It's like I don't even know you anymore, Internet

I spend a lot of time on the Internet.  That might be an understatement.   It may be more telling to say the only block of time I'm totally disconnected from the net is when I sleep, and I haven't done that in ages.

Outside of sleep and isolated vacations/family functions, you can assume that I'm on the Internet somehow, somewhere.  Hell, I'm writing this blog post in class at the moment.

Aside: Teachers are sorta like lions.  Look 'em right in the eye, show that you won't take their shit and they won't give you any problems.

So, clearly, I pay attention to what's going on in the web.  Not only from the computer science-y side of things (the IEEE people and the WWC consortium), but also from an international law perspective (the copyright protection treaties that flare up every once and a while like a particularly stubborn and noticeable strain of herpes).

Also, from a subculture perspective.  I make a monthly pilgrimage to 4chan.  Afterward, I cry for 15 minutes over a large tub of ice cream, take a half hour shower and spend the rest of the day drinking away my sorrows at a dive bar.

Dealing with 4chan has all the emotional pain of a breakup

Oh, and from a geographic perspective.  I'm still convinced that rule 34's servers are in Atlantis, as any real government would purge the horrible with chemically assisted fire.  So far, all of my attempts to use Traceroute to find the servers have ended with my computer committing ritual suicide after leaving a note that just reads, "Why?"

All in all, the Internet is like a second home for me.  It has become an old friend- one that can trawl the 5 million terrabytes of information distributed around the world and find me the perfect picture of a pinball game that is buried in the code of Microsoft Word '97.

And here you thought only video games had Easter Eggs

So, it came as a bit of a surprise recently when I found out that the Internet is changing.  Or namely, for those that don't want to actually click on links, social networking traffic has eclipsed porn traffic on the web.  Not counting search engines, porn used to be the most common destination of all Internet traffic.

It was depressing that humanity had the greatest information network ever made and used to find boobs, but it seemed fitting somehow.  The fact that we used the Internet for porn showed our flawed nature, that no matter what we think, we're all just animals underneath and are subject to the same pressures, instincts and impulses that all animals deal with.

Now apparently we use it to make friends and connect with our peers around the world, which sounds disgustingly noble, mature and adult.  Eww.

Also, if you haven't yet, do give me feedback about my last post.  Your words do matter because I have no personal honor and will go with whatever has the most support.

Also, if anyone has trawled the blog recently, you may notice that an image is missing from this  old post.  It would seem Amazon does not like it when you hotlink a picture of an easy bake oven.  If I update the post and remove/change the image, it'll republish as my front page post, which isn't exactly helpful.  I do plan on fixing it... soon.