Back here in the real world, the internet is doing just fine.

The World Wide Web, whose rather opaque platform ascended primarily for its ability to serve as an online catalogue, has been adapted to serve many of the internet's original, more technologically primitive functions.

Chapter 3 The opportunity for renaissance The birth of the internet was interpreted by many as a revolution.

Some gamers, though - usually after they've mastered this level of play - will venture out onto the internet in search of other fans or user groups.

Just as the printing press gave everyone access to readership, the computer and internet give everyone access to authorship.

This is why, with the emergence of the internet, we saw the attempted rebirth (and occasional stillbirth) of everything from paganism to libertarianism, and communism to psychedelia.

It's no coincidence that early internet users became obsessed with the fractal images they were capable of producing.

By the mid 1990s many internet users began to see the entire planet as a single organism, with human beings as the neurons in a global brain.

The internet, according to this scheme, was the neural network being used to wire up this brain so that it could function in a coordinated fashion.

The internet was merely a metaphor, or outward manifestation, of a psychic connection between human beings that was only then being realised: the holographic reality.

Similarly, the computer and Internet galvanized certain strains of both the pagan and the grassroots 'do-it-yourself' countercultures as the 'cyberpunk' movement, which was dedicated to altering reality through technology, together.

Interference in the emergence First, by casting itself in the role of cultural and institutional watchdog, governments, particularly in the United States, became internet society's enemy.

The result was a tirade of ill-conceived legislation that made internet enthusiasts' blood boil.

(This tradition of government interference in the rise of a community-driven internet is contrasted by the early participation of the UK's Labour government in the funding of internet opportunities there, such as community centres and public timeshare terminals, which were initially exploited mainly by arts collectives, union organisers, and activists.

The internet itself, a government project, soon fell into private hands (Internic, and eventually industry consortiums).

E-commerce certainly has its strengths and the economic development associated with a profit-driven internet creates new reasons for new countries to get their populations online.

For politicians who mean to lead more effectively in such an environment, the interactive solution may well be a new emphasis on education, where elected leaders use the internet to engage with constituents and justify the decisions they have made on our behalf, rather than simply soliciting our moment-to-moment opinions.

Likewise, a developer who leaves a security hole open in a piece of software quite dramatically sees the results of his action when a software 'worm', written by a computer criminal, penetrates the mail files of thousands of users, sending replicates of itself throughout the internet, sometimes for years to come.

Our marketing experts tell us that they are failing in their efforts to advertise to internet users and cultural progressives because this new and resistant psychographic simply wants to engage, authentically, in social experiences.

English Character set encoding: US-ASCII ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SARAH*** Credit for this e-text: Internet Archive; University of Florida, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team New Colored Toys LITTLE

[eBook #11027] Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIMM'S FAIRY STORIES*** E-text prepared by Internet Archive, University of Florida, Children, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations.

[eBook #11098] Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAPPY AND GAY MARCHING AWAY*** E-text prepared by the Internet Archive Children's Library, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations.

*** E-text prepared by Internet Archive; The Baldwin Library, University of Florida; and Andrea Ball and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations.

[eBook #11129] Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO AND OTHER STORIES COMPILED BY UNCLE HUMPHREY*** E-text prepared by Internet Archive; University of Florida; and Christine Gehring and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations.

[eBook #11319] Language: English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIRY GODMOTHERS AND OTHER TALES*** E-text prepared by Internet Archive; University of Florida; and Beth Trapaga and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration.