But one must ask himself: was it really so different then?

Superficially of course it certainly seems to like things are quite different from back then: faster, bigger, and more connected for starters.

The hallmark of this change, it would seem, is the simple status update. As more people have taken to publishing online, we the group formerly known as the audience has invariably gravitated to consuming smaller and smaller bits of content, leading to a culture of snack-sized sociality. For many of us, the status update seems distinctly modern — a sign of the times, cut from the networked medium of the age:

But hold on. Take a closer look there.

That tweet above? It’s a fake. It’s photoshopped. I took that content from one of those postcards I found in Pauline’s shop. It was post stamped in 1940:

Just goes to show that the more things appear to change, the more we prove what habitual creatures we are.

…Though I don’t doubt Miss Phyllis Epstein’s reply was terse, I reckon she was ever able to reply quite so immediately:

So maybe the drive to communicate, coordinate, and group hasn’t changed much, but perhaps our ability to do so quickly, cheaply, and at an unprecedented scale has? It’s surely no surprise, but only time will tell.

Original by Jessica Hagy (@jessicahagy). She has a whole book of these called Indexed.

If Windows, Linux, Ubuntu or Mac OSX were dance partners, how would they dance? Would they lead, or would you?

More importantly, would you accept a second dance if any one of them offered?

The bandwidth problem, however, has no equivalent Moore’s law. Even as faster wireless standards emerge, the series of tubes that make up the internets aren’t getting any fatter. And yet more and more race horses, poker chips, blow-up dolls and lottery balls will be being sent thru the tubes the more people go online. And already, at least in the states, our bandwidth is retarded compared to Europe (as in “being late” or “behind”). So I’m kinda sittin’ here wonderin’, y’know, what’s the big plan moving forward? Are we just waiting to turn on the dark fiber? If so, turn it on already! If not, ok, what? Lay more fiber? I mean, what’s to guarentee that, as we rely evermore on the cloud, that the pipes that we rely on to access it are going to be able to bare the burden? I mean car makers don’t built the roads — what is our civic interest — nay, duty — in making sure that we have unhindered, unthrottled bandwidth into the future?

Yup, they should.

Speaking of, Tara and I are looking for digs in North Carolina this weekend and Boston the week of August 4.