From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: forwarded message from root@email.johncon.com
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:43:21 -0700
Interesting "On This Day ..." There are many theories as to how Hitler
assumed such control over the German populace. One theory, offered by
the professional historian Len Deighton, (and, also, author of the spy
thrillers,) is that Hitler was the first to master modern technology,
and exploit it as an mass, educational medium, (ie., control of
concepts.) Radio was deployed in Europe in the early 30's-much more so
than the US. The first politician to master it in the US was FDR, (as
per the "Fireside Chats.")
In the US today, ISDN seems to be a contemporary buzz word for digital
communications. Interestingly, ISDN is a European invention, and by
1976, all homes and businesses in France were linked together by ISDN.
The rest of Europe was soon to follow.
The "Web" (and the browser,) are European inventions, (CERN, the
physics folks, own the trademark, ie., www, or the World Wide Web,
AKA, W3,) which was in wide spread use in Europe by 1980, (I still use
Lynx, which is the name of the browser that is built out of CERN's
source code.)
If you point your browser at www.whitehouse.org, you can find all of
Clinton's speeches and position papers, nicely searchable-and the
number of "hits" on the Whitehouse web page. The televised
Presidential debates only captured 30% of the TAM.
Technologically, an interesting 64 years.
John
For more information on the integration of technology into social
infrastructure, see "In the Age of the Smart Machine," Shoshana
Zuboff, Basic Books, New York, New York, 1984-one of the most cited
books in information technology. If what she says is true, the US
still has a way to go to catch up with the Europeans.
________________________ On This Day, Oct 11 ... ________________________
The first political telecast in the United States took place. (1932)
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/