Social networking, file sharing, and open source software production are all a result of the internet. The width and depth of global communication has never been larger or as easy to achieve. But how has the internet really changed society? Has it at all? There are many who would argue that internet merely gave society a new way to express behavior that has been present from the beginning. It is not the order of society that the internet has changed, merely the mode. At its simplest, society is founded on communicating knowledge. That is why language and writing were invented. The internet is just…

No, but we’re not far off. The acceleration of the creation and discovery of information is reaching a point that is mind-blowing. We’ve all heard the different “facts,” that we double knowledge every two years or that we gain more information every year that we did in any of the previous centuries – all of it is fodder for speculation and trivia. Still, we’re advancing terribly fast. Are there pitfalls? What if the data is lost? What if we gain it so fast that we can no longer store it properly. Electromagnetic pulses, sunspots, hackers – all are reasonable concerns regarding the most valuable type…

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.” That’s Obama talking about gadgets at large recently. Now, he was specifically referring to a citizen’s ability to stay informed and educated, but in or out of context, it seems like an odd thing to say, and to a tech geek, sounds damn near insulting. I dunno about you guys, but I feel pretty empowered every time I pwn a noob. In all seriousness, though, Obama…