This Has Gone Entirely TOO FAR--

and it's going even farther.

Ironically, I've been driven back to this old school, asynchronous, as it were, means of communication, by my newfangled smartphone that I am not yet smart enough to use effectively. I am, literally, all thumbs. It took me longer to send a 140 character tweet than it took me to form and type the last two sentences--and that's the least of my problems! How the heck do you shut Twitdroyd down?


I guess I better watch the tutorial.

Finally, I fled back to blog in frustration. Hmph! I will not be silenced!

I don't have to sit here, struggling to tweet with my thumb tips, mistyping the same character over and over again- I CAN BLOG, dammit!! Who needs to have the world of information ever ready in the palm of your hand, anyway?! It's ridiculous.

Then it occurred to me. In less than 20 years, we've gone from this:
to this:

I have. the. whole. world. of information in my hand.
I got my first email address in 1993. The Internet at that time, took , maybe 3 to 5 minutes to "connect"; identified by a loud squelch over the modem, (a 3 by 8-ish metal box with a row of lights on it, that connected from a wall phone jack into the back of a bigger (maybe 30 pounds or so) metal box, that held a 10lb or so tv screen, on a desk or table, or plywood across stacked books. The tv screen displayed The Internet; which basically looked  like...teletype on a screen; no pictures, no colors; it was straight text- (and code on some level, obviously; duh.)

Pure, unadulterated, geekdom, in the homes of probably less than 10 per cent of the American population.  I was there.
Wow I was on the leading edge of a major transition in history. (why so late to the smartphone, ma'm?) Cool.  I'm getting old.

I could sit at my computer in a chair upright at my desk for hours; connected to databases all over the world. (ah, bbses...)

Now I can go about my day, and throughout-- from anywhere-- all day every day, literally connected to and interacting in real time, with people all over the world.

Theoretically, anyway.  Gotta watch that tutorial.