The Internet has become a part of our society and our daily life. More and more people are becoming dependent on this technology, primarily on seeking information, but also for other purposes as well, such as business, communication, entertainment, and of course, sex.
Internet and sex seems to go hand in hand, and there is even a joke that the Internet was invented primarily because of sex. In fact, according to a recent survey, the odds that an internet search includes the word "sex" is 1 in 300. As there are about 200 million searches performed in Google everyday, that is around 660,000 "sex" searches everyday in Google alone. Other terms as "porn", "nude" and "xxx" are also in the top 20 search terms.
The birth of the Internet, actually can be traced as far back as September 2, 1969. On that day, several graduate students at UCLA hooked up an Internet Message Processor with a computer in the school, the first instance of data being sent back and forth through a central processor. The school put out a press release announcing "UCLA to be the first station in nationwide computer network". Not one newspaper thought it was important enough to print.
The first actual communication between two computers happened on October 29, 1969, when a computer at Stanford was hooked up to the same Internet Message Processor in UCLA. The word "L-O-G-I-N" was typed at UCLA; Stanford received "L-O-G" before it's computer crashed, ending the first message sent across cyberspace.
Email had its beginnings in 1971 when Ray Tomlinson devised a program called SNDMSG that allowed users on a computer in Cambridge, Mass. lab to send messages to other computers in the same lab. While the Guiness Book of World Records says the first email message was "QWERTYUIOP", Tomlinson said that he doesn't remember what he wrote, only that he was afraid of being caught by his boss. Tomlinson is also the one who invented using "@" to address email recipients.
Today email messages around the world travels at about 10,000 miles per second, and is widely used for personal, business and spam - the term used for unsolicited email advertisement. The term "spam" was only coined in 1994 but the first actual spam email was sent on May 3, 1978 when the marketing department of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) sent out email to some 600 individuals announcing an event at which the company's new computer would be showcased.
In 1995, there were only about 1.3 million total number of web pages. By the end of 2004, there were about 8 Billion. Domain names itself becomes an asset. For example, the domain name Business.com was sold for $7.5 million, AsSeenOnTv.com for $5.1 million, and Altavista.com for $3.3 million.
Speaking of domain names, be careful if ever you select one for yourself. Make sure it can not be presented in a way with another meaning. For example PenIsland.net seems a good name for a website that specializes in custom-made pens. But then again, one would read the name as PenisLand.net. Or, if you are looking for a family or marriage therapist, TherapistFinder.com seems a good way to start. Unless you misread it as TheRapistFinder.com.
Domain names are limited to 63 characters (excluding suffixes), and currently the two sites using all 63 characters are the website for the longest name of town which I mentioned in previous post, and this site about the longest things in the world.
Internet and sex seems to go hand in hand, and there is even a joke that the Internet was invented primarily because of sex. In fact, according to a recent survey, the odds that an internet search includes the word "sex" is 1 in 300. As there are about 200 million searches performed in Google everyday, that is around 660,000 "sex" searches everyday in Google alone. Other terms as "porn", "nude" and "xxx" are also in the top 20 search terms.
The birth of the Internet, actually can be traced as far back as September 2, 1969. On that day, several graduate students at UCLA hooked up an Internet Message Processor with a computer in the school, the first instance of data being sent back and forth through a central processor. The school put out a press release announcing "UCLA to be the first station in nationwide computer network". Not one newspaper thought it was important enough to print.
The first actual communication between two computers happened on October 29, 1969, when a computer at Stanford was hooked up to the same Internet Message Processor in UCLA. The word "L-O-G-I-N" was typed at UCLA; Stanford received "L-O-G" before it's computer crashed, ending the first message sent across cyberspace.
Email had its beginnings in 1971 when Ray Tomlinson devised a program called SNDMSG that allowed users on a computer in Cambridge, Mass. lab to send messages to other computers in the same lab. While the Guiness Book of World Records says the first email message was "QWERTYUIOP", Tomlinson said that he doesn't remember what he wrote, only that he was afraid of being caught by his boss. Tomlinson is also the one who invented using "@" to address email recipients.
Today email messages around the world travels at about 10,000 miles per second, and is widely used for personal, business and spam - the term used for unsolicited email advertisement. The term "spam" was only coined in 1994 but the first actual spam email was sent on May 3, 1978 when the marketing department of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) sent out email to some 600 individuals announcing an event at which the company's new computer would be showcased.
In 1995, there were only about 1.3 million total number of web pages. By the end of 2004, there were about 8 Billion. Domain names itself becomes an asset. For example, the domain name Business.com was sold for $7.5 million, AsSeenOnTv.com for $5.1 million, and Altavista.com for $3.3 million.
Speaking of domain names, be careful if ever you select one for yourself. Make sure it can not be presented in a way with another meaning. For example PenIsland.net seems a good name for a website that specializes in custom-made pens. But then again, one would read the name as PenisLand.net. Or, if you are looking for a family or marriage therapist, TherapistFinder.com seems a good way to start. Unless you misread it as TheRapistFinder.com.
Domain names are limited to 63 characters (excluding suffixes), and currently the two sites using all 63 characters are the website for the longest name of town which I mentioned in previous post, and this site about the longest things in the world.
Random Odds & Ends
- The original name for the computer mouse is "x-y position indicator for a display".
- In 1988, there are only 6 known computer viruses. By the end of 2003, there are 137,529 viruses identified.
- In 1976, Ron Wayne sold his 10% stake in Apple to Steve Jobs for $500. Today, that 10% stake is worth $1.3 billion.
- ENIAC, the world's first computer weighed 30 tons and can perform 5,000 calculations per second. Today, the fastest computer can do 41 trillion calculations per second.
- 41% of computer users have considered physically assaulting their computers. 7% have actually done so.
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