Having used the Internet since its inception (and having also used other ancient networks using SDLC, DECNET, NETWARE, et al) I considered how different traversals of the nodes or pages of the web were basically indeterminate. Humans just go through the pages on whims, and sometimes just shoot arrows in the dark.
Reading books, which I still read the old fashioned way, is not so random, in that the writer purposely put a set of words in their unique order. It is still possible, of course, to just thumb your way randomly through any given book, or interrupt reading the current book and read some other book indicated in the footnotes or references. Yet that is not so easy as clicking your way wildly through web.
Some books, text books for instance, are so complex that one needs to join a group study in order to explore them. I do not usually enjoy memorizing infinite dates in history, memorizing the rigid taxonomies in myriad fields of science, or being persuaded by every persuasively written passion in a pile of essays.
Instead, when reading the web (I hate the term surfing - when traversing a labyrinth it is far deeper than skipping along some single wavy surface), I just follow the maze paths on whatever whim of interest I might have at the moment. Maybe its about computers, science etc. during one day, then just digging up the blogs about the political oligarchy on another day, and then watching some incredibly self-destructive teenager getting whacked in the nuts with a cricket bat to demonstate his "manly courage."
The links to those are perhaps too many to list here without some consolidation. Besides, they are linked from myriad other web pages or nodes already and I dislike redundancy. This system of following links is not necessarily like the neat chapters in a book, although some authors have attempted to organize their web sites quite neatly. Instead there are sometimes reliable links, and sometimes not, to related or vital information at each node.
Sometimes I am annoyed by he incessant commercialism on the Web. I am not immune, even though I am quite cynical and don't sucker for things often. But I do sometimes look for certain products and it is easy to get stuck in an ad cyclone if I am not careful. Each ad visited produces a dozen new ad sites - all attempting to save some information about me for them to profit from, even if only by selling my info to some other business.
This is not only a problem on the web. It is scary, really, to think that we willing hand over our money to machines that link our information into a web like that, even if it is a "secure connection" to our own banks or savings institutions. All our transactions, numbers, codes, etc., all neatly tucked away for some creepy totalitarians to control us with. They will be able to decide whether that transaction can take place. People are already are doing this, it is not just a fear of future possibilities.
Nevertheless I continue through the network. I read the bizarre oddities that occasion by, like pictures of an alligator swallowing a woman like a snake swallowing a rat - head first. I read of the CO2 levels of this planet's air trapping heat which then releases methane that then traps more heat. It is one of those bad situations that you don't want to know, really, because it effects the lives of billions of people in the future, including my own young grandchildren.
Spam is still around, of course, some very sophisticated, some corny as a chicken dance. It bothers me, of course. But the real issue is the random propaganda that I am hit with so incessantly. If I write an opinion on my blog, say, that republicans are more propagandist than democrats, then I am writing propaganda. All opinions are thus propaganda, pure and simple. Some propaganda is less harmful than others, but it is all harmful.
But then there are the videos of incredible bouncing balls thunked into a shotglass or some way to quickly and surely pick locks, or ways to increase your car's horsepower with ice, etc. Home jet engines are always fun. Even just the pictures of giant tomatoes and the largest earth drilling machine, or "scenic pictures" of giant mountains of worn out tires, just waiting for some idle teenager to start them on fire.
It's all just a hoot, really.
Reading books, which I still read the old fashioned way, is not so random, in that the writer purposely put a set of words in their unique order. It is still possible, of course, to just thumb your way randomly through any given book, or interrupt reading the current book and read some other book indicated in the footnotes or references. Yet that is not so easy as clicking your way wildly through web.
Some books, text books for instance, are so complex that one needs to join a group study in order to explore them. I do not usually enjoy memorizing infinite dates in history, memorizing the rigid taxonomies in myriad fields of science, or being persuaded by every persuasively written passion in a pile of essays.
Instead, when reading the web (I hate the term surfing - when traversing a labyrinth it is far deeper than skipping along some single wavy surface), I just follow the maze paths on whatever whim of interest I might have at the moment. Maybe its about computers, science etc. during one day, then just digging up the blogs about the political oligarchy on another day, and then watching some incredibly self-destructive teenager getting whacked in the nuts with a cricket bat to demonstate his "manly courage."
The links to those are perhaps too many to list here without some consolidation. Besides, they are linked from myriad other web pages or nodes already and I dislike redundancy. This system of following links is not necessarily like the neat chapters in a book, although some authors have attempted to organize their web sites quite neatly. Instead there are sometimes reliable links, and sometimes not, to related or vital information at each node.
Sometimes I am annoyed by he incessant commercialism on the Web. I am not immune, even though I am quite cynical and don't sucker for things often. But I do sometimes look for certain products and it is easy to get stuck in an ad cyclone if I am not careful. Each ad visited produces a dozen new ad sites - all attempting to save some information about me for them to profit from, even if only by selling my info to some other business.
This is not only a problem on the web. It is scary, really, to think that we willing hand over our money to machines that link our information into a web like that, even if it is a "secure connection" to our own banks or savings institutions. All our transactions, numbers, codes, etc., all neatly tucked away for some creepy totalitarians to control us with. They will be able to decide whether that transaction can take place. People are already are doing this, it is not just a fear of future possibilities.
Nevertheless I continue through the network. I read the bizarre oddities that occasion by, like pictures of an alligator swallowing a woman like a snake swallowing a rat - head first. I read of the CO2 levels of this planet's air trapping heat which then releases methane that then traps more heat. It is one of those bad situations that you don't want to know, really, because it effects the lives of billions of people in the future, including my own young grandchildren.
Spam is still around, of course, some very sophisticated, some corny as a chicken dance. It bothers me, of course. But the real issue is the random propaganda that I am hit with so incessantly. If I write an opinion on my blog, say, that republicans are more propagandist than democrats, then I am writing propaganda. All opinions are thus propaganda, pure and simple. Some propaganda is less harmful than others, but it is all harmful.
But then there are the videos of incredible bouncing balls thunked into a shotglass or some way to quickly and surely pick locks, or ways to increase your car's horsepower with ice, etc. Home jet engines are always fun. Even just the pictures of giant tomatoes and the largest earth drilling machine, or "scenic pictures" of giant mountains of worn out tires, just waiting for some idle teenager to start them on fire.
It's all just a hoot, really.
