I believe that the Internet has had a rather large effect on the way we communicate as a society. I believe that Vannevar Bush was correct in his foresight that the ability to share information between people greatly accelerates our ability to solve problems. I also believe that Nathaniel Hawthorne was correct in his fears that technology in many forms whether it be just a potbellied stove, or the latest Bluetooth enabled gizmo (when is the iwatch coming out? Because let's face it a watch that can only tell time is damn boring), has a tendency to change communication.

I think the single greatest change in communication that the Internet has brought forth compared to the days when we were all gathered around the hearth at night, listening to ma or pa spin yarns about the good old days is that we have lost interpersonal communication between a small group but there is certainly a huge increase in the number of people we communicate with or at least had the ability to. Since returning the school I would say my time spent on the Internet has increased it least tenfold, yet since most of my friends are scattered all over the planet I feel like I have a lot less interpersonal communication that I had four or five years ago. It is kind of ironic the way we have the ability to know so much more about one another and yet at the same time truly know each other even less.

We can't help but sense a little bit of Bush's excitement when he expresses his belief in the potential for peacetime progress within the scientific community if his idea is carried out. My grandfather was of this era and spent most of his post military career in Oak Ridge, Tn. Working on the follow-up to the Manhattan Project. My brother has since done documentaries interviewing the same scientists that both Bush and my grandfather worked with. The amount of loyalty towards their country their projects, missions, and certainly each other is overwhelming. You can certainly grasp and understanding why they are referred to as the greatest generation. The only reason my brother's documentary was so successful is because he was the Pete Gooch's grandson, because even though most of the information has been declassified, most of these people don't return interviewers phone calls until they got word of whom my brother was. The group of people who can keep a secret this long obviously had a sense of being part of the team and I think it's that sharing of information that helped to build this sort of a community.

I think as much as Hawthorne rants and raves about how this new technology that has been seemingly thrust upon him is destroying interpersonal communication, I think that if he is given the option he would have greatly embraced the Internet. Before this tool of communication came along for someone to willingly distribute this particular information (this blog) would have had to own their own personal printing press. I understand that more than likely the only person to ever read this will be some cat named Derek who is solely responsible for it being written in the first place, but it is a very powerful thought to think that is accessible by millions. In less Hawthorne was some sort of eliteist I have to believe he would see the benefit of being able to access so many readers so quickly. I assume all writers create in hopes that their writings find an audience. And blog seems to me to be a little bit like a bitch session anyway perhaps a template to rant sounds a little better. I know that's what my blog experience seems like it's me ranting it sounded to me like Hawthorne was ranting about the loss of his fireplace I would be rating about this assignment but somewhere about halfway through it I think I got the point...... how the hell did that happen?

I think if we could take Hawthorne to our local Lowe's hardware store he would be happy to see the array of metal fire pits you can put on your back porch, and once again gather around fire's warming glow and appreciate it in a much more social setting. I think they even have one available that is big enough to set a new record of 61 cords of wood. I think Mr. Bush would be quite proud to see the amount of information that can be exchanged over great distances at any given moment I'm sure that it would be beyond his wildest dreams and that he would be absolutely speechless when we showed him the utube video of the fat kid lip sinking europop songs