I feel old

I've just explained to our social media specialist what Usenet is. She'd
never heard of it.

 

It's just north and west of the IRC Isles near the Sea of Memes.

 

"Google groups"

 

You are sir.tony AICMFF mentalists.

 

A bit crap at their job then. A 'specialist' should really know
something about the origins of whatever the specialise in. Or are they
really hoping to spend all their time updating their facebook and
twitter pages while getting paid for it.

Sounds a perfect job for Ogden, thinking about it.

 

Already got it, thanks.

 

She'll know all about the Internet though: it's what comes up when she
double-clicks the Internet Explorer icon.

 

Have you explained that in the early days of e-mail, you had to
determine the route that the e-mail would take and type it into the
headers? And the e-mail would typically only take one hop a day, so
e-mailing the US from the UK might take a week or so?

 

I was explaining to one of my managers about the vampire tap and thick
wire ethernet.

He said 'before my time i'm afraid'

:-(

Paul.

 

How old is she? SO is 36 and she has still to grasp that 'the web' is not
the same thing as 'the Internet'.

--
des
'We are now in the 92nd year of a peace process in which the
Fakestinians are the first people in history to be offered a state
seven times, reject it seven times, and set preconditions for
discussing an eighth offer...'
(Professor Benny Morris)
<http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/>

 

Good point. I think I might print that map and stick it on my wall. I'll
have to check whether she knows xkcd.

 

Technically it isnt, no, but it amounts to the same thing for 99.9% of
the world's population[1] I think.

[1] I've only ever had geeks and pedants (or is it just geeky
pedants?)point it out to me anyway.

 

That's before even my time. When I first became responsible for a mail
system we were already moving to .uucp addresses.

True stories: I joined my current employer in 1994, as "Internet
specialist", because they'd just got an Internet connection and they
didn't know what to do with it. They knew all about email; they had an
AS/400, and they used it to send email to people in other offices in the
same building. When I proposed to set up an SMTP server so they could
send email outside the building, the answer, in so many words, was "Why
would we want to do that?".

Later, once I'd explained that bit, I tried to get people interested by
suggesting that our delegates could keep in touch with their families
using email - we have people in some really difficult places, and in
those days they were sometimes out of contact for weeks at a time. It
was felt that a tool that enabled them to contact their families might
distract them from doing thir job properly.

Then there was the period when the entire IT department, apart from me,
decided that the Microsoft Network (remember that?) would shortly
replace the Internet, because it was run by a company so must be more
better. And the months it took to persuade my colleagues to accept the
installation of NCSA Mosaic on peoples' computers.

Looking back, it's extraordinary how things have changed; and
interesting yet curiously unsatisfying to have been so consistently
right about the important things. Maybe that's just in retrospect - I'm
not as confident now about the next important thing.

 

I bet if you started asking them questions like "is email part of the
web?" and "is email part of the internet?" they'd figure it out, though.

People have these weird folk models of technology in their head and
sometimes it's quite interesting how it affects their behaviour (for
instance in trying to persuade people to install updates and virus
software).

 

99.9% of people will access email via their web browser. Really, for
most people, the network and the application are indistinguishable.
Which rather shows what a killer app the web really was.

 

Indeed. I reckon most users won't even understand the question.

--
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#www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Well, no. It's no more 'pedantic' than pointing out that the M1 isn't
'Britain's road network'.

--
des
'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men
stand ready to do violence on their behalf'
(George Orwell (1903 - 1950))
<http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/>

 

Or alternatively ...

< (sfw)

--
des
'If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I
wouldn't be a bit surprised'
(Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967))
<http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/>

 

Really? You reckon? I'd be surprised. And rather worried.

 

The figure isn't important, I just used the same one as in CT's post,
and I doubt he thought it was important either.

But either way, webmail is the dominant format these days. The likes of
Hotmail and Gmail alone probably account for the largest share. The days
of running a dedicated app like Pegasus or OE, outside a business
environment, are long gone. Why bother when the cloud does it so much
better?