The world as we will know it (the new boss is nothing like the old boss)

The other day I was just sitting here, doing something close to nothing (but different from the day before) when a wonderful analogy occurred to me.

I was trying to find a way to express what I believe is happening right now, with the internet moving from a static place "inside" the computer to an all–enveloping, invisible web enrobing us all within its ineffable essence™.

Anyhow, not to be too over–the–top (what, you mean it's too late, I'm already way past that? Hey, tough noogies... [haven't heard that one since high school: you?]) about it, but you remember how, when you were little, you had those flipbooks where you could riffle the pages fast and it would be like a movie?

Well, that's where I'm headed with this.

Take a movie on a reel.

Make a picture or slide of each of the frames.

Look at them, one by one.

It will take a long time.

How long?

Well, let's do the math: 24 x 60 = 1,440 frames make up 1 minute of a movie; let's say the film is mercifully short, say, oh, 80 minutes long: that makes 80 x 1,440 = 115,200 frames.

Divided by 60 (that's give us how many minutes it will take to look at each frame at a rate of 1 frame/second) = 1,885 minutes.

Divided by 60 (to convert to hours) = 31.4 hours.

So if you could keep up that pace for 8 hours a day, it would take you four days to "watch" that movie.

You can see how, at the end of the fourth day, the story might not be anywhere near as vivid and absorbing as if you watched the movie as a movie.

24 frames, looked at one/second, vs. 24 frames/second: that's the internet now vs. what's now beginning to appear.

A picture book vs. a movie: they're completely different experiences and they change you in different ways.

Who, looking at a book of pictures, could have predicted or imagined the power and depth and consciousness–altering effects of movies?

The consequences of internet 2.0, as it's called these days, are completely unpredictable and, in fact, unknowable.

Take what you see now vis–a–vis computers and the web, amp it up by a factor of, oh, say 100 or 1,000, and you'll get a sense of the power that's currently arriving right on your screen, little by little.

We become what we behold, it's been said: so it will be.

Can't hardly wait.