First came the illuminati, scribes who painfully copied by hand the early bibles and added flourishes, borders, flowers and other decorations around the pages. of these hand-produced first books. After Gutenberg printed the first book by machine came the literati, intellectuals who had mastered the magic of reading.
Recently, arrived are the digirati, the new breed of wizards who master the intricacies of computers and peripherals.
This week comes yet another species: the icontenti, those who produce the content and put it up on the World Wide Web. They have become authors, publishers, editors, printers, marketing executives, delivery agents, sales executives, and accounting managers and collection agency officials.
It's a new world. For those who want to meet the icontenti, check out their electronic and photonic soapboxes/ newsstands/viewing screens and moving mirrors. At the bottom of the monitor are their contact points. Simply sample, and new dreams will be yours.
Feel you are falling behind when someone says, "Oh, you must have heard about this, it's been out a week?" Or "Yes, I've seen it. It's so 20th century?" As kids are now saying; "Ten minutes". Translation? If it's over 10 minutes old, "it's "ancient city".
Knowledge in science and technology is increasing 100 percent every five-to-seven years. Upset? Good! Swallow this. By Year 2020 scientific and technical knowledge will double every two-to-three months.
Be prepared. What good will your pension check be when anything you buy on Boxing Day will be obsolete by the Ides of March?
One other thing I've been meaning to tell you. The calendar isn't forever anymore. I'll get to the new calendars in another column, but let me brief you on the reasons for
the rise of the incontenti.
Once upon a time there were scribes. They wrote books with quill and quiver in their fingers -- every book ever read at the time. They grew old, stiff and in some cases blind. Laser eye correction hadn't hit the cobblestones yet. Printers came next, about 1445. These machines delivered books at the speed of the human arm.
These were people-driven machines. In those days that's what people did. They put individual pieces of paper on a table, pulled down another device that was screwed down to exert pressure and put whatever had been carved out on a block of wood onto a sort of rag/linen/ papyrus bush/marijuana plant mixture. That system was used for centuries in some parts of the world. Then came moveable type (Koreans had moveable type 50 years before Gutenberg). The Gutenberg printing press spread rapidly throughout Europe. The world changed again.
As the planet population reached six billion many people could not get access to the printing machines or the press giants which had grown so powerful. Soapboxes in Hyde Park simply didn't draw the crowds as in the old days. What to do? On an unfair playing field? Change the rules. So in due course the third millennium came into view, the World Wide Web phenomenon appeared. It lets anybody and everybody change the rules.
It took a little while, perhaps 10 hours, until people who suggested the idea and mentioned it on the Internet/www started to receive e-mail from others who had been waiting most of their lives for just such an opportunity. Just thinking they could do something illegal even though it really wasn't illegal at all. This was the latest social invention. Like handing the peasants of old a Gatling machine gun to play with; eventually they would have found someone to point it at. But now you could send your message out to the world. Without having to use violence to deliver it. This prose wouldn't appear on Gutenberg-format paper as in those ancient books except to those who wanted it that way and had a personal printer within their empire. This led to another fast-moving phenomenon; The under-$200 color printer (down slightly from $20,000 in the last century). Now anyone could extend their empire. If this keeps up, there will be nothing but kings & queens lying around. There goes the neighborhood.
And, dear absorber of the age, that is today's story about change.
