Viewing entries tagged
internet

The Internet

I've been working at a church for the past 6 weeks or so and as amazing as it may seem, we just got the internet.

Well, to be fair and honest, we didn't just get the internet. We had dial-up. Yes, I said "dial-up." You remember the days, when you sat down at the big beige machine and waited 10 minutes to get to some semblance of what we call the internet now. Remember waiting through "bee bee bee bee, brr brr brr, BSHSHSHSHSHSH." During which you go grab a drink of water, do some laundry, maybe run to the store, grab some groceries, come home, fold the laundry, put together your IKEA furniture, get an eye exam, maybe a root canal. Anything to occupy your time, while your computer seeks to "log on."

Maybe the irony in all of this, is not that I didn't have the internet when in the office, but that my computer, my 4 month old MacBook Pro, with all its bells and whistles, in all its Apple Glory, can't get on the internet. It's not that it won't get on the internet. It's that it can't. I mean can't in the purest sense of "lacking the ability to." I mean can't in the same way that you used to correct your friend when they asked, "Can I use the bathroom?" "I don't know, Can you?"

Oh it can go wireless. I can tap into any WiFi enabled Starbucks at 100 yards. I can surf the internet at breakneck speeds with a LAN cable. But when it comes to dial-up, that technology is so old that my computer is not that "backwards compatible." In other words, I have no modem. "Dial up," in the words of a wise, wise man, "is worst than no internet at all."

But I have the internet now. High-speed. Wireless. Flashing green lights. Always on. And am free to waste more on it than ever before.

New Gmail

I must say I was very excited to hear about Google's Gmail being updated. I knew they could only make it better.

Well, I was completely wrong. The new version runs slower and way more clunkier. They obviously have many bugs to still work out, but they should have gotten those done before they went live with it.

There's still the option to use the old version, but you have to click on it every time you open it.

Or this is all due to North Park's slower than 1983 internet. Seriously.

Vintage Sights and Sounds

I find it interesting to see what people collect, catalog, and build a website to display their glorious collection. In that interest I have two sites I've been to and found interesting:

The first one comes from my dad and is dedicated to Penny Postcards. The post card was patented in 1861 by John P. Charlton of Philadelphia and for a while only the USPS could produce them. Wikipedia says the above, but then says that the first postcards in the US were made to advertise for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Soon, though, the cards were able to be produced by anyone and this gave rise to the versions that we see today, although then the sold for only a penny-- thus, penny postcards. The site is arranged by state and has a pretty thorough collection. One of my favorites.

Our second site is Midwest 45s. Scott Harlow is a friend of mine at Grace and every Saturday morning he heads South to the old pawn shops on the South-side and digs around for Soul, Funk and Gospel 45s from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. After he finds them he digitizes them onto his computer, puts up their album art and lets your ears pulsate to the long forgotten beats. He has quite a collection going on but of all that I've listened to, I really dig this one.