7.4.11

Happy Birthday 42, Internet!


You wake up early, open up your computer and turn it on. You run to the kitchen and prepare your coffee. Go back to your desk and check your email, your Facebook, your Twitter, LinkedIn to see if there's a new job offer waiting for you, watch the latest YouTube videos. You check the online editions of your favorite newspapers and you find it really hard to remember the last time you bought a print edition of The New York Times or Corriere della Sera. Then you take a shower, dress rapidly and go to work, where you'll be surrounded by computers for 8 more hours.

Does this look like your normal routine? I'm sure it is.

Internet, one of the biggest invents of the last century, has changed our habits and the world we live in unprecedent ways and today is getting 42 years old!

On April 7th, 1969, RFC – Request For Comment – documents were published. These described the basis of the theory of interconnected computers that later became essential for the creation of the World Wide Web.

The RFC documents were part of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network),  an academic programme of the US Defense Department.

Now, let's try to imagine our life today without Internet.

I'm sure you would spend more money on telephone calls to speak with your lover and  even more on transportation to go to the library to make a research for your university. I guess you wouldn't have half of the knowledge you have right now about geography, music from foreign artists or languages.

You wouldn't be able to see what your relatives are doing abroad or how they look like after six months they left home and move to a different country. You would be unemployed or at least you wouldn't have all the possibilities that exist today to work online. You wouldn't have the chance to hear the comments and reviews of thousands of people about a restaurant or a hotel you want to book.

I've been far from home since 5 months ago and I can say that for me the Internet has been the way to maintain a regular contact with my parents, my brother and also my dog. Some will say it's not the same and they're right. Nothing can substitute a mom's hug but at least I can see them with the videocamera through Skype and they can see me and check that everything is fine. I can show the world what I've been doing with hundreds of photos posted on Facebook and instant messages on Twitter.

Without Internet, this blog couldn't be possible.

SO, LET'S CELEBRATE THIS MARVELLOUS INVENT OF THE 20TH CENTURY

GOD BLESS THE INTERNET AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

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