know this. No evidence Jesus was born? No, the evidence is pretty solid. Evidence Jesus was God? Evidence, but highly disputed.

      Seeing as you've no links, allow me to retort. Nope, no solid evidence that the biblical Jesus was a real historical person. Nope, no evidence whatsoever that he was "god" (note the lower case G).

      It sounds like you're presupposing that the abrahamic god exists, so let me just point out that there's just as much evidence for Zeus.

      Thanks.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    7. Re:Yeah, so? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Weird, is their paywall gone?

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    8. Re:Yeah, so? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      It's on a par with the mystery of where the dish run off with the spoon to.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    9. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since when does a celebration have to coincide with an anniversary? Christmas was chosen in order to coincide with all the other major solstice celebrations other religions were having and Christians were missing out on.

      I've seen it mentioned many times that Christ wasn't born on 25 December, but what I never actually seem to encounter is anyone believing or claiming that he was born on that day.

    10. Re:Yeah, so? by magarity · · Score: 1

      Jesus was only a demigod - his mother was human.

      Then why he isn't in any of the Riordan novels?

    11. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Biblical sources were the only written record of many major historical events since confirmed through things like geological record, archaeological digs, etc. They should certainly be viewed through the filter of "this is used to manipulate people" but not "this is all made up and so are the people discussed."

    12. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the oft-cited reason why 25 December was chosen for Christmas, but it's not true. It's due to the mystical belief that Jewish prophets die on the same day they were born, and the Annunciation (his conception, i.e. nine months before his birth) was already being celebrated on 25 March.

    13. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Proven events like what?

    14. Re: Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He exist because one book says he exist? Sounds pretty thin to me.

    15. Re:Yeah, so? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 0

      It sounds like your disgusting Islamophobia is causing you to say hateful things about a revered prophet of Islam. Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on. "Abrahamic" is capitalized, you piece of shit racist Islamophobe.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    16. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, assuming we don't worry about the whole God existing part of the argument, technically what Christians celebrate is the solemnity of the birth of Jesus, It is and the date it is celebrate varies somewhat depending on which of the ancient churches you choose. More importantly it is the day choose to celebrate the event and there never was a serious claim made by anyone I know of even in ancient time that the exact day of His birth was known and the same as the day that it was celebrated. Traditionally the 'feast day' is proceeded by 40 days of preparation and the feast itself continues from Dec 25 until Epiphany.

      So while it is the date picked to celebrate it, that is what it is, not nessarily in anybodies estimation the day it happened as that is lost in antiquity.
      http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

    17. Re:Yeah, so? by fsagx · · Score: 1

      The "David" character seems likely to have existed:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    18. Re:Yeah, so? by zlives · · Score: 1

      a fact you have no support for other than a book filled with fallacies so... it must be "fact" also superman

    19. Re:Yeah, so? by Alomex · · Score: 1

      Wow, that is amazing considering people wrote about him who were alive at the same time he is purported to.

      Actually none of the gospels are believed by scholars to have been written by contemporaries of Jesus.

      The dead sea scrolls mention Jesus like figures, yes in the plural, which could have formed the basis of the JC written about a hundred years after his death.

    20. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Seeing as you've no links, allow me to retort. Nope, no solid evidence that the biblical Jesus was a real historical person.

      Well, aside from all the other real, historical persons and accounts. I mean, are you going to claim that Paul didn't exist too? Or maybe Pontias Pilate?

      Or maybe you think that the early Christians inserted a mention of Jesus in the Testamonium, despite the fact that it made no sense to have an offhand mention like that (let alone the fact that mentioning 'brothers' of Jesus would give the Church something to explain when they've held to the perpetual virginity of Mary).

      You only have a huge movement that continues to this very day, all predicated on the actions of one man. A man that no one thought to deny the existence of until modern times. In short, you posit an effect with no cause by doing this, which is to say, it's the product of a tendentious insensibility.

      It's rather like saying that George Washington was made up, but all the other Founding Fathers were real. Give us a few centuries of persecution to either lose or dispute the provenance of any physical artifacts, pull up some idiots who claim to have seances with him to add a layer of myth, and the next thing you know, we'll have serious people arguing that George Washington is a mythological figure.

    21. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The Testemonium Flavium is the most commonly sited extra-biblical reference but it is problematic and believed to be at least a partial interpolation of latter scholars as no first century copies of Josephus exist. The other Josephus reference suffers similarly.

      Well, the Christians suffered from centuries of well-documented persecution. Why do you find it so hard to believe they had an actual leader. I mean, it had to start with someone and Paul was pretty clear that he persecuted it before he joined it. If you wanted to set yourself up as a leader, saying that you're a turncoat isn't exactly the most glorious start.

      Barely anyone believes it's an interpolation because this is almost completely insensible. The line about "brothers" runs contrary to Church teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, even if there are cultural explanations wherein "brothers" had a meaning that could encompass cousins and such and the overall reference is simply too pitiful as a rebuttal for an argument that wasn't even raised for thousands of years after the fact. I mean, wouldn't "hey, we never executed that guy!" be a pretty good line? Discount the Bible all you like, but Acts gives copious references to real people and places that can (and have) been fact-checked against other sources.

      So no, that whole thing is silly. It's something some people argue to sell books. You could make a better case for many other past historical figures to be mythological. I mean, we'll just pick some random Egyptian king, declare all Egyptian sources on them off limits because they're "biased" no matter how many real people and places they might reference that could be corroborated elsewhere, add a veneer of myth because the Egyptians believed all kinds of nonsense about their leaders and come to the conclusion that Egypt itself is a myth and never had any real kings! The pyramids were just built by some cult with only phony leaders who never existed and the people inside are actually the priests not the kings they're supposed to be, who are myths.

      See? It's easy to play that game and it gets ridiculous fast. The Bible references hundreds of real places and people all of which can be cross-checked.

    22. Re:Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That movement were the first Jihadi army burning research institutions to the ground and flaying women alive for daring to hold a position of power.

      I can be flippant too and refuse to be clear about wtf I'm talking about or why the fuck it even matters here.

      But I think I've heard what you're talking about before. You're just being a fucking idiot about it.

    23. Re:Yeah, so? by lucm · · Score: 1

      Next time you want to make shit up and mix in your own guesswork, make sure a simple Wikipedia search doesn't prove you wrong.

      The vast majority of scholars who write on the subject agree that Jesus existed, although scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

      When you're done trying to impress people with your shallow understanding of things, look into the work of Bart Ehrman. He wrote a bunch of books on this topic and it's truly fascinating, even for people (like me) who are not religious. His stuff is mostly academic, not dogmatic.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    24. Re: Yeah, so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go allahuackbarkaboom yourself in a cesspit, you jihadist nazi faggot.

  5. Hyper-linking was invented in the 60's .... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    Not sure why Tim gets credit when hyper-linking was demo'd back in 1968 ...

    The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Alan Kay points out the same thing @17:03

    Alan Kay - Normal Considered Harmful
    https://youtu.be/FvmTSpJU-Xc?t...

    1. Re:Hyper-linking was invented in the 60's .... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      There was a graphical BBS system (RoboBoard) with a windowing interface, icons, mouse, pictures, vector fonts, links, 1024x768x245 graphics ... all on a DOS machine with a 1200 - 2400 baud modem. No need to install a winsock, or chameleon, or have windows or the extra ram and faster cpu. It looked a hell of a lot better than what the internet had to offer at the time.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:Hyper-linking was invented in the 60's .... by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      If you go by that "mother of demos", then apple did not invent the mouse and that is heresy. So its clearly a fake!

    3. Re:Hyper-linking was invented in the 60's .... by dissy · · Score: 1

      3-4 years prior to RoboBoard was a system called FirstClass (originally macintosh only) that was started to be a groupware 'learning management system' but was heavily utilized as BBS software as well.

      It provided email and forums (even with fidonet support, although mainly via 3rd party software as FCs remained pretty lacking), voice/fax, file transfer, etc and the protocol was multithreaded so you could be doing all of those things at the same time, and all over a 1200 baud modem.

      It was primary used with a GUI client, although had options in the server to provide a crappy text interface for dialup users in a terminal app. This text interface had nothing on wwiv but did at least provide a simple way to download the mac or windows GUI client for the advanced features.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      They later added appletalk networking and finally tcp/ip as well in the early 90s, but by 94/95 the BBS era was pretty well dead and everyone moved on to the Internet.

      At least around these parts the transition was a fairly obvious one.
      First you offered a BBS.
      Then you offered a BBS with Internet.
      Then you offered Internet with a BBS.
      Finally you just offered Internet.

      Between Eternal September in '93 and the web just being invented shortly before, that is when Internet usage exploded and was the beginning of the end for the entire BBS world.

    4. Re:Hyper-linking was invented in the 60's .... by jon3k · · Score: 1
  6. Semantics by cdrudge · · Score: 2

    It sounds like everyone is arguing about semantics. What is considered the actual "birth date"?

    I'm a web developer. What is considered the birth date of a website? When the client comes to me with a proposal or I go to them with one? If I was Berners-Lee, it sounds like that is the birth date of the website. If the site is ready for internal testing, is that the birth date? That sounds like what CERN says it is when it was available internally but possibly not externally. Or is the site's birth date when it's publicly available, ready for the world to see and use, which is what I would call it.

    Or putting it in human terms, Berners-Lee's birth date sounds more like the date of conception, CERN's date more like when you have an ultrasound and you know it's there and can "see" it but it's not ready for the world yet, and publicly accessible when the little guy actually shoots out of mom.

  7. Lazy journalists again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wikipedia cites its sources. If journalists did the same, we would find out they get everything from Wikipedia, instead of looking to see where Wikipedia got it.

    1. Re:Lazy journalists again by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia cites its sources. If journalists did the same, we would find out they get everything from Wikipedia, instead of looking to see where Wikipedia got it.

      Except when journalists go to Wikipedia and quote it, then a Wikipedia editor goes back and attributes the journalist's article as the source of the information found in the Wikipedia article.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  8. vão se fuder helena, samanta, seja lá q by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    se quiser me ver pedindo demissão de outro bom emprego, basta colocar aquelas merdinhas da familia real do Sofazão trabalhando comigo. DENOVO: EU NÃO ACHEI MEU PAU NO LIXO. é é capaz de Eu ter que ficar aguentando um bando de retardados só porque essa viciada em porra quer roubar minhas ideias pra joguinhos. Vai te fuder sua retardada sem talento. Eu seui queo "stalker" é um "starter up" que encheo barquinho de gasolina, pagamau os funcionários e ainda por cima estupra criança.

  9. To commemorate this occasion by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

    To commemorate this momentous occasion I suggest we play Green Day's "Wake me up when September Ends" with a Followup of a retelling of the classic tale "Rip Van Winkle"... Whadayamean I'm 2 years too soon? What the hell is a year? The current day is Tue Sep 8393 1993, isn't it?

  10. Shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean not everything on social media is factually correct?

  11. Internet or hyper-linked documents (a.k.a. Web)? by mi · · Score: 2
    The write-up and TFA conflate the Internet and (what became known as web). Maybe, the slines don't know any better, but Slashdot users ought to... The hyperlinked documents weren't the first "killer application" — e-mail was. The first systems weren't even using the Internet, but, according to Wikipedia:

    In 1971 the first ARPANET email was sent

    And Sir Lee's was not even the first system for linking documents/files across the networks — Gopher was. And Gopher was not merely proposed in 1991, that's when an actual system became available (though protocol was codified in an RFC only in 1993).

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  12. But... by VorpalRodent · · Score: 2

    Why no mention of Al Gore? I am outraged, I say!

    --
    Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
  13. Link to a copy of the original proposal by pinkushun · · Score: 2
  14. Wake me up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... when September ends...

  15. It's a misnomer anyways by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Interwebinaut Day would be more fitting.

    The Internet was arguably invented either in 1969 or when IPv4 rolled out in the early 1980s, depending on whether you "count" the pre-IPv4 Internet as "the Internet" or not.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  16. Oh, go fuck yourselves. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been on the Internet since 1994 and even CERN is happily taking advantage of the day to celebrate the progress that was made 25 years ago today (the "birth" of any technology comprises many milestones).

    What is it with dorks and their need to defend their version of correct, even when it's nearly always a difference of premises? This is why I moved out of software - full of insecure idiots with a high measure of a very narrow range of smartness, and fucking stupid otherwise.

  17. Far earlier breakthroughs by davidwr · · Score: 1

    The invention of the telegraph and the wide-scale availability to the paying masses through commercial telegraph operators was arguably the first real breakthrough in electronic digital communications, assuming you consider the "on/off" of Morse-code-type telegraphy to be digital, which I do.

    Smoke signals, semaphore signals, and other forms of non-electronic long-distance communication are also typically digital. As to whether they were "available to the masses" or not, that varies.

    Writing, whether using alphabets or pictographs, is arguably a form of digital communications. Speaking in words or groups of sub-word sounds (phonemes and syllables) that have distinct meanings is arguably digital (as opposed to analog), as long as the dictionary size is, for all practical purposes limited. This is the case for all conventional spoken and written human languages that I am aware of.

    So, in that sense, we humans have been using digital forms of communication since, well, ever since we started talking to each other, which likely pre-dates humanity itself.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Far earlier breakthroughs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the WWW (World Wide Web)

      Smoke signals, one-to-one communications and even BBS's (and their local dialups) did not introduce a Global presence

      I still content that Usenet News was the first Global collaboration and communication forum

    2. Re:Far earlier breakthroughs by davidwr · · Score: 1

      Topic-specific printed non-professionally-run newsletters did much the same as USENET groups did in bringing together people from around the globe who had similar interests. Granted, they weren't as fast (USENET typically circulated the globe in 24-48 hours in the early days, with some "high-cost-to-deliver" sites taking days or a week or more to get updates).

      Amateur radio also had (and still has) similar communities-of-interest but, due to the way radio works, it's difficult to have a true "world-wide" community over amateur radio alone (these days, "hams" take advantage of the Internet so distance isn't as much of limitation). I'm not saying it isn't happening, it's just much harder than having a community where everyone is within a few thousand miles of each other.

      --
      Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    3. Re:Far earlier breakthroughs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that Usenet has the persistence of a newsletter and the wide availability of HAM radio.
      I can still look up my old posts to alt.chrome.the.moon if I wanna show my kids how we did it in the old days :)

      You are correct in that Usenet and HAM radio seem to attract a similar 'sort' of person, who could hang technologically, but who also wanted to build communities (or piss them off, as the case may be)

  18. Lighten up, Francis by paiute · · Score: 1

    This is the kind of thing that Comic Book Guy gets excited about - and nobody else cares.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  19. What is an "internaut" supposed to be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a childish, quaint definition for what is simply a user. You pay your ISP, you get to use the internet services. Nothing more. Calm down. "Internauts" do not exist. The "hacker manifesto" is an embarassingly naive heap of inane ramblings that should be consigned to its rightful place - in the bin where bad fan fiction goes. There are no "internauts" and there is no "cyberspace". The Matrix is a movie. Neuromances is a novel, and technically incorrect too. Grow up. Or take your meds.

    1. Re:What is an "internaut" supposed to be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FBI use BuZZworDS as a distraction. Ask FBI BurEAUHeaD.

  20. Re:Internet or hyper-linked documents (a.k.a. Web) by slew · · Score: 1

    The write-up and TFA conflate the Internet and (what became known as web). Maybe, the slines don't know any better, but Slashdot users ought to... The hyperlinked documents weren't the first "killer application" — e-mail was. The first systems weren't even using the Internet, but, according to Wikipedia:

    In 1971 the first ARPANET email was sent

    And Sir Lee's was not even the first system for linking documents/files across the networks — Gopher was. And Gopher was not merely proposed in 1991, that's when an actual system became available (though protocol was codified in an RFC only in 1993).

    If you want to get "technical" the web (aka http/html) was first (1990 vs 1991 for gopher), but the graphical browser mosaic didn't appear until '93 and not to many folks were using the non-graphical web servers that were in existence at the time.

    If email was the killer app, inter-domain mail (via unix mail via rmail/UUCP) was probably the real killer app, not ARPANET email as ARPANET was mostly restricted to non-commercial use. Gopher like the "web" didn't really pop up until '91 when the NSFNET (the modern "internet") was winding down and the commercial internet was ramping up (the various NAPs like MAE and CIX, etc were taking off). Prior to inter-domain unix mail, commercial email was generally *unconnected* (needed to be on the same proprietary system like compuserve to send/receive mail).

  21. Ok, so I'm feeling long in the tooth today. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My freshmen year in college (sept 1992) I remember some upper clansmen coming into the computer cluster where I was doing my work study and being very excited about the cool new internet protocol called http: . It wasn't really that http was all that much better the Gopher / Archie - Veronica , and in some ways Gopher was a far Superior as it provided automated indexing functions and made it easier to find information, but the really cool thing about it was that you client ( aka browser) would download the images and sounds inline with the document. Any content of that type in Gopher had to be downloaded independently via FTP protocol and displayed in a different applications.

    That being said, it was at the time forbidden by to have any kind of commercial traffic on the internet, it was for research only. ( all joking about Al Gore aside) it was the legalization of commercial traffic that allowed all the smaller AOL/ protegee etc networks to be pulled together into something that allowed the www to become a defacto standard. It being the most user friendly , multipmedia rich expierence availble to normal users at 2600 baud at the time.

    1. Re:Ok, so I'm feeling long in the tooth today. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You remember wrong. There was no such thing as 2600 baud. Both 1200 bps and 2400 bps ran at 600 baud.

  22. DONT LET THE FBI RE-WRITE HISTORY FOR YOUTHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The networks began as this: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/arpanet.htm

    They were publicly made available later. Now they are trying to make the public part all surveillance, and it correlates to your personal lives too in a huge way.

    All of your interests, connections, finances, education, family, etc are being harvested for later control over you. Imagine if you had the full info of even one FBI agent.. if you had that person's name age social security # address all of family addresses license plates bank card numbers phone years of school attended childrens schools their schools email passwords purchase history at all stores cash wasn't used etc.

    AND TO TOP IT OFF you had control of the politicians and courts. Oh, you don't have that? You don't say? Well why in the fuck do they have that on you? Because they are crooked cunts.

    1. Re:DONT LET THE FBI RE-WRITE HISTORY FOR YOUTHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      people do have their names :)

      http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/23124/

    2. Re:DONT LET THE FBI RE-WRITE HISTORY FOR YOUTHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HAPPY ANNIVERSARY 10 Windows the Happy Anniversary 10 10 Happy Happy 10

    3. Re:DONT LET THE FBI RE-WRITE HISTORY FOR YOUTHS by jc42 · · Score: 1

      people do have their names :)

      Not really; according to the US Census Bureau, there are about 1800 Americans with my (first+last) name. And probably a whole bunch of them have the same middle name, which is also one of the top 10 men's names in the US. My parents didn't have much imagination when it came to baby names.

      OTOH, my wife continues to use her birth name for most purposes (which is fine by me). She likes the fact that, as far as she can determine, she's the only living human with that name. (And it's not even some unpronounceable "foreign" sounding name. She also likes to point out to people that her name is a syntactically correct English sentence. She has even found archived newspaper images that have her name at the top of a story. ;-)

      But anyway, most of us don't "have" our names in any meaningful sense. We're just one of many who are using the name for a few decades, until we drop out of the crowd that are using it.

      In college, I had a friend who was a member of the Bill Smith Club, whose only membership criterion is that you be named (or married to someone named) Bill Smith (or William Smythe or Wilhelm Schmidt or anything else that maps onto the name).

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  23. And Columbus discovered America by plopez · · Score: 1

    Film at 11.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  24. Just like Christmas. by Tyrannicsupremacy · · Score: 0

    Jesus wasn't actually born on the 25th of December. Does it make a difference?

    --
    http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
  25. Should be NCSA Mosaic Day by TheSync · · Score: 2

    Look, WWW is all nice and stuff, but frankly before NCSA Mosaic was released you could not really tell the difference between Gopher and WWW, and while they were interesting to play with, it was just play (unlike USENET News which had real value :). Somehow Viola never had much impact either.

    NCSA Mosaic was originally released January 23, 1993. I gasped when I first saw it, because I had been dreaming of a global hypermedia network, and it showed that was possible. That day changed my life from someone who was an electrical engineer to someone who designed early commercial web sites.

    Version 1.0 for Windows was released on November 11, 1993, and of course that is when "normal human beings" had any chance of getting on the Web.

  26. Just call a birthday a birthday by MayeulC · · Score: 1

    Partying on the day you were conceived would just feel very awkward, I guess.

  27. Re:Internet or hyper-linked documents (a.k.a. Web) by mi · · Score: 1

    If you want to get "technical" the web (aka http/html) was first (1990 vs 1991 for gopher)

    I would say, Lee's web was indistinguishable from Gopher back then. Certainly not until Mosaic offered graphical browsing.

    email was the killer app, inter-domain mail (via unix mail via rmail/UUCP) was probably the real killer app, not ARPANET

    But that too existed already in the 1970-80ies... The actual interconnections remained scarce, but software and protocols for distinct computers to exchange "emails" appeared much earlier than the celebrated 1991.

    I'd also add, that Sir Lee's affable personality — and the fact, that he is not an American — contribute to the "cult".

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  28. Silly Billy's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even one knows this is the date America invented the web not those foreigners at Cern - after all America invented the internet. What next they will be claiming the wright brothers werent the first to fly in a plane.