Like you might have noticed I've been away for a while. Due to a power failure, the museum shut down all pre-HydroNet* machines they have on display. Our little terminal that's hooked up to the old world is one of them. Officially the reason for the power failure was kept secret, authorities claimed it was caused by unknown mechanical failures in the distribution grid (?). We know better, since the explosion in the Hydrogen Facility last week all the municipal buildings been having troubles.
Something has been bothering me about hydrogen for a long time, and I have to get it off my chest.
Why did we end up with this flunky stuff in the first place? I remember a story I once read on the shifting powers in the energy market, back in the beginning of this century. Power plants ran on coal and cars on gasoline. Coal came from the mines and the oil was imported from the former Middle Eastern States or sucked up from the bottom of the ocean, simple. The guys with the oil had the power, because everybody was depending on them. Even plastics where made out of it.
When alternative energy sources finally arrived, the oil companies felt threatened. If you brew your own (bio) fuel, you weren't buying theirs. First they tried to stall these developments by spawning misinformation, emphasizing the negative effect of bio-fuels on the prices of crops and produce and eventually our food. This strategy didn't work very long. People where just a little smarter then they hoped I guess.
So they came up with a new plan. Sell the people a better alternative that's cleaner, more reliable and exclusively available at the gas station: hydrogen. 'But you have to wait a while for this wonder-fuel before you can get it at your local gas station. We're working very hard to get it perfect, just a little patience and all of you can enjoy the benefits if this super-boost-into-the-future-fuel. We only need another 10 – maybe 15 years. O, you want cleaner fuel now? We don't have that, but why don't you try one of our gasoline/electric hybrid cars, they'll take away your guilt (although they aren't actually any cleaner then your regular gasoline car).' It lasted almost 30 years until these "10 – maybe 15 years" passed by and one might ask what good it has brought.
All this was meant to keep the power in the hands of the big oil companies, and their friends the auto manufacturers. And it worked, up until today we still bring our hard-earned cash to Big Oil – or should I say Big Energy – and they're even in our homes too now.
*HydroNet, the successor of the good old power net. Fluid hydrogen distributed directly to your home and locally converted into electricity. The global switch to this system implied all household appliances had to be converted or replaced to meet the new voltage and amperage standards.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Blogging freedom
Big thanks to Sanne for setting up the remote access to the blogspot server. Now I can post to this blog anywhere I like. This is cool, it gives me a sense of freedom. And I can even use my terminal at home or connect with my handheld, great!
Friday, May 18, 2007
Hello World
Hi there.
Quite strange to be out in the open. That must be at least 15 years ago. We spent a lot of time blogging those days. The good old days. The whole social web thing was quite an adventure. We didn't even got a SIN* back then. We spent hours and hours on conversations online, using blogs, tweets, wiki's, fora and all the other old skool apps. We used nicknames and pseudo's. We wrote and posted whatever we want. Our biggest problem was to keep spam out of our e-mailboxes and spyware out of our OS... Well, let's not take that trip to memory lane right now. Let me start by introducing myself.
From now on I'll you can call me Sanne. Of course that's not my real name as I can't be that open about my id, never know who's gonna find this blog... Back in Europe I used to be a web entrepreneur. I started a variety of social network sites. After the JAUCG was founded my company couldn't continue and i found this job at the museum. Now I'm the curator of social media technologies formally known as the world wide web.
Olivier took me with him in his little conspiracy because of my job in the offline museum. He & i met a few days ago in the hardware warehouse at the museum. He told me he was doing research on the influence of technology and it's effect on the social behaviour of people through the past few decades. I immediately noticed he was making this up. He trusted me enough to ask my help in this blogger-project, so now I'm working on a remote connection on this server.
Have to go now. A lot of work is waiting and I've to make effort to keep my superiors from being suspicious...
Keep u posted.
*Social Identity Number
Quite strange to be out in the open. That must be at least 15 years ago. We spent a lot of time blogging those days. The good old days. The whole social web thing was quite an adventure. We didn't even got a SIN* back then. We spent hours and hours on conversations online, using blogs, tweets, wiki's, fora and all the other old skool apps. We used nicknames and pseudo's. We wrote and posted whatever we want. Our biggest problem was to keep spam out of our e-mailboxes and spyware out of our OS... Well, let's not take that trip to memory lane right now. Let me start by introducing myself.
From now on I'll you can call me Sanne. Of course that's not my real name as I can't be that open about my id, never know who's gonna find this blog... Back in Europe I used to be a web entrepreneur. I started a variety of social network sites. After the JAUCG was founded my company couldn't continue and i found this job at the museum. Now I'm the curator of social media technologies formally known as the world wide web.
Olivier took me with him in his little conspiracy because of my job in the offline museum. He & i met a few days ago in the hardware warehouse at the museum. He told me he was doing research on the influence of technology and it's effect on the social behaviour of people through the past few decades. I immediately noticed he was making this up. He trusted me enough to ask my help in this blogger-project, so now I'm working on a remote connection on this server.
Have to go now. A lot of work is waiting and I've to make effort to keep my superiors from being suspicious...
Keep u posted.
*Social Identity Number
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A little history, part II
Continued from yesterday...
Everything changed after Google took control. For years people speculated about Google having a hidden agenda concerning world domination. When asked about this matter they always denied and shifted the topic to how they felt an urge to fulfill public demands. We all remember what happened when Google agreed with the government issued censorship in China 20 years ago.
Just a few years after that happened the UltraFi communication network was deployed globally. Strong relations where built between Google and the authorities of all countries involved. That's probably when they first started working towards the worlds largest (and only) Internet authority. The trust of stockholders in Internet related business was quickly regained. Just the boost the connected world needed so much. Without it the services like the Nokia Times™, GoJoost and Joostation would never have made it. And never gotten so popular as they are today in the first place.
When the first online video channels started, like YouTube and later Viji, people posted homemade movies with their visions of the future. It's funny to see how many of those predictions came true today. Even back then many did see it coming for the New York Times to not make it as a printed medium, nor online. Although only few expected the remains of the company to be bought by Nokia instead of a major player from China.
And me? I'm just glad we still have good old television channels, alcohol still isn't outlawed for consumption and that the Middle Eastern war has ended, finally.
As long as the guys in the museum still believe I'm a doing research on the technology of the late 20st and early 21st century, I'll be posting about all things I find interesting, and worthy of writing about.
When the first online video channels started, like YouTube and later Viji, people posted homemade movies with their visions of the future. It's funny to see how many of those predictions came true today. Even back then many did see it coming for the New York Times to not make it as a printed medium, nor online. Although only few expected the remains of the company to be bought by Nokia instead of a major player from China.
And me? I'm just glad we still have good old television channels, alcohol still isn't outlawed for consumption and that the Middle Eastern war has ended, finally.
As long as the guys in the museum still believe I'm a doing research on the technology of the late 20st and early 21st century, I'll be posting about all things I find interesting, and worthy of writing about.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
A little history, Part I
It's the year 2027, a lot has changed. Some of the things we thought to last for ever are gone, and many things we hoped would go by are still here. If it wasn't for the guy who by coincidence discovered the old abandoned blogspot servers while renovating a former data center. Curious if these old dusty computers where still working he fired them up, and discovered millions of long forgotten journals of countless people. Feeling it his duty to salvaige these stories he brought the computers to the Offline Museum of New Media, where they where restored in their old function and hooked up to old fashioned personal computers so people could experience how the internet used to work in the old days.
When the JAUCG* was founded in 2019 they gained a lot of support, especially from smaller countries, to fight to still endlessly growing number of blogs. An international blog posting restriction was issued just one year later – allowing people to post only once a week – and people started to move away from blogging.
Many new ways of communication where invented and with so many automated development tools available they where online in no-time. Since google already started subsidizing these initiatives, the Internet was flooded with places where people could meet, talk and show off their digital lifestyles. As long as it was real time, no journalist or surveillance official could complain about this.
This lasted until Google was commissioned by the UN to become the global authority for the web. Things really changed after that happened. For the good I say. It practically put an end to spam, thanks to IPX, the offline identity related successor of IPv6 and IPv9.4.
I'm blogging this from one of the computers in the Offline Museum for New Media, being the only place connected to the Blogspot servers.
I'll have to go now, otherwise the guards here will get suspicious. To be continued...
*Journalists Against User Generated Content
When the JAUCG* was founded in 2019 they gained a lot of support, especially from smaller countries, to fight to still endlessly growing number of blogs. An international blog posting restriction was issued just one year later – allowing people to post only once a week – and people started to move away from blogging.
Many new ways of communication where invented and with so many automated development tools available they where online in no-time. Since google already started subsidizing these initiatives, the Internet was flooded with places where people could meet, talk and show off their digital lifestyles. As long as it was real time, no journalist or surveillance official could complain about this.
This lasted until Google was commissioned by the UN to become the global authority for the web. Things really changed after that happened. For the good I say. It practically put an end to spam, thanks to IPX, the offline identity related successor of IPv6 and IPv9.4.
I'm blogging this from one of the computers in the Offline Museum for New Media, being the only place connected to the Blogspot servers.
I'll have to go now, otherwise the guards here will get suspicious. To be continued...
*Journalists Against User Generated Content
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