Merry Christmas 2025 🎄 🧧

I was going to post a serious article today… And then I thought: "What am I doing? It's Christmas eve afternoon 2025. Time to lighten up" so out with all the heavy duty philosophies and opinions. I just want to wish everyone a great holiday season.

As you're reading this short little blurb of an article, stop and take a moment, allow yourself to let go of all the stuff going on in life right now either locally or globally. Put everything on hold I just relax into something… Have a chocolate bar if that's your thing… Stop working for a few minutes and just changed change gears. There will be time for all of this in the new year, right now think about something you haven't thought of in a long time that makes you feel good. Whatever it is don't apologize for it or quantify it in any way, just enjoy it. If you have children giggle with them over a really bad joke, something ridiculous 😆

One of my fondest memories was sitting on the floor with my father who had polio. Watching him explain some little gizmo or idea he had. The sheer glee which exuded from his expressions and excitement was contagious. For half an hour everybody in the house turned into a kid and just enjoy the moments.

I'm going to put together a little video for this hopefully I can dig up the Christmas hat I have kicking around somewhere in the apartment, and if so you will see it on my head as I exude playfulness and joy. 

Even when it's not Christmas remember you can just take a few moments put a smile on your face for absolutely no reason. Other people may look at do a little strange but you shouldn't worry about it. Just enjoy the moment.

With that I'm going to wish to a very Merry Christmas and an excellent new year. I have a bunch of articles planned, I think I have three or four on the go right now in various states of preparedness.

See you in 2026
Patrick Clark 

 

The Spirit of Joy

Many people know I am an agnostic, and yet I very much enjoy the season of Christmas and New Year's. This is due to a simple fact, it is one of the few times in the North American calendar during the year where people are encouraged to feel "Joy" in their religious beliefs. It occurred to me, that it is equally valid to give oneself permission to feel joy for the sake of being happy in itself.Here's a spontaneous idea… Click the search button below to do a search on the word "joy" right now and see what comes up. We both could be surprised 😃. There is no trickery here, it's just a simple search on a single word. Indeed the results will probably change over time.

There are so many things going on in the world that are negative or complex. So regardless of how you want to frame it take the season of joy at face value. Put down the negativity for a while and allow yourself to smile and maybe even feel wonderful. Approach everything from a slightly younger perspective, being curious and playful. North American society has given you permission to do so during this time of year so take society up on that offer.

My apartment has twinkling lights and Christmas music playing. The day after Labor Day, I went out and did a impulse buy, an illuminated two thirds of a meter tall Christmas elf because it was something that I knew the child in me would go crazy for and indeed it did. I also purchased, a Santa's Workshop figurine pictured below (unfortunately the illuminated elf is very difficult to get a clear photograph of. If I ever manage to get one I will of course update this little article.) 

Santa's Christmas Village by Spode.
With battery-powered LED illumination.

Remember the magic and joy you felt anticipating a new toy at Christmas?… Looking at the present under the tree, and wondering which one of them might be the one. There is nothing stopping you from rekindling that glorious feeling today or at any time of the year but during the festive season one can really get into the spirit of things. I have spent the last two weeks drawing pictures and making Christmas screensavers for the computers and rooms in my facility, which happens to be an assisted living building. The funny thing I noticed right away was that when I did something in the spirit of the season, somebody else added their own declaration or ornament. It's contagious, and it's a positive contagion something that helps bring out the best in people. Have you ever made a paper snowflake out of a sheet of plain old stationary? It can be glorious fun! It does not matter if it looks great. The only thing that matters is if you enjoy it in such a way that it brightens your day.

If for whatever reason you can't be joyous right now then put it off until the opportunity presents itself. When I was about 14 years old I had to go into the hospital over the Christmas season and for much of that year. When I finally got out in July my parents held Christmas all over again. Yes we had Christmas in July! And it was spectacular. My young mind discovered that it's not "the when" that matters, it's giving yourself permission to indulge in play and a smile.

As I write this this short article, I keep getting inspired. What if you gave your self permission to at some point in the day to play? This could be very liberating… For it to work one would not worry about rules or a schedule. You would just play when ever the opportunity or idea occurred to you. What defines "play" would be entirely up the individual. Just thinking about it inspires me.

I must begin again to pay attention to how young people play. Not just learn what they are doing, but to discover what atmosphere and mental state they put themselves into. I am willing to bet that for most people as they grow up, they lose touch with some of the lessons learned in childhood. I vividly remember mom and dad telling us on weekends to go out and play, the exact wording was "Time for you to get out of the house." This wasn't said in a negative way. It was just the way our weekends went. Kids were self-sufficient to a larger extent back in the 70s and 60s… At least that is how I remember it. We would go out for a few hours and perhaps wonder back in for lunch, and that was conditional on the fact that we might be too involved in our playing to worry about something as mundane as eating 😀. I definitely remember feeling like the comic strip character Dennis the Menace.

Yes, by all means dear reader, set up some time play. For just a little while put down all other concerns. This will definitely encourage joy once again.

That's it for this very short post. Here's wishing you all the joy and happiness in the world, which you can dream up any time!

Take care Patrick

Your Mental Margin

 "Use It or Lose It" holds true for your mental well-being as well.

Ever since joining a cognitive therapy group I have become very aware of the way people process their environment and indeed their own sense of reality. I joined this group because I am 66 years old and even though I am in good health I have noticed a slight decline in my memory and cognitive skills. So when the opportunity arose I jumped at joining the group.

The adage "Use It or Lose It" really has come into focus for me as I look around and I see young and old people mentally drifting through life or taking things for granted. Assuming that the facilities for have now, they will always have. Mind you I think everyone does this at different stages of life to some degree, I recently saw a video clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger who is now 78 years old, as of the writing of this blog post, commenting that when he was 30 years old he never thought about losing muscle mass. Especially with the incredible amount of exercise he committed to every day. The idea even if it occurred to him what it seemed inconceivable. What makes "Use It or Lose It" even more important is, we live in a world that is much more interconnected and technical on all levels. Society and individuals simply cannot afford being ignorant of society and technology. The late astronomer, Carl Sagan said, and I'm paraphrasing this: 

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

It is my point of view that in order to get the best out of life, one must be fully involved in all aspects. One must avoid taking things for granted or as I've mentioned many other times in this blog going on a kind of mental autopilot. The more you exercise your mind and body the more margin you build up. To put it another way, the more reserves you have to deal with the challenges of life the better. A little bit of difficulty throughout one's life is necessary. Try not to become overly comfortable in your lifestyle or routines. Make a commitment to do something uncomfortable and potentially productive every few days or weeks. It is these uncomfortable activities which tend to break down the walls of isolation and help to keep you connected to the society and realities around you.

When was the last time you read a physical book? The act of reading something written or printed on paper is very different than reading the same material off a screen. Come to think of it when was the last time any of us read a book or other physical medium like a magazine or newspaper from beginning to end.

It is these kind of things that help you stay connected and alive in the world. It helps build up your mental and your physical margins, so that when your help does decline you have a much better chance of enjoying your later years with friends and family.

I probably will add more to this article in the next few days. But for tonight I wanted to get this out there just as a starting point.

Second instalment: October 18, 2025

Speaking about "mental margins"and really using the facilities of one's brain to think and consider a person's environment. I keep meaning people who really don't understand at all how different things in their life relate to each other. This leads into a real difficulty for them when they try to use technology. For example a friend of mine recently bought a Smart TV. They asked me to assist them in the set up and I realized partway through that they did not have any comprehension of what was meant by a "smart TV". As a result they are having great difficulty using it. When their PVR (Personal Video Recorder) had a momentary glitch in a recorded program and froze for a few seconds they immediately thought it was a problem with the new TV. They don't see the separate components which make up modern media experiences. To them the television set is all encompassing and so when I explained initially that they had to use two remote controls one for the PVR  and one to control the volume on their TV they really got confused. It was not until I realized how they were looking at the devices that I understood what the problem was.

There are extenuating circumstances here which I won't go into but it still remains that a great number of society's people are now using hardware and services with no understanding of how it all works together. This is a point of greatest concern for me because it guarantees that not only will the devices not be used to their best advantage, it is for certain there will be confusion and problems down the road. Yet I am also reminded that there are many very creative people out there still. But when I run into people that don't want to learn or expand their boundaries I get a little frightened. It reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy" (movie trailer) which takes place in the future in a city where everybody has been dumbed down. It is a comedy but the underlying message cannot be ignored. "Use it or lose it"

There has been a shift in attitude toward knowledge and learning

In my family, understanding a concept or discovering how something worked was a real sign of achievement, as a matter of fact I remember the expression on my father's face when he would describe some little aspect of an idea, there was sheer joy in his face. The message and the behaviour were transferred directly to his children. At the time we might not have understood what he was describing fully, but we got the message that it was something worth striving for. Now, knowledge and learning seemed to be, if not devalued, taken for granted… After all there's always "Google" or ChatGPT to fall back on.

What's missing is the sheer excitement which I still experience when I discover and understand something new. I still have quite a number of eureka moments in my life 😀. This means that many people also don't really appreciate discovery and achievement anymore. Especially if the undertaking involved some commitment over weeks or months. In part, this is likely due to everything being viewed as transitory, as well as what now qualifies as a lengthy commitment.
 

Take care Patrick

Side note: The Rose photograph (More about the creation of this image in the article "Find Some Time to Disconnect from All the Chatter") depicted at the top of this article is based on images generated by an AI initially and then slightly adjusted by me. The moment I saw the Rose I thought:" It be great to have this backlit in a light box. Wouldn't you know it, I did some searching and there is a small company on Etsy which does just that. Here's a link to their storefront: Q AND L GIFTS. You do have to provide the artwork as a very good scan but I have been most impressed I must say. This is not an official endorsement of this product and I am not being reimbursed I just thought others might find this beneficial.

The Feelings You're Not Aware of

Angel and boy figurines found outside a cabin in
Nakusp British Columbia Canada, 2017.  

"With the tremendous variety of outlooks, beliefs, attitudes and different ways of dealing with one's reality I find it incomprehensible that one reality fits all."

It is my position that people go through their daily lives using various levels of awareness, and that there is a tendency to intuitively believe that your particular brand of reality for the most part matches others. I think this is an incomplete picture. Allow me to explain:

With the tremendous variety of outlooks, beliefs, attitudes and different ways of dealing with one's reality I find it incomprehensible that one "reality" fits all. Indeed one's own personal perception of their reality does not have to match at all any other persons. There may be some very general parameters but I think they are quite flexible. To be clear I'm not talking about any sort of health condition, these are just you physically fit and healthy individuals you meet as you go throughout your day. The "average Joe" if you will.

Now, adding to the mix, unconscious feelings and other motivators you are not aware of. These may be struggling motivators in the back of your mind. Not strong feelings, but those fleeting supple reactions. Social they may be, but their cumulative effect should not be discounted or ignored. The message I have for you today in the short little article is to be aware that these emotional transients exist and you may discover a fair bit about yourself by paying attention to them.

For each person, these brief background feelings may be incredibly mild or momentarily very intense. But because they are so short in duration we move on with our daily activities without even noticing them consciously. They can colour our conversation, bring up an old feeling, make you feel good or bad about a particular situation… Ever wondered why your mood abruptly shifted while you were going about your day? This may be where the answer lies. If you can open up a dialogue with yourself, you never know what you will find.

Well, look at that., another incredibly short but concise article. I know the Internet prefers thousand word essays, but I think for today this will do. It is the weekend here in Surrey British Columbia and we are getting ready for the Canadian Thanksgiving. Wherever you are, and whenever you read this, I hope you are having a great day and feel free to post a comment.

Take care Patrick

Approach Life As Though Your Brain Lived in a Fish Tank.

Image generated by Ideogram AI.

"If your brain lives in a fish tank, you might as well make it a party!"

People have always said: "The environment affects you, and you affect the environment." Whatever context you consider that statement in, planet wide or just your immediate surroundings, it means that changing one aspect affects everything else. It also means that you see everything through many "layers of filtering". This view of life has always reminded me of an aquarium. One small change in any aspect of the water, temperature or inhabitants, massively alters everything. Similarly each one of these acts like a filter when you observe the animals and indeed the aquarium as whole; it's all layers of filtering. When viewing the world with this point of view we can all be considered to have brains that live in fish tanks. Reality is heavily dependent on the context as a whole.

Okay, so if that's the case, let's take it one step further. I suggest you that any one of these multitudes of layers can be adjusted at any time by you. If someone is playing music that is not to your liking, rather than asking them to change the music, consider for a moment, what "layers"you are interpreting the situation through and adjust those. Consider why you are paying attention to the music in the first place. Think about it, no one is forcing you to pay attention to it. In the moment, choose to pay attention to something else. The very process of realizing that this layer of filtering can be adjusted may be very empowering. You are using the aspects of your own fish tank to your advantage.

This is an extreme simplification of life, but the central idea remains the same and it just as valid. All the layers of your interpretation can be changed at will and usually at any time you want. It's just that we are usually too preoccupied to stop and take the time and effort in order to manually change gears.--Yes we're back to my favourite topic of turning off the mental autopilot. Perhaps in years past when life was slower people naturally and there autopilot turned off, and probably were more aware of themselves, that we normally have time to appreciate today. But dammit, if they could do it so can society and people do it today.

That's it for this short little post. I hope it gives you something positive and perhaps wonderful to think about. Feel absolutely free to act on it. If your brain lives in a fish tank, you might as well make it a party!

Take care have a great day.
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

 

Can Moods Become Habit?

 

 "It Is Never Good To Go Through Life On Autopilot." 

Can a mood become an ingrained habit? That is to say, can a particular mood or state of mind become a default reaction to a given situation. More importantly, can one afford such a knee-jerk an automatic reaction in a healthy life.

To my mind it is kind of like handing over the driver's keys will mild form of enslavement particularly if the mood is a negative one. This is going to be a very short article or note I just thought just occurred to me. People frequently say "They woke up in a bad mood." I think if that happens regularly and without reflection on what's going on to perpetuate this state is a dangerous situation. Because the person is handing over responsibility for how well they will function in life to a belief. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They wake up in a bad mood and convince themselves there is nothing they can do about it and then the sages been set for the cycle to continue. Essentially because they literally expect to wake up in this negative mood.

I would like to put forward that this is a situation which the person cannot afford. One must not give in to habit or routine. It is much better to constantly be critical of a feeling and if they find that the state they are in is part of a pattern take the responsibility and action to change it. In this way one gets to know their inner workings and ultimately who they are. As I've said many times on this blog it is never good to go through life on autopilot or to follow a routine without considering the benefits and consequences of that routine.

Often people will tell me they don't have the time to reflect on their life or situation and use this as a rationale for not taking action. But you see, no one else can change your life other than you. This journey of understanding one's moods and motivations is an ongoing event throughout life. As you think and feel events, take each one as an opportunity to make a decision. In that way you are not governed by a mood but instead learn something about yourself and indeed those around you.

So if you woke up this morning in a bad mood, take the opportunity to see what can be changed about how you are feeling. My suggestion is as you analyse, right your thoughts and feelings down. This makes it a much more personal experience and you will be surprised about the avenues to a solution you find.

Have a great day!
Patrick

Cocooning And The Tendency To Resist New Experiences.

It is a common belief that as a person ages, there is a tendency to pull back from society and resist new experiences; this is often called "Cocooning".

Part of me wonders if that belief is true and another part of me screams loudly that it is not. I just turned 66 years old and I seem to be doing more than I ever did earlier in my life. Now, I do find that there is a resistance to being involved in "everything". And "everything" in this context represents the things that others feel I should be involved in. Maybe there's a tendency to misinterpret one's desire to focus on what matters to them personally rather then to be involved with all the other activities society normally expects a person to be involved in.

I truly have a better understanding now of some of the great researchers throughout history that were knowen to lock themselves in their study to deeply focus on their chosen field of interest. Nothing is more disconcerting than being interrupted randomly. (That was this morning's adventure. I had planned to write this article at about 8 AM and here it is 1:15 PM.)  Albert Einstein was famous for going into his study for prolonged periods, essentially shutting out the world, to focus on his research. 

Now let me be clear, there is a distinction between healthy Cocooning and someone who was isolating themselves for other reasons. People must develop the social emotional awareness skills to tell the difference. If I'm truly honest with myself my personality destined to be a bit of a loner but that is because I like to focus deeply. My moods are always fine when I'm in the state and I can easily converse with whoever comes by. Sometimes I get a little too caught up in the conversing as a matter of fact. I must've been a storyteller in a previous life 😁.

Contrast that with someone who is normally social but starts to slowly withdraw from friends or just become less involved with their growth. One of the telltale signs that this is not healthy is that there mood goes down and they become fatigued. If you see this happening it is most definitely our warning sign. Frequently persons in such states tend to really resist help. Usually it is also true that the more aware they are emotionally the more they can manipulate and hide.

You may wonder why I am choosing to talk about this particular topic now. It is the end of summer and the beginning of full it's not too far away. For myself this means I must be extra vigilant because the winter months sometimes bring that negative cocooning  behaviour. So this is my way of reminding myself to pay attention. As luck would have it, my local health department just started up a pilot program focused on the elderly and mental health. Specifically a cognitive therapy group, so I hustled to my butt and got down there to sign up. The more tools I can have at my disposal, the better. Also others may be feeling the same urges. To you I say make appropriate early preparations, what ever that may be, and a do not fool yourself into thinking: "I can do this all by myself." If you need help ask for it.

But also looking at this behaviour from a larger perspective, I find it fascinating. It is indeed a message to society understand the differences and benefits involved in allowing someone to focus deeply on their field of choice, be it a hobby or something more formal, and recognizing the difference when the behaviours are not healthy.

Of course one of the things it gets in the way of detecting the differences is that we are also busy and distracted. People multitask like they are the main programmer in the movie The Matrix. Even if you don't know what the matrix movie, is you get the idea. There's a message here for those super multitasking people, "they to need to take stock of where their emotional and physical well-being is." You cannot and should not even try assuming that your body is indestructible. As everyone ages, they inevitably find this out and it is usually a surprise. Because our society does not test to be that aware to focus on checking in with yourself from time to time. However it is something you really should do. Put down the cell phone, or your favourite device of distraction and just ask yourself how you're doing.

Well, that's my little article for today. I really have no idea what the next article will be. But rest assured there will be something that pops into my mind 😃. I'm debating at the moment whether I want to dedicate a video for this particular posting. We are getting close to the weekend, so I think I will have some time.

Take care Patrick

IndexNow and Blogger are they compatible?

 

Like anyone who runs a service or website on the Internet I am always interested in providing good content and of course getting better rankings in the search engines. The following article, even though it is a little bit technical, may serve as a cautionary tale to not believe everything you see or read on the Internet.

I have been running a short advertising campaign with Pinterest, something I doabout once or twice a year to get my rankings and viewership a little boost. It is during these campaigns that I also usually discover something I didn't know about the Internet before. This time around the discovery is a relatively recent method to get your website material submitted to engines qhickly. It is a protocol called "IndexNow" which was established by Microsoft and utilized by their search engine BING. 

If you're someone who maintains a website where the content changes frequently you can go to IndexNow.org to find all the details on how to set this up. The concept is simple, once set up. Your website will automatically notify a search engine of your choosing, whenever the content is updated. Moreover as part of how the IndexNow works, initial search engine receiving the update will let related search engines know. (I think my fellow geeks, just got excited.) This is the positive part of my article and the downside has nothing to do with the IndexNow protocol, it is how unscrupulous individuals are abusing the concept. But first a little more back story:

This blog, notesintheleftmargin.com is hosted by an old and reliable service called Bloggerand there are a few things it does not support, one of them being to do above mentioned protocol for search engines. So I went on a safari, so to speak, though the Internet to explore whether this problem had been addressed. Before I got to the true answer I ran into the "dark side" of information. There are tons of YouTube videos (you won't find any linked in this post) and articles pretending to give you instructions on how to implement the IndexNow feature on Blogger hosted websites. In reality however these instructions would result in spamming the search engines if followed blindly. Not only would it not help the website rankings it would probably have a very adverse effect.

It just goes to show that when reading or seeing something on the Internet you must be hypercritical. Maybe one day water will implement the ability to add the IndexNow feature into hosted sites, but not as of this writing. It needs to also be noted that IndexNow Is only useful if your site updates frequently. In the meantime blogger hosted sites can still use "Google's Search Console" or "Bing's Webmaster Tools"

Patrick

Is the Internet becoming less user-friendly?

Image generated by Ideogram AI.

Is the Internet becoming harder to use?

I was collaborating with the volunteer yesterday, making minor visual adjustments to a new website and that got me thinking about whether or not we are making the Internet easier or harder to use. This thought could also be applied to technology in general. Admittedly ease-of-use is a highly subjective consideration, but still overall when you look at the broad perspective I have the sneaking hunch if we are not making things harder for people there definitely is a trend toward making the experience more convoluted.

Think of the plethora of icons that are now used in place of text descriptions on websites. While we all understand some of them to represent services like Facebook etc. many of them don't give you a clue as to what they represent and if you use the old trick of hovering over them with your mouse pointer there is usually no further embedded text description displayed. (If you hover over the graphic at the top of this article you should see some text appear describing it.) So your only alternative is to click on each one to see what it does. This is just inefficient. Yes, it saves valuable screen space and if the symbol is universal it gets around the language barrier. But if it's something the designer just made up then again it just slows people down.

The other issue I see occurring a lot online in general and with various apps is that you are constantly being interrupted in one way or another. My Pixel 6a 90% of the time it displays a notification about something right after I put in my PIN even if I have just cleared all the notifications. This occurs so often, that I am forced to conclude it was a design choice. Again this can impair one's ability to do something because you are momentarily distracted, and that is just annoying.

Graphical User Interface design (GUI) as a complementary component called User-Experience design  (UX) which is focused on the experience of using the product or device itself so one would think the goal would be to remove the above mentioned problems. But we are now trying to pack so many features into every web application and devices that there is simply no universal way to organize. So you end up with a real disjointed mess, unless you happen to know the brand or manufacturer well enough to understand their design philosophy. 

This may well be an area in which artificial intelligence can be a benefit. A user experience focused AI could learn how a particular user works best with the device or service and then automatically adjusts as needed. For example, I find that most pop-up notifications disappear far too quickly in this case particularly on android devices for my liking. I have another friend however that finds them too slow. 

However, until we get to that stage where artificial intelligence is sufficiently ubiquitous enough to do per device user experience adjustments. I would like to hear what you have to say. Let's start a broad discussion and see where it goes.

Now, I know this topic is diverse and some people's "features" are others "impediments" particularly if for considering the various disabilities. However for this discussion let's keep it to the broader picture. A strict technology becoming easier to use or do you find it getting in the way more often than not? 

Patrick 

** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

 

In the shadow of AI: The Future of Websites

Will websites still exist in 10 years?

With the incredible speed at which artificial intelligence (AI) is developing, I have my doubts. Most if not all search engines offer automatically generated snippets to your search query right at the top of the page. Meaning that you don't have to go to the original website.

Content will still be generated by people and organizations for inclusion on the Internet, but the specific actual information may not be in the forefront of the user experience.

Think about it this way, it's analogous to a librarian. You go to your favourite search engine and asking a question. Rather than it providing discrete books (think websites) and their location in the library, the AI would do all the research and provide you with a well-documented answer. Therefore there would be no need for a fancy website because only the, data the information is important.

Websites might be viewed as historical items, analogous to looking at through a history book. They would be considered part of the history of the Internet. In much the same way we now view early websites from the 80s, with simple layouts and loaded with animated GIFs.

There are a number of new technologies coming online that could greatly enhance what semiconductors (integrated circuits) and hence AIs are capable of:

• Instead of copper traces within the circuits, light transmission as a method of sending information (video by Anastasiia Nosova ) is being worked on. This means less heat and faster computation. Which ultimately of course results in better artificial intelligence.
  
  
• The classical way of computing that we all know and love may be on its way out. Not just because of quantum computing but due to the potential of hybrid approaches, borrowing lessons from a wide variety of fields, the idea of classical ones and zeros may indeed come to an end.

The Internet will change with all these developments. As a matter of fact the Internet as we know it may ultimately fade into the background, in much the same way as landline based telephones have. We all know about them but everyone uses cell phones. I haven't had a landline phone in years. The only vestige of that in my apartment is the "phone" which is used only to open the front door. It came with the building and doesn't cost me any money. Even though it has a phone number officially associated with it I would have to look it up.

Where we're headed for is a service which we will just ask a question to. It will do all the research and present us with the answer. Of course we can research if we want to but it is unlikely many will do that. Remember when everyone had to remember phone numbers?… Now no one does. Simply because they don't have to. You look up your friend's name in your phone and tap.

Who knows, the world-famous "Internet Archive" may turn into a museum of the past. If you've never used this resource, you should check it out. They continually scan the Internet and archive snapshots of websites as they currently are. The Internet archive calls this archiving service their Wayback Machine Even my very first website is in their collection. 

Just a thought I had today so I thought I'd write this quick post. What do you think let me know.

Patrick