email for pics

Not nearly so entertaining as Dixie’s last.

I recently persuaded my brother to get a flickr account. He does interesting things from time to time and I like seeing about them. Rather than checking some website, or getting emailed pics, I subscribe to an RSS feed of his so-called “photostream” to keep myself up to date with his current happenings. Sweet.

This isn’t a plug for flickr (though flickr does bring to you the amusing header above); it’s a comment on the ease of information distribution in today’s society. It seems the goal is to allow people to be as lazy as possible (it’s recently been pointed out here that a more pleasant term would be “efficient”; I prefer the former). That’s fantastic. But it’ll get better. Mark my words, the day will come when distribution is so robust, people will no longer even have to remember anything. Vast communication networks will allow blindingly fast information retrieval on everything from “which was the president of the United States of America who served non-consecutive terms” to “where did I put my keys”. Chip in your head, people. Chip. In. Your. Head.

Distribution isn’t enough, though. I’m waiting for the day when the internet self organizes and correlates. People then become sensory inputs to a giant, eventually sentient database of the sum (and more) total of all mankind’s knowledge. Gonna be hot. Just you wait.