No-internet ???

I always used to wonder if I would even survive a day without cribbing, if there was no internet.

The world-wide-web(WWW) was built in 1990 and slowly started gaining popularity henceforth. I consider myself a proud survivor of both the pre-internet and the post-internet eras.

If I have to take a bus to go out, I make it a point to check the bus schedule online, so I don't end up waiting at the bus stop forever, specially with the less-frequent buses. There is this iphone-app called "One-bus-away", which makes life still easier, it gives me a real-time update of each bus, almost like a countdown. Eventually all this is going to be of no use without the internet. I might have to wait for longer hours, difficult if its cold/windy/raining, but its manageable, I guess. Even if I have to take a car, I still have to look at the maps online for directions.

I have all my family and friends spread across the globe, so usually connect with them on video-conferencing(skype). The regular calling card works only for India-calling, so skyping is really of great help to stay-connected. Without the internet, I might have to pay the extra price of investing on an all-world calling card maybe, but I would have to talk consciously, so the bill doesn't take a huge toll on me. Hmmmm, getting tougher...

Planning to go out doesn't happen without checking the weather on the internet, which by itself isn't reliable totally, but at-least I get an idea on what to expect.

Thinking of those days when physically buying audio cassettes were the only way you could listen to music, and I used to give my mom a tough time asking her to buy me the cassette as soon as a film was out. Now, all we do is go online and hit the download button, and have hundreds of songs downloaded in no-time.

Gone are the days when I used to wait to watch a TV show on the TV per se. Its getting difficult to remember which show/movie is aired when, and also the advertisements are a big pain. There are numerous websites that lets you watch everything soon after they have been aired on TV. Its good, because I can catch up with them when I really feel like. Not forgetting to mention "youtube", you name it, youtube has it :)

The same is applicable to movies. If I all of a sudden feel like watching a movie, a lot of good prints of good movies are available online(not the just-released movies obviously) for free or for a reasonable monthly subscription charge.

Internet shopping, specially for electronics, is the easiest. Before buying anything, I look up on lots of reviews online which have really been helpful to compare and choose. Also I get to mention the exact specification I need, and it all gets shipped at my door. I have even sent gifts like cakes, fruits, flowers by ordering them online. Booking train and flight tickets online and looking up on flight stats have become an integral part too, and because of all these online experiences, we save a lot of time and energy spent on physical shopping and standing in queues.
Online banking and bill payments add to all this to make life easier.

Encyclopedias were a priced procession for me as a kid and I used be the proud owner of more than a couple of them. With the advent of wikipedia and a lot of other sites that house e-books, who cares of encyclopedias anymore.

I remember when I was young, my aunts who lived abroad, used to send photographs by post(mail). They took multiple copies of each picture, so they could send it to other families as well. They put all the photographs carefully in an envelope, on the top of which they wrote "Photographs inside, do not bend" and we used to wait for these, we were crazy of photographs as kids. Its hilarious to think of all this now, our kids are going to call us stupid, if they knew this was what we were doing 20 or so years ago. It became easier to take digital photographs attach them and send a single email to multiple recipients. But its the easiest now, with "facebook"(I can sense you should be laughing hard now).

Emailing pictures is considered a time-sucker now. I just have to upload a whole bunch of it on facebook, and I have the whole world commenting on them. The good thing is, everyone in your network gets to know what you are upto and you don't have to keep updating them individually. And all those public discussions really add spice. I recently caught up with a lot of very old school friends, and its kind of a nice feeling to see how they look like and what they do, after 15 years. With the advent of facebook and twitter, I almost stopped following the news as such. People talk about the most-current happening, and facebook has become a one-stop-place for everything. I tend to check the facebook update even before checking my email. Even without making regular phone calls or sending regular emails, I feel have this feeling of staying connected.

I can think of many more, but am writing just the obvious ones.

I am not ashamed to reveal that I chose this topic to blog on, only from the internet :))))))

Having said all this, I doubt if I would be able to relive the pre-internet era.

So, here I am, contradicting my previous post. I have become so "attached" to the internet that I consider my previous post invalid. Sorry for putting you through all the trouble of reading such a silly, stupid and senseless previous post ;)