“If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.”

George S. Patton, General U. S. Army

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Mark Twain

"The ancestor of every action is thought."

Emerson

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought."

Buddha

"When you are not told what to do you begin to think what to do."

Roger Cohen, Op-Ed Columnist New York Times

"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking."

Voltaire

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think."

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

"You and I are not what we eat; we are what we think."

Walter Anderson, The Confidence Course

"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

Winnie the Pooh

"Time to think matters ─ at least if we’re interested in getting the answers right."

Stephen L. Carter

"Thinking is always out of order, interrupts all ordinary activities and is interrupted by them."

Hannah Arendt, Life of the Mind

"Too often we…enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

John F. Kennedy

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."

Will Durant

"Thinking is like living and dying. Each of us must do it for himself."

Josiah Royce

"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory."

G. Behn

"The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."

Albert Einstein

"Pursuing our thoughts in silent contemplation takes an investment in time that few can spare."

Stephen L. Carter

"A moment’s thinking is an hour in words."

Thomas Hood

"Sometimes I think and other times I am."

Paul, Variete: Cantiques spirituels 192

"To think is to differ."

Darrow

"To think is to live."

Cicero

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

William Jones

"What we think, we become."

Buddha

"Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of the decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking."

Anonymous

"The person who thinks before he speaks is silent most of the time."

Anonymous

"Think ─ and you will be very lonely."

Anonymous

"Thought is action in rehearsal."

Anonymous

"We live in a world that leaves very little time to contemplate."

Anonymous

"Don’t worry too much about what people think because they seldom do."

Anonymous

"Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest."

Anonymous

"One cannot think crooked and walk straight."

Anonymous

"Think Differently + Do Things Differently = Better Results"

Anonymous

March 18, 2014

Caught in the Ubernet Web

Tags: Digital Communications,

What did you do before the letters “www” meant something to you? (And don’t say, “I had a life.”).  When I learned that the World Wide Web was celebrating its 25th birthday last week, I was surprised that it had only  been around for 25 years. It seems like we’ve never lived without it. But we did. When we had a life.

People often confuse the Internet with the World Wide Web as though it’s one and the same.

It’s not.

The Internet – “a network of networks” – goes all the way back to pre-historic times (1969) when a UCLA student programmer sent a message from his computer to one at neighboring Stanford.

The World Wide Web was created 20 years later by Sir Tim Berners-Lee who first proposed an “information management” system that eventually became the conceptual and architectural structure for the Web.

For an invention that can seem soulless at times, the inventor himself by all accounts is a very generous human being.

On Christmas Day, 1990, he released the code for his system to the world - for free - giving ordinary folks like you and me the ability to access all manner of information and interact over the Internet.

This Oxford-educated brain-i-ac has a sense of humor, too. On his official bio he has a list of “Before You Email Me” advice. It includes this gem:

If you need someone to find something for you about some arbitrary subject (travel agents, or parakeets or whatever), don't ask me, but try the Virtual Library for example, or your favorite search engine.

(Who exactly thinks to email the creator of the Web…?).

What’s fascinating is that no one owns the Web/Net.

So if no one’s in control, who decides where it’s headed?

The Pew Research Center’s Internet Project recently conducted a survey entitled, “Digital Life in 2025,” which looked at the future of the Internet, the Web, and other digital activities.

In its summary, it suggested that “the Internet will become ‘like electricity’ - less visible, yet more deeply embedded in people’s lives for good and ill.”

Some interesting/sobering predictions of note:

Joe Touch, director at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute: “The Internet will shift from the place we find cat videos to a background capability that will be a seamless part of how we live our everyday lives. We won’t think about ‘going online’ or ‘looking on the Internet’ for something - we’ll just be online, and just look.”

Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society: “We’ll have a picture of how someone has spent their time, the depth of their commitment to their hobbies, causes, friends, and family. This will change how we think about people, how we establish trust, how we negotiate change, failure, and success.”

Aron Roberts, software developer at the University of California-Berkeley: “We may well see wearable devices and/or home and workplace sensors that can help us make ongoing lifestyle changes and provide early detection for disease risks, not just disease.”

David Hughes, an Internet pioneer, who from 1972 worked in individual to/from digital telecommunications: “All 7-plus billion humans on this planet will sooner or later be ‘connected’ to each other and fixed destinations, via the Uber(not Inter)net.”

Llewellyn Kriel, CEO and editor in chief of TopEditor International Media Services: “Everything - every thing - will be available online with price tags attached. Cyber-terrorism will become commonplace. Privacy and confidentiality of any and all personal will become a thing of the past. Online ‘diseases’ - mental, physical, social, addictions (psycho-cyber drugs) - will affect families and communities and spread willy-nilly across borders.”

And perhaps the biggest takeaway from the study: The world will have universal access to all human knowledge.

I used to know a lot about a little. It’s looking like I may soon know a little about a lot.

Anita Alvare (bio)/Alvare Associates/610-520-6140
Information Technology, Internet, World Wide Web, The Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, Digital Life

Since establishing Alvaré in 1981, Anita has guided the agency through 38 years of steady growth and success. A marketing communications entrepreneur who has done it all, she remains deeply involved in strategic planning and creative direction, bringing extensive knowledge and insight to each client project.

Categories

Blog Post Archive

RSS Feed

Sign up for RSS feeds from Alvaré to stay up to date with the latest from our agency and what we have been thinking about.

Leave a Comment (All Fields Required)

Your comments will be submitted and posted upon approval. We reserve the right not to post any comments or content that we do not feel contributes to the positive discourse of our site.