Fifty-five years ago, on this day, November 21st, 1969,
The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.
And computer shall talk unto computer… And all will be fine…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that computers had been getting smarter and smaller. And there was the bright idea of getting them to talk to each other via phone lines. This is all part of the Advanced Research Programme Agency? There’s an entirely fictitious scene near the beginning of Sneakers, the 1991 Robert Redford film of some hacking on these lines.
What we learned is that the internet is 55 years old though of course, it wasn’t until HTML came along that things started to get really interesting.
Fwiw, I think that Smartphones have really screwed the pooch, because we don’t have the capacity to really understand how to use it. We’re trying to sip from a fire hydrant.
What happened next. I for one welcome our new digital overlords.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
November 21, 1994 – Skeptic invited to engage with IPCC (Spoiler, he doesn’t)
November 21, 2013 – “Cut the Green Crap” said UK Prime Minister