Well, maybe it's not that bad (with the emphasis on "maybe") but the fourth coming of the Web browsers certainly does make one wonder what kind of stuff that MS and Netscape will shove down our virtual throats next. Most notably, the latest fad in Internet technology that serves little useful purpose but makes the luddites happy is the so-called "push" technology that has appeared as of late. Instead of having to deal with the arduous labor of actually surfing the Internet, with a web browser, wny not just sit in your nie little easy chair while we send a guy over to splash a bucket of cyber-water every once in a while? The simple-minded luddite at this point os probably thinking, "gee, this means that I won't ever have to deal with the traffic on the Internet again... I'll have all the information I'll ever need delivered right to my computer, and I won't even have to tip the delivery guy!" Mr. Luddite, you're in for a big surprise.
First of all, it seems that the reason that the Internet and Web have become so popular is that you can be an active participant in what you do, whereas with television, all you get to do is watch whatever the network execs decide they can throw in your face. Now it seems that the intent of the whole "push" paradigm is to do just that. For a second, imagine a whole family sitting on a couch, eating voluminous quanties of junk food and staring blankly at the computer. No longer do they actually have to have this giant 27-inch mind-numbing CRT sitting in their living room providing entertainment to their meaningless lives (as well as a good deal of ELF radiation as an added bonus) but instead, they can just sit in front of an Energy Star-compliant SVGA monitor watching whatever gets thrown their way. For some time, this is fine, as this family is sitting too brainwashed to notice that all that is being transmitted to them is baud barf. Finally, when someone realizes what is going on, they try to change the channel, but alas, the fine art of websurfing has become so ancient that nobody can figure out how to use the mouse. Desperately, they find an ancient scroll (the sacred tome known as "the manual") that explains how to use a phone, which they use to call tech support. But unfortunately for them, all of the technical support people used the time that people were spending brainwashed in front of their computers to figure out how to transcend this plane of existence and become entities of pure energy. One of them used their extra-sensory hearing to hear the ringing phone, and went and shocked the living daylights out of the lobotomite family. Now you begin to understand exactly how this technology is supposed to make all of our lives easier... I don't think so.
It seems that just about everyone nowdays continues to tout push technology as the wave of the future. If you look a little under the surface of the whole thing, you realize that all you get to do is watch whatever technology company execs throw in your faces... Which is really a scary thought, considering that we have the Peter McNealies, Bill Gateses, Jim Barksdales and Steve Jobs of the world running these places... Considering that this is going to end up being a somewhat short column anyway this week (as usual, I am writing this long, long past my bedtime, whenever that is) the very thought of push technology makes one want to flee screaming to the woods, armed with nothing but a pen and a whole lot pf paper. Sure, doing such a thing probably isn't a very good idea (after all, all that paper is just asking for a pretty nasty papercut) but at least we don't have to upgrade our pens every time someone makes a new batch of the stuff... And nobody can seem to figure out how to put advertisements on a blank sheet of paper either.