Yes, Jorge, you're very right on everything.

I like to ask people who might not be so impressed as i am with the 
multi-faceted magnificence of the Internet chains-of-inventions: "How 
important do you think the printing press was?"

People usually pause at this, but there are many other cool things out 
there. Cheers.

Nicolas


On 3/6/2011 1:41 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
>> (That being said, i can see that some other "inventions" might be very
>> deserving also)
> I'd give you just one, without vaccines many of us would be 6 feet
> under, there are many "inventions", not all of them that great like
> the atomic bomb ...
>
> As you said the printing press has been a great achievement to
> increase the efficiency to distribute the written word, but perhaps
> more important has been the invention of the written word.
>
> The Internet today is a conglomerate of many things that you can call
> "inventions" or "achievements in technology", Internet without HTML
> and the DNS would not be the same, etc. It would be hard to imagine a
> high performance router made out of vacuum tubes.
>
> Without the invention of packet switching there would be no Internet
> and you would probably be complaining to the PTT for the price of the
> kilo-octet and dealing with many different interpretations and
> implementations (being there, done that) of ITU-T formerly CCITT X.abc
> recommendations.
>
> IMHO the best and more notorious side effect of the Internet is that
> since its conception we learned to work in a cooperative manner across
> borders, to "freely" share information and experiences, regardless of
> nationality, color, religion, sexual orientation, educational
> background, etc. What makes Internet unique and so relevant is the
> "spirit" of the people which (excuse my french) with all this shit
> about governance, IP&  commercial interests, yada, yada, we are
> loosing.
>
> We have an old proverb in spanish that says "La culpa no es del
> chancho, sino del que le da de comer", in english would be something
> like "Don't blame the pig, blame those who feed it."
>
> My .02
> Jorge