weirdNano because I felt like it.

We've all heard it: 'the internet is for porn.'  I hear there's even a music video.  The reality of the matter is that the net is changing the way we do everything.  Whether I'm shopping for a car or a book, or just trying to keep myself entertained... i'm no longer reliant on a passive informational medium to get my extra-sensation information.

But you might ask me, "What's that mean?"

Since we came up with the idea of using radio-frequency to transmit information, the primary method of doing so has been thru either traditional radio, or with televisions.  How do you interact with your television or radio though??? Well, you don't really -- you just sit there and absorb whatever it is that you're being told.

It's kinda like going to church on Easter Sunday... you get dressed up, you wander down to your local info-saloon, your bartender serves you a drink, you drink, you leave.  There's no interaction involved... nobody asks you what you want, no consideration is given to your mood or feeling... you just get what you're given.

The internet is doing something very interesting to the culture of sales.  Instead of advertising at you, businesses are trying to engage your readership by generating content that you're interested in.  The whole idea is that we are no longer being broadcasted at, instead we're being presented with a million different portals of information that we can walk thru.  We can go 24/7.  We can go in our underwear, or nothing at all.  We can go when we're "working"... as i'm about to illustrate:

Here's a good one for starters --  http://www.academicearth.org/

There's about a million (not really that many, still plenty) cool looking videos here.  They're all from professor-types... and there's a range of topics.  I was particularly intrigued by the MIT Course Lectures!!! that's right folks... you can go to school at MIT for free if you have a computer with web access.

...my next extravaganza link -- http://laptop.org/en/

The idea is this --  by sending these 'rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected' laptop w/ educational software & content preinstalled, the One Laptop Per Child group is putting computers in schools for 6-12 year-olds.  The kids get to take the laptop home, and the child can use all sorts of open-source (free) software with the laptop.

Well, i guess that's not really much of an extravaganza... but if I get some interested comments, i'll post more of these sorts of links up.  If you'd like to be getting posts by e-mail, you can signup for my feed with your RSS reader... it's quick and painless... like waxing... only much less painless.