I think the first web pages of Philip’s I read were Travels With Samantha, in maybe 1995 (the same year my own web site went on line). And in 1997 I reviewed Database Backed Web Sites.

I’ve only just become interested in photography in the last year (my first digital camera) and have been looking at photo.net again.

Bring back GEnie

Phil – Thanks very much for posting GOOD info online. So often the info posted, when not commercial in nature and therefore surrounded by flashing ads, popups etc., is not GOOD into. I used your “21 minutes to html” and thought it was cool. So, thanks!

I used to spend hours everyday reading the ABUSENET. Now I am sick and tired of the World Wide Spam. I can’t seem to find much creativity online any more. Nothing on slashdot sounds like cutting edge. The best of craigslist are all the same. Would somebody please come up with the next big thing before I turn to religion?

Hmmm… About 10 years ago I think I had just discovered PASCAL and spent a lot of time writing code on a 386!! I had no idea what “email” or the “web” was back then. I “discovered” the web in 1995 when I came to the US and it certainly has been one wild ride since then. Now that the web is all pervasive, at least in the developed countries, I wonder what one can expect in the next 10 years. It’s hard to imagine anything really drastic happening but then again that was the basis for the initial blog posting!!

PS: For what it’s worth I think photo.net is one of the best sites around and if nothing else it sparked my interest in photography.

Cheers,
Sreenivas

Congratulations! I’ve been along w/ you on the ride for six odd years and have learned much from your willingness to share and teach. I was elated at discovering you, happy then sad for ArsDigita, and thrilled to see your ideas continue afterward. I loaned out my tattered copy of PandA several times before finally “loaning” it permenantly to the son of a neighbor who helped me move. Hopefully he will be inspired by your work as much as I was. Here’s to 100 more.

As a fellow Bostonian I currently sit in an Internet cafe in Marrakech, Morocco reading your blog. A few days ago it was from the capital city of Morocco, Rabat. It is amazing how fast it has spread to places where PC’s aren’t really “personal” as they are still too expensive. Yet, most people I meet have an email address and check it frequently. Furthermore, the Internet cafes are very inexpensive.

Philip – are you taking credit for helping to grow the internet?

Er, that should read “less of a need”. Philip, could we get a preview button?

Regarding Alex’s comment about Lexis-Nexis, I have a personal anecdote to share.

Lexis-Nexis positively revolutionized the research intensive college policy debate circuit. Research instantly became more specific, targeted, and copious as there was no less of a need to handle photocopies and to manually search through physical documents for keywords. The quality of research in many regards increased, but the changes haven’t all been positive.

Because current copyright law makes it impossible to digitize the Library of Congress (and everything else for that matter), the body of research available is biased by the fact that news and selected journals are so much easier to research than books. Topics that are discussed more completely in monographs are generally undercovered, and the premium on updated information has caused a sort of echo chamber of the claims of pundits and staff writers rather than the somewhat more careful positioning found in longer texts.