Do You Remember The Days Before Internet?

I don't.

At the beginning of my Yoga class today, I remembered about the itchy feeling that new wool knit cardigan that I bought yesterday (for a mere $7.5!!!) gives me. I quickly made a mental note to Google the solution for that. This thought brings another one, what would I do if I couldn't Google it. As in, what did people do at the time before the Internet become so widely available? Another mental note, blog about this. Yup - an excellent example of how to not do Bikram Yoga properly! (It's meant to be moving meditation!! Unfortunately, my brain just wouldn't stop at times.

Anyways - back to the main topic. Seriously. Stop and think about it. Think about how much the Internet has changed our lives. What has it allow us to do? Emails, Chatrooms, and Web Search!

Web search alone has pretty massive impact. Instead of having to go through the library and try to find the right books for a piece of information; we can simply now type it in Google and find them in a split second. Sure, the information might not always be accurate, but equipped with the right amount of experience and patience, we could generally easily get the right information. I use this ALL THE TIME. Seriously. All the time! Not sure how to spell a word? Type it in Google search bar. Not sure what a word means? Google search bar. Wondering how to clean oil stain from clothing? Google. Need to know what is the equivalent of replacing fresh herbs in a recipe with dried herbs? Ditto.

Recently I was made aware that the Australian Government is trying to push through Internet Censorship policy. Read Slashdot | Australian Government Censorship 'Worse Than Iran'. I think the plan to censor 'illegal material' is a VERY silly idea. The best thing about the Internet is its completeness! It's this MASSIVE & COMPREHENSIVE encyclopedia of the earth that is freely and widely available, full off all sorts of useful information, and not to forget, UP TO DATE!

So... blocking certain information from being made available is like trying to stick together some pages in an encyclopedia because "someone" deem the knowledge to be dangerous for us. Totally doesn't make sense, right? Why on earth would someone do that? Tsk! To top it, who's to say what topics are off limits and what's not? Plus, as many parents I'm sure will testify, shielding a child from knowledge of bad things that are happening is NOT the way to stop a child from engaging in those activities. If anything, it just makes them more likely to be blindly dragged into those activities by their peer OR prompting them to rebel and do those things anyway. That's the case with children. Surely, as adults, we deserve to be made aware of the bad things that are happening all around the world.

Remember, knowledge is power. Whether it is off bad or good things!

Ok - gotta go! Good nite.