Not So Random Friday Post

I normally, at least for the last dozen or so weeks, have done random Fridays. It is a way to get certain ideas out of my head and onto paper. Ideas that don't deserve an entire post. I don't want to do this today.

This morning, I was reading blogs. And one blog had a cover of Mad Magazine (I never really understood the fascination with Mad Magazine; probably a Y chromosome thing) with a UPC symbol. Well, I made some comment that this symbol reminded me of a sit-com episode where they were trying to decipher the UPC symbol. I thought it was an All in the Family episode, and so I performed a Google search. I got bored before I could confirm this, but I did see Episode 209 of another show that did they did an All in the Family spoof that dealt with APC symbols.

What interested me more than figuring out the sit-com was that we live in a world where so much is online that it is a breeze to research almost anything. I mean, you won't get "the answer", all of the time, but you can get an answer.

When I was in school, we used card catalogs and books. Books and card catalogs don't really allow themselves to link to other resources. Sure, there are cards in the catalog that give a hint of a link, "see XYZ", but they don't directly link to other sources. With the internet, there is so much to link to, and you physically don't really have to touch any source. Your 1s and 0s touch the sources 1s and 0s, and you get an answer.

Another blogger linked to a Madonna video the other day. I often wonder if she did not wear cone's shaped bras, would we think she was more of an important artist.

Of course, I could easily Google Madonna to see 12 little-known-facts about the singer/artist in two minutes. Oh, and I could also see her videos, most of them. If it were still 1978 I would spend several hours in a library, not see any videos and perhaps find some of the same facts. Maybe.

I don't think we fully appreciate this.