On April 30, 1993, four years after publishing a proposal for “an idea of linked information systems,” computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor. Originally called Mesh, the browser that he dubbed WorldWideWeb became the first royalty-free, easy-to-use means of browsing the emerging information network that developed into the internet as we know it today.
Berners-Lee was a fellow at CERN, the research organization headquartered in Switzerland. Other research institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University had developed complex systems for internally sharing information, and Berners-Lee sought a means of connecting CERN’s system to others. He outlined a plan for such a network in 1989 and developed it over the following years. The computer he used, a NeXT desktop, became the world’s first internet server. Berners-Lee wrote and published the first web page, a simplistic outline of the WorldWideWeb project, in 1991.
CERN began sharing access with other institutions, and soon opened it up to the general public. In releasing the source code for the project to the public domain two years later, Berners-Lee essentially opened up access to the project to anyone in the world, making it free and (relatively) easy to explore the nascent internet.
Simple Web browsers like Mosaic appeared a short time later, and before long the Web had become by far the most popular system of its kind. Within a matter of years, Berners-Lee’s invention had revolutionized information-sharing and, in doing so, had dramatically altered the way that human beings communicated. The creation and globalization of the web is widely considered one of the most transformational events in human history. 4.39 billion people, including you, are now estimated to use the internet, accounting for over half the global population. The average American now spends 24 hours a week online. The internet’s rise has been the greatest expansion in information access in human history, has led to the exponential growth in the total amount of data in the world, and has facilitated a spread of knowledge, ideas and social movements that was unthinkable as recently as the 1990s.
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“The internet’s rise has been the greatest expansion in information access in human history, has led to the exponential growth in the total amount of data in the world, and has facilitated a spread of knowledge, ideas and social movements that was unthinkable as recently as the 1990s.”
And to think that most people use this incredible tool of knowledge and information to send stupid pictures and memes to each other, and to post useless shit in the hopes of getting a thumbs up, or dumb smiley face emoji responses.
In the 60s the greatest minds in the country were figuring out how to put men on the moon. Now they’re figuring out how to manipulate people and get them to click on ads.
Aaannnd were done!
Well, bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry, and good old boys where drinking whiskey and rye singing, that’ll be the day that I die.
You’re mixing up your Don McLean and your John Wayne.
Which, all things considered, isn’t a bad mix.
And we’re not done yet. Still have a lot of bleeding and starving to do.
Ahh Shucks! I’m famous for my typos. Here is the original and correct verse.
Although, a Don John duet would be hilarious!
So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey ‘n rye
Singin’, “This’ll be the day that I die”
“This’ll be the day that I die”
And Duke always said, beginning in The Searchers:
“…That’ll be the day…”
Which Buddy Holly took and turned into his song by the same name, which Don McLean referenced when he wrote American Pie.
So, indirectly, John Wayne started the whole thing. Including this comment thread!
But watching Wayne try to sing a McLean song would be worth the price of admission. Duke said two things he could never do was dance or sing.
The invention of the internet leaves me speechless now. It truly marked…what?… freedom and bondage.
Where are all the poems and white papers? Christianity speaks of it…
I’ll quit before I sound like I Forget.