Last day of the month and it looks like we have double-duty tonight. First we have to fend off the hobgoblins and tricksters who dress up in strange garb. I thought maybe they’d started a day earlier than I was expecting yesterday when just after dark, a couple of missionaries rang my doorbell. Just before I started after my candy bowl, I realized that they were serious and caught myself before I embarassed them and made a fool of myself. Oh, well.
And then late tonight we have to do the clock-switching thing and return to Standard Time. The Europeans did that last weekend, so we’ll be returning to the normal time differences betwixt North America and them. Despite all the hoopla and publicity over the time change every year, there is still always one guy who shows up for work on Sunday morning at the wrong time. Never fails. Human nature is fascinating (and sometimes anguishing).
Photo by Laurence
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I missed it the other day, but Thursday marked the 40th anniversary of the internet. Of course, there was no one specific day when it started, but symbolically it’s commemorated on Oct. 29, the day in 1969 that the first message traveled between two remote computers. It was the beginning of an academic network called the ARAPANET that was developed by a group of California universities working under a Defense Department grant. In an article on the National Geographic’s website, they tell us:
The truncated transmission traveled about 400 miles (643 kilometers) between the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Stanford Research Institute.
The electronic dispatch was supposed to be the word “login,” but only the first two letters [lo] were successfully sent before the system crashed.
We’ve all been through that, haven’t we? Anyway, the NG’s article is quite interesting and I’d recommend that you take a couple of minutes to read it HERE. It’s not too long.
They also have posted a very interesting 3-minute video on the basic story of the internet’s beginnings with some good clips showing some early computers and games (remember Pong?). You can watch it HERE.
It’s still a little quiet around the village this morning, but I think the fire/ems business is going to pick up before the morning is over, so let’s get this equipment checked out. I’ll go make sure that there’s plenty of coffee.
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