A Message of Internet Thanksgiving
by Max Lent
© 2010 Max Lent
A friend and colleague invited my wife and I to
Thanksgiving dinner. The invitation was later amended
with a request that guests bring a story of thanksgiving to
share. All of the usual thanksgiving thoughts came to
mind. I could state my thankfulness for my wife of 37
years, my health, my wealth compared other people of the
world, and so on. These are givens and implicit in
celebrating the holiday. I wanted to say something
different, but stay within the spirit of the invitation so I
choose to be thankful for the Internet and the Web.
The people
- I am thankful for
Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E.
Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel,
Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff for envisioning
and implementing the Internet.
- I am thankful for
Marc
Andreessen's inventing and implementing the Web.
The ways in which the Internet and Web have made me
thankful
- Communication
- Email
- Being able to keep in nearly constant contact with
hundreds of friends, relatives, and colleagues.
- Voice over IP (VOIP)
- Skype
- Exploration
- Search engines
- What I learn through the Web
- Answers to more questions than I know to ask
- Aesthetic enjoyment
- 15,000+ online radio stations
- Archived radio programs such as
This American
Life and past
BBC programming.
- 1,700+ online television stations available
through
CTube and other sources.
- Hundreds of thousands of art images
- Hundreds of thousands of sound recordings
- My income from the Web
- Knowing about the Web and sharing that knowledge
has provided me with income since 1996
- Social enjoyment
- The people I have met as a result of the
Internet and the Web.
- Being able to communicate a social issue to
hundreds and thousands of people in minutes.
- Shopping the world
- Finding the impossible to find and paying less
for it.
- Amazon.com which earns me income and sells me
products
- Shopping bots (especially
Pricewatch)
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