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Computer "Web" To Change Billions Of Lives (Yeah, Right) (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by Aschebescher

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[–]adaminc 418 points419 points ago

I'm going to say its fake, look who wrote it.

[–]JonnyRocks 135 points136 points ago

the sun is a tabloid newspaper. They put that on their webpage as a joke.

[–]Jaketh 118 points119 points ago

Sort of, http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/09/qa-tim-berners-lee

In fact, the fake front page was created by the Sun as part of an educational project with the Science Museum in London that imagined how great events in the history of science and technology might have been reported by the newspaper.

[–]anyletter 44 points45 points ago

You know, for as much as I don't like The Sun, I appreciate and respect their ability to laugh at themselves.

[–]DEADB33F 18 points19 points ago

They also have some genius headline writers.

[–]Raerth 43 points44 points ago

Scottish football club Caledonian Thistle beat regional giants Celtic in a match.

The headline?

Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious

[–]smpx 8 points9 points ago

That is spectacular. Why are they writing for the sun?

[–]NorthernerWuwu 9 points10 points ago

I think you have to be British to get The Sun.

It is horrible, slanted, unreliable and absolutely not worth reading. It is somehow also quite amusing though and there's something cathartic about shaking your head in disbelief over its flaws! Then shaking your head at yourself for supporting it financially! It is the sort of circus of the absurd that is quite enjoyed.

[–]BornOnFeb2nd 6 points7 points ago

the colonies have that..... I believe it's called Weekly World News

[–]LastImmortalMan 5 points6 points ago

Damn.

I always pronounced your horrible, slanted, unreliable and absolutely not worth reading misinformation delivery system just as 'The News'.

It's hard being Canadian. This is all so confusing.

[–]TheEllimist 2 points3 points ago

The Washington Post still holds the best headline of all time, though.

[–]gigitrix 4 points5 points ago

Oh man, that took me two reads but that is AWESOME

[–]Arx0s 5 points6 points ago

Wtf that's clever as fuck.

[–]1337and0 2 points3 points ago

Hmm I don't get it... Do you have to be from Europe to get it?

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]1337and0 1 point2 points ago

Oh, duh doy

[–]psylent 5 points6 points ago

As much as the content of their papers are trash, you're absolutely right - the headlines border on genius at times.

[–]hhmmmm 3 points4 points ago

the content is trash but is very well designed and specific trash. To write for a tabloid, to the get the tone and so on right is genuinely a massive skill. It's in incredibly hard job to get nowadays often filled mostly by the best and the brightest in journalism (whether this is a good thing or not is very much open to debate).

[–]psylent 2 points3 points ago

Agreed, it is a massive skill to write the way they do. It's a shame that it's wasted on the Sun and their ilk.

[–]Mr_Smartypants 1 point2 points ago

GOTCHA

[–]MrPoletski 0 points1 point ago

yeah I think they are redditors, you know, the ones that extend pun threads way beyond the point of being any pun any more.

[–]ChoppingOnionsForYou 4 points5 points ago

Two things going for the Sun. Not only can they laugh at themselves, but they've also got tits! They do still have tits, don't they?

[–]sfacets 2 points3 points ago

All of their stories are jokes.

[–]sayleanenlarge 10 points11 points ago

Poo. It's time for me to realise that the internet lies. I'm so gullible this story even gave me goosepimples!

[–]MrPoletski 3 points4 points ago

The internet lies? LIES!

[–]ObeseSnake 4 points5 points ago

Kim

[–]Jamescolingrant 0 points1 point ago

Is it bad that I thought of 30 Rock before .com?

[–]soggit -1 points0 points ago

Obviously....everyone knows Al Gore invented the internet.

[–]dmkerr 27 points28 points ago

I'll just leave these here: Snopes on the claim and a letter from Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf - architects of some of the underlying Internet technologies.

[–]phreakymonkey 5 points6 points ago

Thank you. This is one of the more obnoxious distortions that refuses to die, even in liberal circles. So few people take the time to actually look at the real quote.

[–]Neker 6 points7 points ago

The letter deserves more exposure. Seeing it having only 2 upvotes after two hours makes me sorry for Reddit. Why not repost it as a post of its own ?

By the way, do you happen to know more about the context ? A date to begin with, and where and to what intent it was first published ?

[–]DoctorVainglorious 4 points5 points ago

Ha ha ha ha ha!! what a timely joke! Next tell a Monica Lewinsky one. Those NEVER get old!

[–]soggit 35 points36 points ago

Okay what do Monica Lewinsky and your comments have in common? They both suck dick.

[–]plasteredmaster 0 points1 point ago

have a cigar

[–]Prcrstntr 0 points1 point ago

It's half true though, there's only two people on the internet. Me and you.

[–]ThatDeadDude 0 points1 point ago

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/hold_ye_front_page/science/

[–]ChickenGrylls -1 points0 points ago

I came here to say this too.

[–]tactlesswonder 30 points31 points ago

The by Dot Comme was too much.

[–]vicoesco 83 points84 points ago

It was a lame joke by the lame newspaper, the Sun http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4522966/Twits-are-fooled-by-our-jokey-Net-page.html

[–]alphanovember 8 points9 points ago

That URL...

[–]davesidious 48 points49 points ago

faaaaaaaake

[–]Antebios 4 points5 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKcJF4fOPs

[–]davesidious -1 points0 points ago

I get it, I get it! Enough already! :)

[–]Maybewehitamoose 7 points8 points ago

Yup. Everyone knows it was Al Gore that invented the internet.

He has ridden the mighty moon worm!

[–]JonnyRocks 23 points24 points ago

internet != www. I know the picture is a joke and i know the comments are a joke but people still use the term interchangeably. Even in a joke.

[–]Froynlaven 4 points5 points ago

I know the fact that that's blue was a mistake. I still clicked it anyway.

[–]davesidious 15 points16 points ago

He actually helped massively getting the funding to turn the ARPAnet into what we now call the internet, so without Gore, we wouldn't have the internet as we know it.

[–]Brimlomatic -2 points-1 points ago

At the same time, though, securing funding for the people developing the internet is different from developing the internet. It's important, and I'm glad he did it, but it's not the same.

[–]phreakymonkey 5 points6 points ago

Which is why he never actually claimed that he developed the internet.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[–]Neker 2 points3 points ago

More on this

[–]rooktakesqueen -1 points0 points ago

It's real!

[–]davesidious -1 points0 points ago

Thanks for the video ;) Awesome stuff :)

[–]_lone_ranger_ -1 points0 points ago

I want that 3 minutes of my life back.

[–]Doublestack2376 6 points7 points ago

TIL about the C5

[–]directive0 4 points5 points ago

Do yourself a favor; watch BBC's Micromen.

That movie really taught me a lot about the PC revolution in Britain and consequently about the hilarious failure (arguable) that was the C5.

[–]hhmmmm 1 point2 points ago

the bbc micros were still being used into I guess the early 2000s in some schools. Genuinely revolutionary pieces of kit. First computer I used, I just wish I had known more about them and had teachers that could have properly taught me to use them and to start coding.

[–]fikirte 2 points3 points ago

By the man that made the ZX Spectrum, no less.

[–]AchMeinGott 2 points3 points ago

Ah, the Segway of the 80s.

[–]ChickenGrylls 0 points1 point ago

If someone had a C5 to give away I'd take it.

[–]MerelyIndifferent 1 point2 points ago

With a top speed of only 15mph it'd be faster to just ride a bike.

[–]mattsgotredhair 1 point2 points ago

my favorite part of the article:

A court case involving a drunk driver of a C5 ruled that the vehicle was a tricycle (not a car).

zing!

[–]Hachya 6 points7 points ago

"By Dot Comme"

Fake.

[–]aeck 3 points4 points ago

'erlock.

[–]Hachya 3 points4 points ago

Come on now:

'erlock 2

I run Mac OS 9... 'erry day.

[–]markeh 15 points16 points ago

Fuck the sun. Shit newspaper, no morals and needs tits to sell itself to morons.

[–]God_of_gaps 8 points9 points ago

You don't have to be a moron to appreciate tits.

[–]markeh 3 points4 points ago

Course not, I bet einstein loved a good pair as much as anyone.

[–]misterjta 2 points3 points ago

Hell yeah he did!

Any man who can drive safely whilst kissing a pretty girl is not giving the kiss the attention it deserves

--Albert Einstein.

Source: Civ V.

[–]LuxNocte 1 point2 points ago

I wonder what he'd think about road head.

[–]hhmmmm 1 point2 points ago

Are from Liverpool by any chance?

[–]Jake_91_420 6 points7 points ago

This is not real, it's a purposeful joke.

[–]Ontopourmama 4 points5 points ago

You know what would make this better? A date on the article.

[–]My-Work-Reddit 1 point2 points ago

"The Internet System" ... woah. Will that run on my 386?

[–]AliasUndercover 1 point2 points ago

It would have.

[–]not_a_temp_account 1 point2 points ago

My favorite part is that the screenshot was done with a camera.

[–]LeTouche 0 points1 point ago

he lives across the street from me!

[–]kfury 2 points3 points ago

"Riddle of 'E' mail -- See page 8"

[–]hydrazi 2 points3 points ago

reminds me of an episode of News Radio....

[–]IgnatiousReilly 2 points3 points ago

They said the same thing about the ability to take screenshots.

[–]goofball_jones 2 points3 points ago

When I started on the Internet...a little ways before it turned "commercial", the main parts of it were Usenet, IRC, ftp and email. There were a few other things that you could do like telnet into a soda machine at some campus (I forget which one), or log into various computers. Oh and there was also Gopher.

I remember when the World Wide Web was starting and I posted in various newsgroups on how this would NEVER take off, as I didn't see any use for it.

Hey, I never said i was a visionary....

[–]hello_hawk 0 points1 point ago

I want a Telnet soda machine.

[–]flyprdu 4 points5 points ago

Fake. They didn't call it the "Information Superhighway."

[–]fikirte 2 points3 points ago

Thats the "Sun" for you, the most popular paper in Britain.

It is the definition of lowest common denominator.

A Murdoch paper.

[–]fikirte -4 points-3 points ago

Looks like I've offended a Sun reader.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

Pretty sure you mis-read that, bub.

[–]fikirte -1 points0 points ago

Somebody had voted my comment down.

I was wondering who might have.

All good now

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

AHhh hahaha I didn't realize you had responded to yourself.

[–]AliasUndercover 2 points3 points ago

It's a fad.

[–]juma606 0 points1 point ago

Faker than $3 billfold in a store that only sells men's accessories at or above the price of $10.

[–]yuuray 1 point2 points ago

So when was this written?

[–]gooneruk 11 points12 points ago

It's from a spoof edition of The Sun newspaper in the UK. It's pretty recent, but is supposed to be a copy that was printed in something like 1990.

[–]AbsurdWebLingo 14 points15 points ago

The author's name gives it away pretty quickly, "Dot Comme".

[–]jutct 1 point2 points ago

Especially seeing as the .com domain didn't exist when the original web (and lynx browser) existed.

[–]petercooper 2 points3 points ago

Do a whois on symbolics.com and be surprised! "Creation Date: 15-mar-1985"

[–]jutct 1 point2 points ago

Well it may have existed, but it wasn't in use. There weren't any commercial business on the internet until the 90s sometime. I think that was the joke about Al Gore. I think he spearheaded commercializing the net.

[–]petercooper 5 points6 points ago

Well it may have existed, but it wasn't in use.

Businesses didn't register domains in the 80s as a joke :-) The Internet was thriving and truly "in use" throughout the 80s, including the use of TLDs like com, net, org, etc. You can dig up hundreds of thousands of conversations from Usenet using Google's archives, like https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/news.misc/oh4zIjUeOmg

In terms of the heavy, commercialized mass market usage we have now? Sure. But "in use" by companies? Totally.

</old person signing off!>

[–]jutct -2 points-1 points ago

I don't want to be a dick about it, but I'm an old guy too. You may be confusing the 90s with the 80s. I was using the "web" when it consisted of a couple hundred pages. This was in the early 90s. The first commercial website was created in 1993. Here's some info:

http://oreilly.com/gnn/

[–]da__ 2 points3 points ago

Once again, web != the internet. .coms existed in the 80s, there just weren't any web pages back then.

[–]jutct -1 points0 points ago

I was talking about the web. Not the internet. Email didn't cause the internet to explode. Neither did usenet or gopher. The web did. Let's stop talking about those things guys. You all know I mean the web. The rest is irrelevant.

[–]stronimo 1 point2 points ago

That's the first commercial website not the first use of the COM top-level domain. They were using it for email, Usenet and stuff before that.

[–]jutct 1 point2 points ago

Ahh ok. I was talking about the web, not the internet in general.

[–]steinman17 1 point2 points ago

This reminds me somewhat of the Decca Audition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles'_Decca_audition

[–]cr0ft 1 point2 points ago

I hear it's going to be like a series of tubes that can be filled.

[–]Enigma776 1 point2 points ago

Meanwhile one month ago

[–]CognitiveJots 1 point2 points ago

the writer is Dot Comme XD

[–]skcin7 0 points1 point ago

Sounds like a pretty good idea but it'll never catch on.

[–]aedgar777 0 points1 point ago

Similar editorial, but less fake.

[–]orbital_strike 0 points1 point ago

Couldn't help but have a giggle at this, regardless of the fact that it's more fake than my grandpa's teeth.

Still, "comedy" though it may be, the attitude rings true to a degree. After all, in 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM, was quoted as saying "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Even though this is fake, there were probably plenty of people who felt that way at the time.

[–]Tigeroovy -1 points0 points ago

Lol, the past.

[–]Oblahee -1 points0 points ago

Information Super-Highway !

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]petercooper 10 points11 points ago

Except that this isn't a real front page. It was a mocked up, humorous front page that The Sun amongst many others in a celebration anniversary issue. Notice it was written by "Dot Comme" too.

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