Friday, July 24, 2009

A Toast to the Geeks

Think about the Internet for a moment. I blog; you blog; millions of people blog. I tweet; you tweet; the world has gone Twitter crazy. Probably just about all of you who stop by Straight From Hel have a website and email. We socialize on the Internet via Facebook, YouTube, Shelfari, and GoodReads. We make business connections through LinkedIn. I, one among millions, am on the Internet about 16 hours a day. I research via the Internet. I keep in contact with my publisher, my friends, my family, my editing clients via the Internet.

And, yet, I never give the Internet a second thought. It’s there. It takes me where I need to go. I haven’t a clue how it works. I’m just glad it does.

After reading an article on the BBC site, I won’t take it for granted anymore. In the back of my mind, I knew it was maintained by volunteers. I’d heard that somewhere at some time. But I didn’t quite understand that they work almost independently in a chain that can only see a few links down the chain on either side. When something happens, they’re not obligated to act. But they do.

In 2008, when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline, YouTube could do nothing about it. Google could do nothing about it. It was up to this chain of volunteers to come together and get it back up. And they did - restoring service within hours.

So, the next time you’re zipping around, doing book research, tweeting, answering email, or downloading a book, whisper a thank you to those volunteers, or as the BBC called them, the unsung heroes.
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33 comments:

  1. I had no idea! It's incredible to think that something so important to us all is maintained by volunteers. Thank you whoever you are!

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  2. Wow...a true bucket brigade! Thanks for the link to the article.

    I think back to when I worked for a magazine in 1991. No internet to use! It made research so much harder.

    Elizabeth
    Mystery Writing is Murder

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  3. I didn't have a clue volunteers were even part of this whole thing! Wow. That really makes you appreciate it even more.

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  4. I totally agree with you, Elizabeth. I do so much research online now. Haven't been to a library for research in a loooong time.

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  6. I have sometimes wondered how the whole internet thing works. What makes what I'm typing right here appear immediately on your blog, available for the world to see! Technology has certainly made for wonderful progress.

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  7. Thanks for the insight. I never knew who or what really held the WWW together and intact. Pretty incredible when you think about it!

    The Old Silly

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  8. I'll bet you didn't know I could type in Japanese, Did you, Helen. Yep, one of my many skills.

    I am a geek without a clue. Volunteers?! Wow. I've not yet read the article, so, gonna link over there now...thanks to the volunteers.

    Best regards, Galen

    Imagineering Fiction Blog

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  9. Galen, do you read Japanese? If I knew what they were saying, I might not keep deleting it. As it is, I figure if they could read the blog in English, they could comment in English, so it must be spam.

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  11. I'm actually always surprised at how much effort people put into things on the internet- like their blogs and movies on You Tube. It is all very amazing.

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  13. Heck, we're technically volunteers ourselves. We provide content for this site free of charge. Sites like YouTube and Blogger would cease to exist if people like us weren't willing to provide content at no charge...and YouTube and Blogger are making a fortune in advertising off of it. Of course, that money goes to pay salaries of people who keep the site running so we can post that free stuff...

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  14. Stephanie, sounds like mutual dependence. We provide content, they provide a place to put that content.

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  15. Hail to the geeks.....the geeks shall inherit the earth. I love it when a band of people, be they misfits or not, save the day from an oppressive government. Thanks for the link.

    Stephen Tremp
    www.stephentremp.blogspot.com

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  16. Stephen, I find it truly amazing that this huge thing we call the Internet is maintained and saved by a band of volunteers, without government regulation! We might want to whisper so the governments of the world don't get ideas.

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  18. I knew plenty about the origins but nothing really about how it keeps going now. Thanks for that.

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  19. I never realized that!

    L. Diane Wolfe
    www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
    www.spunkonastick.net
    www.thecircleoffriends.net

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  20. Thanks for the link to the informative article. Too often we take the geeks for granted, so I want to publicly acknowledge the geeks in my family that keep my Web site and me up to technical speed: Dany Russell, Matt Russell, and Paul Miller.

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  21. Yes, Maryann! Let's salute the geeks in our lives, as well as those anonymous Internet geeks.

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  23. Yes, the Internet is amazing - but I'm more impressed by your estimate that you spend 16 hours a day online. Don't your eyes start popping out of your head? Me, if I stay on for hours, I start seeing little psychedelic light shows blocking the screen.

    Julie Lomoe's Musings Mysterioso
    http://julielomoe.wordpress.com

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  24. I do get up from the computer for things like more coffee. I turn on my computer when I get up, which is around 5:30 or 6 (when our elderly dog starts pacing the floor, wanting to be carried down the stairs and outside) and turn it off around 10 p.m. And it's a laptop so it even goes on vacation with me.

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  25. Imagine our world without the Internet! Nope. Can't.

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  26. Neither can I, Alexis - and I'm old enough to remember life before the Internet.

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  27. LBI (Life before internet) was a very different thing when it comes to communication and book research!

    I wasn't aware that so many volunteers kept things going. Thanks for sharing!

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  28. Yes, I remember life before the internet. Remember it well. Back then, I read more, cooked more, gardened more, socialized more, watched more TV, and used a typewriter to write up my notes from doing library research.

    The internet is incredible and I love it, but what would happen to us if it suddenly went down all over the world? Whooee, Mama! What a mess that would be. God bless those vounteers.

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  29. Thanks for this! I've never really stopped to think about it, but I'd be lost without the internet's research capabilities. A true labor of love to keep the lines of free speech open.

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  30. Patricia, if the Internet went away, we would get a lot done, for sure. But I'm so used to it now, I'd be rather lost, I think. And you're right, the world is so used to it now, losing it would create havoc.

    Laura, it is rather boggling to think that volunteers keep it up and running for us. But it's also scary to think that any one government or conglomeration of governments might try to regulate it and maintain it.

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  31. Wow, something I hadn't given thought to since the days of BB's. Thanks for that! ::observes a moment of silent thanks::

    --Lisa
    http://authorlisalogan.blogspot.com

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