I think that Columbus and Magellan had easier times than this stone-age stuff.

I also remember when I got my Zoom 28.8 for like $250 and wondering wtf I was going to do with all that speed. It sure made MUDding on my shell account a lot faster.

“Welcome to the Web 2.0 Exhibit here at the Museum of Business History. Here we will take a journey through the 201st decade, and learn about the people that lived in those times.”

“The people of the 201st decade were a primitive and superstitious race, who lacked the knowledge of how the world worked that we take for granted. They filled this void with religion, and in this time the dominant religion was Web 2.0. Here we see a waxwork of one of its chief deities, the Zuckerberg. No sir, the wax isn’t melting, the gods of that time were particularly greasy. And if you’ll walk on a bit, you’ll see a recreation of the Shrine of Zuckerberg… Sorry sir? Yes you’re right, to us it is just a big hole in the ground, but to the people of the 201st decade it was a monument of great spiritual significance. People queued up for days to throw their money in the pit, millions and millions of it, in the expectation that Zuckerberg would reward their faith at a later date.”

“Moving on we see one of Zuckerberg’s shamans, the man known to the people as Arrington. The shaman’s job was to bolster the faith of the pilgrims and convince them to keep throwing money in the pit. There were many shamans at that time but Arrington was one of the greatest. Daily he would stand on high and proclaim to the people of new visions of new deities that the people should honour. Occasionally he would announce the fall of a god, along with a reminder that he had predicted their downfall several months ago. This endeared him to the people even more.”

“Here we see the dark side of the religion – the execution of a heretic. Those who committed heresy by speaking the “words of blasphemy” would be condemned to death by virtual stoning, deluged by a barrage of nasty comments about how they “didn’t get it”. Taboo words included “profitability”, “price/earnings multiple” and “rate of return”. Woe betide the man who spoke them in the presence of the faithful.”

“And as we come to the end of the exhibit, we see the downfall of the faith. The people became disillusioned with pouring money into the many shrines that had sprung up, and began to ask when their faith would be rewarded. The shamans tried to persuade them that their reward was coming, but the people had lost patience. They pulled down the shrines, filled in the pits and chased out the shamans, who were forced to get real jobs.”

“And the lesson of this exhibit? Well, those of us who remember last week’s 200th Decade Dot-Com Famine Exhibit may appreciate a line from Marx: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” “

Now, on individual level, if one keeps track of detailed things/data of what he/she does for a quite long span, say, 5 or even 10 years, then, use a supercomputer to crunch the data to come up with some “educated guess”, would it help him/her for “tomorrow”?

It’s funny this video is from college humor TV. Most college age kids probably are too young to get the irony if this video.

Rex

1989.

Anyways, I found this be HILARIOUS and nostaglic. These were the good ole days of overnight 2mb downloads!! I think a 28.8k modem had a higher launch price than the iPhone (must have been more cutting edge).

The AOL segment, the pager, the PAYPHONE (when was the last time you actually saw a working payphone… ha!). I love it!