Pages

▼

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

A flash in the brain pan

Newsweek in 1995 looks at the Intertubes.

Verdict: The electrodatavisor will never catch on.
at

2 comments:

  1. Neil RussellTuesday, 2 March 2010 at 05:11:00 GMT-8

    Someplace I've got an old TV Guide from 1963 that has an article about the future of satellite television and the response from the head of ABC was pretty much the same as this guy.
    To paraphrase, he suggested that rather than rely on sats for broadcasting, it would be far easier to film a program in London, fly it to New York via supersonic aircraft, develop and edit the film, and get it on the air while the competition was waiting for Telstar to come back around.

    In hindsight you can look back and say "oh well" to predictions like that. The difference is if characters like the author of the article have moved on and joined in the fun or are still banging on about how it will never catch on.

    It's like Captain Rum from Blackadder II when explaining why he had no crew on his ship, saying opinion was divided on the issue, all the other captains said you need a crew, he said you don't.

    Or it's like the warmies and their "settled science"

    ReplyDelete
  2. BryanTuesday, 2 March 2010 at 06:36:00 GMT-8

    I actually remember reading that back in '95. The CB radio reference was what stuck with me, as I had been an CB aficionado back in the 70's.
    Don't be too hard on Mr. Stoll. His book, "The Cuckoo's Egg" is a great text on the early days of tracking hackers.

    ReplyDelete

Rules for submitting comments:

1. No profanity. I maintain the pretense that this is a family-friendly site.

2. Stay on topic. A bit of straying and off-hand commenting is okay, but hijacking the discussion is right out.

3. No ad hominem attacks. Attack the subject, not the other person on the thread and keep the discussion civil.

4. No spamming or commercial endorsements. These get deleted immediately.

Tip: Beware of putting hyperlinks in your comments–especially at the end. For some reason, Blogger interprets these as spam.

Note: Due to the recent spate of anonymous spamming, registration for comments is now required.