One Over X News

Making Friends, Novelty, Al Gore and The All Mighty Internet

I have worked in retail for so much of my adult life that I frequently interact with strangers and sometimes, hopefully most times they become regular shoppers. A few may become friends. If I were not a writer it might not matter whether that was my only means of meeting people. I have sold books to my best customers that have become friends. Friendship is certainly never contingent on reading one of my books, though fully understanding the seemingly complex person that I am may require it.

I am not really complex; it is just that I pretend to be.

I am not used to having people, even people that I know, come up to me at work and ask me questions about characters in my books. That has begun to happen often enough that the reason for creating this Blog is to provide some of the answers to life's mysteries including whatever I was thinking when I wrote...

There is human need for one another's company and that compels us to make friends. We are social creatures. Despite competing urges to be wary of strangers and uncomfortably novel situations, the need to make friends is often so overpowering that it takes precedence. Before the mass media, even before the telephone, in order to know someone you almost had to physically meet them. Of course you could communicate through letters once you had met but I really think that you had meet at some point if you were ever to become friends.

In the modern world The Internet has changed the rules of friendship and communication forever. Yes, that is a fairly bold statement but I firmly believe it. I am certain that if you use The Internet and chat frequently as I do that you know at least as many people online that you have never physically met as you do in real life.

Before the year 1998, I barely used The Internet. I knew how to look up things with a search engine and I used email, although it was mostly the people at work that I exchanged emails with. I had only been using a PC for about 4 years. Same as now I used my computer for writing and editing, but what is different is that I used the computer for little else. It was not a instant communication platform. Even so I seemed always to need or at least want something faster. It is probably a guy thing related to the bigger-stronger-faster syndrome.

My first computer could download at a screaming 2400 baud. Yes, that was 2400 bits per second as in 2.4 kbps. What did I know? That was fast compared to a 300 baud modem. I knew a couple of guys at work that complained about how slow those were even for posting to bulletin boards back in the day. My computer was 8 times faster. That had to be good for something.

It was a start. I upgraded a Intel 486 SX 25MHz to a DX 50MHz by adding a math coprocessor module and a clock doubler. I doubled the RAM from 4 MB to 8 MB and increased the hard drive from 170 MB to 540 MB. The most difficult thing that I did was upgrade my modem to a 28,800 bps. I don' know why I couldn't figure that out but it took a month and I ended up calling IBM to find out how to do it. That was my very first experience with modifying a BIOS setting. I felt that I had been given access to the inner sanctum of geekdom and the advice only cost me $35.

After that my download speeds were rippin' fast, well comparitively speaking. I could not wait until they had 56 kbps modems. I was already reading about them. There were two competing technologies that accomplished the same thing but in slightly different ways. They were not compatible until a new encompassing standard was developed that was backward compatible to either preceeding protocol.

I wasn't sure what there was to download other than drivers to update things that didn't work right in Windows or maybe the occasional funny picture someone would attach to an email. I didn't know why the bandwidth was so important to people and even as I was reading about cable modems and DSL in the future, I had no clue why anyone would ever need 3Mbps. That was a mind boggling number as I sat at home creeping up the onramp at 28.8 kbps toward the merge with the Information Superhighway. I think I bought one of the first 56 kbps modems even though no Internet Service Provider in my area offered those speeds. I knew that they would and I was going to be ready.

Now that I have been using a PC for ten years, other than wanting to jump ship and become a Mac user, I think I have figured out why the bandwidth was so important. It is not so that advertisers can bombard you with popups. It is not so that a piece of spyware can record your every click to a certain off-shore database and custom tailor spam to your interests. Instead I think that it is part of the natural human instinct to make friends.

Some people want to connect quickly with one another, share web cam images while they are using instant messenger, or even just talk to one another instead of typing. Others want nothing more than to have a text based relationship, get to know people in other states or other nations and mostly just share some laughs.

I have friends in almost every state. I have yet to connect with anyone from Montana or Wyoming. I am relatively certain that they have electricity and computers there. Maybe their bandwidth is just too low. Maybe their bandwidth is so low that The Internet is just 'the internet' there. I am certain that the people there are no less friendly than anywhere else.

I have friends in other countries. I have even chatted with someone in Hong Kong using pin yin romanization for Chinese Mandarin. I was amazed at how much of the language I have retained even though I hardly ever use it anymore.

The Internet has created a paradigm shift in the way that humans acquire friends. It creates a medium for the exchange of ideas without the exposure of true identity. Why, I could even say that I am Al Gore, inventor of The All Mighty Internet. No one would know. Of course everyone would doubt that I really was Al Gore but then again Al Gore could actually pretend to be himself and no one would know...wait did that confuse you too?

I meet people online all the time. Some become friends of mine, a few become very good friends or even close personal friends that I have actually met or feel that it is likely that I will actually meet sooner or later.

It is prudent to learn a great deal about someone that you meet online before you ever connect in other ways. I am mostly harmless but there are some serious weirdos out there in cyberspace. The Internet affords them complete anonymity while they explore their fantasies.

Recently I had a very pleasant and interesting conversation with someone I had met through an almost random exchange of emails. It seems that either I joined a group or one of my friends put my name into a group for me, which has happened before. I am not certain how it happened. It seems purposeful after the fact. I am grateful to whatever providence brought me to a new friend.

I belong to a number of yahoo groups as a means exchange of ideas and promotional efforts. If I meet good people as a result then it is all worthwhile. If The Internet can do that better than reality, then so be it. I am relatively certain that if not for being online I would not even know some of the hundreds of people that I consider my friends.

For some reason I have a lot of friends in groups that are aspiring artists, musicians, models, dancers, poets, writers - pretty much any field of endeavor that seems to necessitate popularity and fame as an determinant of success. As I have indicated in previous posts, writers write other other reasons than fame and fortune as there is very little of either to be had.

Someone that I would consider famous even though he is a relatively oscure writer with a avid cult following, told me a while back that he fiigured that he was famous enough just because whenever he entered his name into a search engine on The Internet it always came up listing some of his books and where they could be purchased.

When he told me that I remember scoffing that there might not even be a single reference to me online. He assured me that at least the www.amazon.com listing would be there. He was right, of course. I checked it and he was absolutely correct. There I am in all my published obscurity.
There were even messages and posts I had made in response to some PC Magazine articles back in the late 1990's.

Now that I have established that I have a cyberspace presence, whenever I feel like a loser I search The Internet for any and all things Elgon. In an earlier posting I mentioned the volcano in Kenya. I recently found that there is some would be prophet or the other named Elgon. Apparently he lives in a park. He has supposedly predicted earthquakes and the like.

One of the more recent finds is confusing to me. My book is mentioned on a page about The Offspring which I found very cool as they are one of my favorite rock bands. I am not sure why my book is there it is in a listing titled Books Beyond the Band, whatever that means I figure that the association with The Offspring a mistake - not an accident or a coincidence but a mistake. I don't read too much into things like that. I suppose that it is possible that someone in the band tried reading the first book and the infamous first 56 pages or narrative that does not advance the plot did him in and so that made the book 'beyond the band'.


E

For more information on books, go to www.acbooks.com

posted by Unknown @ 5:57 PM