Internet....You Don't Know What You Are.

Actually, I think it's still coming.... I think that an internet connection is well on its way to becoming as standard as a phone line....

Richard, I agree that the internet probably hasn't yet revolutionized the world of the average "Joe" or "Jill" yet....

Though there certainly are pockets of the population where things have changed significantly....

The first example I thought of came from the world of physics research....

In the past in physics research (and practically all university-based research), to get your work publically known, you would publish it in a journal and present it at conferences.

That hasn't really changed, except now there is a useful step before that, which is a "pre-print" server.... For your writings before they have gone to publication.

It was the brain-child of a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and you can see what I mean at http://xxx.lanl.gov . (Most of these are technical papers, but it's so you can see what I mean by a pre-print server.)

At this web site you can see all the latest physics and mathematics research developments, *before* they reach print.... You can view these research papers in various formats, including PDF....

This has meant that often now the *first* place a piece of research work appears is no longer in a journal, but on the above web site, sometimes over a year before it appears in print.

Some think that a service like this will eventually completely overtake the standard technical print journals for university research. (I personally doubt it, but some do think this.)

I guess there are other places where things have been "revolutionized" too.... I can think of the various stores who put their "unusual" wares on Ebay, and have been making a nice extra profit....

The various online bookstores are great for looking for those hard-to-get books, and also the second-hand bookstore searches like www.abe.com and www.bibliofind.com are also great for finding copies of out-of-print books....

It also seems to depend where you are. Only a few months ago I was in Boston, and it seems that there practically every store and restaurant has its URL blazed across the window. That hasn't happened here in Oz yet, but I'm sure we're going to be heading that way.... Where every store front window has a URL, and everyone's business card has one too....

Thanks for bringing up an interesting topic.... :)

Dien Rice