A Brief History of the Internet Part 2

The Netiquetters Chapter 10

TPC, The Phone Company Those Who Would Be King, Part IV

Chapter 1

Plain Vanilla ASCII Versus Proprietary Markups Chapter 2

Copyright Chapter 3

Luddites Chapter 4

Internet As Chandelier [The Infamous Chandelier Diatribe of 1990]

[chandel2/wp]

-------------------ORIGINAL MESSAGE-------------------------- Hart undoubtedly saw academia as a series of dark brown dream shapes, disorganized, nightmarish, each with its set of rules for nearly everything: style of writing, footnoting, limited subject matter, and each with little reference to each other. -------------------------REPLY---------------------------------- What he wanted to see was knowledge in the form of a chandelier, with each subject area powered by the full intensity of the flow of information, and each sending sparks of light to other areas, which would then incorporate and reflect them to others, a never ending flexion and reflection, an illumination of the mind, soul and heart of Wo/Mankind as could not be rivalled by a diamond of the brightest and purest clarity. Instead, he saw petty feudal tyrants, living in dark poorly lit, poorly heated, well defended castles: living on a limited diet, a diet of old food, stored away for long periods of time, salted or pickled or rotted or fermented. Light from the outside isn't allowed in, for with it could come the spears and arrows of life and the purpose of the castle was to keep the n.o.ble life in, and all other forms of life out. Thus the n.o.bility would continue a program of inbreeding which would inevitably be outcla.s.sed by an entirely random reflexion of the world's gene pool. A chandelier sends light in every direction, light of all colors and intensities. No matter where you stand, there are sparkles, some of which are aimed at you, and you alone, some of which are also seen by others: yet, there is no spot of darkness, neither are there spots of overwhelming intensity, as one might expect a sparkling source of lights to give off. Instead, the area is an evenly lit paradise, with direct and indirect light for all, and at least a few sparkles for everyone, some of which arrive, pa.s.s and stand still as we watch. But the system is designed to eliminate sparkles, reflections or any but the most general lighting. Scholars are encouraged to a style and location of writing which guarantee that 99 and 44 one hundredths of the people who read their work will be colleagues, already a part of that inbred n.o.bility of their fields. We are already aware that most of our great innovations are made from leaps from field to field, that the great thinkers apply an item here in this field which was gleaned from that field: thus are created the leaps which create new fields which widen fields of human endeavor in general. Yet, our petty n.o.bles, cased away in their cas.e.m.e.nts, encased in their tradition, always reject the founding of these new fields, fearing their own fields can only be dimmed by comparison. This is true, but only by their own self-design. If their field were open to light from the outside, then the new field would be part of their field, but by walling up the s.p.a.ce around themselves, a once new and s.h.i.+ning group of enterprising revolutionaries could only condemn themselves to awaiting the ravages of time, tarnish and ignorance as they become ignorant of the outside world while the outside world becomes ignorant of them. So, I plead with you, for your sake, my sake, for everyone's, to open windows in your mind, in your field, in your writing and in your thinking; to let illumination both in and out, to come from underneath and from behind the bastions of your defenses, and to embrace the light and the air, to see and to breathe, to be seen and to be breathed by the rest of Wo/Mankind. Let your light reflect and be reflected by the other jewels in a crown of achievement more radiant than anything we have ever had the chance to see or to be before. Join the world!

[chandel2.txt]

A Re-Visitation to the Chandelier by Michael S. Hart Every so often I get a note from a scholar with questions and comments about the Project Gutenberg Edition of this or that. Most of the time this appears to be either idle speculation-- since there is never any further feedback about pa.s.sages this or that edition does better in the eye of particular scholars or the feedback is of the "holier than thou" variety in which the scholar claims to have found errors in our edition, which the scholar then refuses to enumerate.

As for the first, there can certainly be little interest in a note that appears, even after follow-up queries, of that idle brand of inquiry.

As to the second, we are always glad to receive a correction, that is one of the great powers of etext, that corrections be made easily and quickly when compared to paper editions, with the corrections being made available to those who already had the previous editions, at no extra charge.

However, when someone is an expert scholar in a field they do have a certain responsibility to have their inquiries be some reasonable variety, with a reasonable input, in order to have a reasonable output. To complain that there is a problem w/o pointing out the problem has a rich and powerful vocabulary I do not feel is appropriate for this occasion. We have put an entirely out-of-proportion cash reward on these errors at one time or another and still have not received any indications a scholar has actually ever found them, which would not be more difficult than finding errors in any other etexts, especially ones not claiming an beginning accuracy of only 99.9%.

However, if these corrections WERE forthcoming, then the 99.9 would soon approach 99.95, which is the reference error level referred to several times in the Library of Congress Workshop on Electronic Text Proceedings.

On the other hand, just as the Project Gutenberg's efficiency would drop dramatically if we insisted our first edition of a book were over 99.5% accurate, so too, should efficiency drop dramatically if we were ever to involve ourselves in any type of discussion resembling "How many angels can dance on a pin- head." The fact is, that our editions are NOT targeted to an audience specifically interested in whether Shakespeare would have said: "To be or not to be" "To be, or not to be" "To be; or not to be" "To be: or not to be" "To be--or not to be"

This kind of conversation is and should be limited to the few dozen to few hundred scholars who are properly interested. A book designed for access by hundreds of millions cannot spend that amount of time on an issue that is of minimal relevance, at least minimal to 99.9% of the potential readers. However, we DO intend to distribute a wide variety of Shakespeare, and the contributions of such scholars would be much appreciated, were it ever given, just as we have released several editions of the Bible, Paradise Lost and even Aesop's Fables.

In the end, when we have 30 different editions of Shakespeare on line simulateously, this will probably not even be worthy, as it hardly is today, of a footnote...I only answer out of respect for the process of creating these editions as soon as possible, to improve the literacy and education of the ma.s.ses as soon as possible.

For those who would prefer to see that literacy and education continue to wallow in the mire, I can only say that a silence on your part creates its just reward. Your expertise dies an awful death when it is smothered by hiding your light under a bushel, as someone whom is celebrated today once said: Matthew 5:15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Mark 4:21 And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?

Luke 8:16 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.

Luke 11:33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.

Chapter 5.

The Rush To The Top.

Chapter 6.

Those Who Would Be King.

Gopher, WWW, Mosaic, Netscape.

This chapter discusses why URLs aren't U, Why Universal Resource Locators Are Not Universal.

When I first tried the experimental Gopher sites, I asked the inventors of Gopher if their system could be oriented to also support FTP, should a person be more inclined for going after something one already had researched: rather than the "browsing" that was being done so often on those Gopher servers.

The answer was technically "yes," but realistically "no," in that while Gophers COULD be configured such that every file would be accessible by BOTH Gopher and FTP, the real intent of Gopher was to bypa.s.s FTP and eventually replace it as the primary method of surfing the Internet.

I tried to explain to them that "surfing" the Internet is much more time consuming as well as wasteful of bandwidth [this at a time when all bandwidth was still free, and we were only trying to make things run faster, as opposed to actually saving money.

Chapter 7.

Listowners vs List Moderators.

Those Who Would Be King, Chapter 8.

"> Part I.

Chapter 8.

Lurkers Those Who Would Be King, Chapter 9.

"> Part II.

Chapter 9.

"Lurking Is Good...Remember...Lurking Is Good"

Those Who Would Be King, Part III.

The Netiquetters.

"We Are Surrounded By An Insurmountable Opportunity."

"It Is Like Drinking From A Firehose."

"Be Sure To Have YOUR Messages `Netiquette Approved.'"

These sentiments reflect a portion of the Internet who have terrified thoughts and feelings about a wonderful set of opportunties made available by the Internet and other networks.

They are afraid of too much opportunity and would like to make sure no one else takes advantage of such great opportunities because it will make themselves look and feel very small by comparison.

They want to make sure YOU don't cross the boundaries, simply because THEY ARE AFRAID to cross them.

Their thinking is sociological rather than logical, as follows: 1: They are obviously afraid of so much opportunity.

2: They want to reduce the pressure of so much highly available opportunity.

3. This is because they are afraid someone else would make good use of this opportunity and leave them a footnote in their own fields as opportunity s.h.i.+fts into hyper-drive and nothing will ever be quite as sedate, staid, prim, proper, stiff and reserved as it was previous in a paper dominated room, full of stuffed s.h.i.+rts and Robert's Rules Of Order: which THEY used to keep YOU from upsetting Apple and IBM carts with more horsepower than THEY were willing, and able, to use.

History is full of examples of those in position of an older variety of power using their power to deny, defy and otherwise stultify anything new, and therefore out of their own immediate forms of control.

It is also full of examples of the "Powers-That-Be" so vaingloriously squas.h.i.+ng any potential rival powers in much the same manner as a queen bee stings other queen bees to death before they are even born.

In such a manner are the ideas of the new refused in a world dominated by the old.

Of course what comes to mind is Napoleon III's "Salon- des-Refuses" in which works of the [now!] greatest and most famous painters in the world finally had a day to have their works shown to the public after years of an autocratic denial by the Academic Francaise's official Salon, originally begun in the Louvre, and where great examples of these works hang today, in defiance of the greatest "powers-that-be" that ever were, who failed-- as all such attempts should fail.

"The Academie Francaise (French Academy) is the most renouned and oldest of the five learned socities that make up the Insit.i.tue de France, established by Cardinal Richelieu.

[Grolier's 1994 Electronic Encyclopedia]

The encyclopedia goes on to state that "`unification, and purification'" were among the prime "`development'" goals.

The most famous recounting of Cardinal Richelieu's attempts to take over France and to remold it in a reflection of his own conservative power structure are detailed in Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers. Please...take time to "Read More About It."

The encyclopedia article continues on to describe the intense conservatism these Inst.i.tutes maintain even a few centuries later even though at least this "oldest and most powerful" of them, "the Salon gradually lost its position as the sole official exibition of French painting," sculpture, etc., which also stood against the Eiffel Tower, as well as everything else new.

JUST SAY NO.

When they come to YOUR electronic door, enlisting YOUR support for their views of how to run the Internet you can "just say no" and feel no obligation to make THEIR rules of order be YOUR rules of order: 1. Don't bother with their requests for "conservation of bandwidth" because their idea of bandwidth is a sociological "inversion, diversion and perversion" of the term "bandwidth."

They would have you believe that a dozen short message files sent through THEIR listservers are a "bandwidth- preserver" rather than one message containing what you had to say all at once.

A. This is just so much sociological barnyard matter. They just want to keep you from having your say in an uninterrupted manner...it is ONLY this manner in which anyone CAN BE INTERRUPTED on the Internet and it requires YOU TO INTERRUPT YOURSELF, because THEY CAN'T DO INTERRUPT YOU THEMSELVES: THEY HAVE TO TALK YOU INTO THE CUTTING YOUR OWN THROAT.

B. The logical rather than sociological truth is that short messages are 50% made up of header materials that are not part of the message you are sending-- but rather header and packet identifiers for these messages. Thus your series of a dozen messages of the short variety is going to be 50% wasteful of a bandwidth it uses, in comparison to sending the 12 thoughts you might want to express as one, single, uninterrupted message.

*** Insert header here Here is an example of the kind of header attached to a normal Internet message. Some VERY wasteful emailers, Netiquetters included, have much longer headers due to their refusal to take the time to delete the addresses when they send the same message to hundreds of people. I have received messages in which the header literally contained hundreds of extra lines beyond this.

**Header Starts Below** [Margins were shortened. This header contains 1054 characters, which would take 3 512 byte packets, each packet of which has to have its own header normal users never see. A mailer can be set not to show most of the header, but it is all there, and taking up bandwidth.]

Received: from UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu [128.205.2.1]) by mtshasta.snowcrest.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id FAA24025; Thu, 2 Feb 1995 05:53:11 -0800 Message-Id: <199502021353.faa24025@ mtshasta.snowcrest.net=""> Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0354; Thu, 02 Feb 95 08:43:10 EST Received: from UICBIT.UIC.EDU (NJE origin [email protected]) by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3521; Wed, 1 Feb 1995 19:45:18 -0500 Received: from UICBIT.BITNET (NJE origin [email protected]) by UICBIT.UIC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5650; Wed, 1 Feb 1995 18:44:26 -0600 Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 18:22:10 CST Reply-To: Project Gutenberg Email List [email protected]> Sender: Project Gutenberg Email List [email protected]> From: "Michael S. Hart" Subject: March Gutenberg Etexts To: Multiple recipients of list GUTNBERG [email protected]> **Header Ends Here**

Another Demonstration of Socio-Logical Argumentation.

I have a signature block that contains the usual in a name, position, and disclaimer along with information of how long you should wait for a reply to a message, who to contact for further information and it has one line about how long I have been on the Internet.

It takes up about this much s.p.a.ce: x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x which is about 318 characters and receives complaints from those who accept signature blocks that look like: x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x x x x x x x x Your Message Here x x x x x x x x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.xx.x.x which takes over 718 characters because all the blank s.p.a.ces are real s.p.a.ces.

I have pointed out this discrepancy in logic, but the people readily reply the s.p.a.ce they are talking about is in the human mind, and not in the computers.

To which I reply "Barnyard Material!"

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT OUT TO SAVE "BUZZWORD BANDWIDTH"... THEY ARE OUT TO CONTROL YOU...DON'T LET THEM.

"Netiquette" is something THEY have invented TO CONTROL YOU!

All you have to do is remind them that each individual has a most powerful protection against anything they don't want to see...THE DELETE KEY!

You will probably also have to remind them, sometimes in the manner of using a different platform to speak from, if their response is not to post your messages, that: "SINCE EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN DELETE KEY, THERE IS NO NEED TO DELETE THIS FOR THEM!

Chapter 10.

TPC, The Phone Company.

Those Who Would Be King, Part IV.

My apologies for using the United States as an example so.