The Internet

It's unbelievable that when I started out my life with the Internet in 1990 (if newsgroups and email over a UUCP link counts), I never really considered that the Internet would become a natural part of life. For me back then, my access to this global network of computer networks was limited to trawling through newsgroups and posting daft messages using a borrowed university account at a friend's place.

By 1993 I started to become an IRC addict (before the infamous great netsplit of 1996), despite brief encounters with it previously -- I witnessed parts of the well known Gulf War channel, but with my age I didn't fully appreciate the importance or the spectacle of what I was witnessing. IRC chewed up a lot of my time, specifically overnight. As with a lot of Australian IRC addicts of the time, I spent the majority of my nights lurking out in channels, talking to equally addicted people around the world, until four in the morning. This isn't really a good thing when you have to leave for school at 7am. It's a familiar story from around the traps...

Since those days, the Internet has switched from proper noun to noun, and is now spelt with a lower-case 'I'. Often it's just called "the web," and has spawned new words such as "google" (a verb, if you can believe it), podcast, and blog!

So many things have changed. You no longer look for files using Archie; IRC has been almost replaced by instant messaging (or PFYs/script-kiddies, depending on how you look at it); Gopher has nearly been completely abandoned (and ignored by the creators of WAP). Zen and the Art of the Internet is no longer the standard introduction to the Internet, being replaced with a CD from AOL and the Google Logo as the new doormats.

During this time, I've had an small business that started off as a BBS, turned into an ISP, migrated into a web design business (partnering with a friend who was the talent behind the whole thing), then into a consultancy for internet broadcasting (after my stint working as "Chief Engineer" (easy to be called that when you're the only engineer) of a radio station in Melbourne), and other such rubbish.

Because of this, I've had an "always on" Internet connection for over ten years, which has altered my life significantly. Put it this way, I've been known to attempt a google for an ISP's support line when my cable has gone out! (At least I'm honest, I'm sure many other people have done this)

Services in the past such as Napster (that is, the original Napster) broadened my taste in music and culture, opening up doors I never would have explored. The Internet taught me to code properly, and essentially educated me after I quit high school. The Internet helps make the world smaller and people less ignorant. Hopefully I'm in that basket.

The Internet (in fact, IRC, to be specific) is in fact the root cause of my departure from the arse end of the world, and my subsequent arrival in the land of chocolate and beer!

I'm not sure it's all good though. I've found that I've lost a part of my taurean patience (if I need to know something, I must google it as soon as possible), and it's made me very lazy (which has probably helped my coding, ironically).

My personality has been fused with the Internet, and they're inseparable! If I'm out of contact with the internet for longer than a week, I do honestly believe I get withdrawal symptoms!

Either that or that rash is just a co-incidence.