A Feeling I've Been Here Before

04/30/03 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

p. I'm sure I could come up with some huge list of recent events and comments coming from the Space Access '03 conference but since I wasn't there I couldn't give you anything that Clark Lindsey hasn't already done on Hobby Space.

p. But what I can give you is my view on it all by telling you a little story. I've been going to the IETF since '92 which means I've seen the Internet change a hell of a lot over the past 12 years. The one thing that sticks in my mind is the Houston meeting (November '93). I was in the terminal room when the guys from UIUC came in and started to demo their new web browser (at the time this wasn't a big deal because gopher had a much higher adoption rate). The one thing that caught my eye was the fact that it had pictures. And then Tim Berners-Lee came into the room and proceeded to watch the demo (he didn't like the IMG tag very much). It was at that moment that I felt something. It wasn't buzz or hype or anything like that. It was just a quiet, but very rapid build up of human potential energy. I told myself to remember that feeling.

p. I got that same feeling hearing about the things that happened this past weekend. And I don't intend on missing out on it again.

p. Its to much of a coincedence that the same day the Space Access conference was going on was also the 10th Birthday for the Mosaic browser.