So, @linux_fangirl posted a poem a few weeks ago, and I’ve been working on one since. Feature request for the forum - can we make the default closure for threads 60 days, or maybe 30? I appreciate wanting to avoid necroposts, but some threads simply take longer =).
Anyway, here’s what I came up with…
It was not very long ago
That it was plain to see
Technology improved one’s life
And too, society
From calling EMTs for help
To electronic mail
Who would prefer the olden ways
Of systems lacking scale?
At first such things as IRC
Enabled human connection
“A/S/L”, ubiquitous
The answers, frequently, deception
Usenet had discussions aplenty
On every topic around
Yet spam, bots, trolls, and wars of flames
Were noise amongst the sound
Despite these clear and real concerns
of Usenet, IRC
People used their pseudonyms
To protect identity
Elsewhere on the internet
More problems did emerge
A Search for information
Caused more junk to converge
SEO and pop-ups
Were trash within the media
One sifted through the dreck and sledge
To read the Encyclopedia
The software side of things
Were causes of confusion
It was not hard for viruses
To bring in an intrusion
Ideas and new connections
Were goals, lest we forget
Most wanted not computers
Nor a technical mindset
There were a lot of brilliant folks
Who set about to solve
The drawbacks of the internet
And cause it to evolve
A modem dial sound
Can help one guess your age
It did not take too long at all
For broadband to upstage
Then search and mail reduced their spam
And Usenet did resign
To forum posts and Myspace links
It withered on the vine
Although there were some mobile phones
Which had the internet
They did not have the mass appeal
That Apple did soon get
And data was soon in our hands
Any time, and anywhere
Unplugging from the internet
We no longer thought to dare
A virus was near impossible
To look for or to get
Because the cost of “virus free”
Was freedom deemed a threat
A whole new group was opened
To the possibilities
Of ideas and new connections
Credentials, if you please
Behind the curtain, databases
Swelled with rows and rows
Of data being written, but
No control of whence it goes
For mining, selling, trading, stealing
This data did expand
No more could users trust their phones
Once data left their hand
Buried deep in legalese
With no trust to be had
One-way written Terms of Use
Mandated, mostly bad
And software got more hostile
Towards users who depend
On companies incentivized
To en----ify their end
The ads and spam have since returned
They’re now “notifications”
The software choices, littered with
These much worse applications
So where do we now go from here?
Can we somehow get back
Control of our environments,
And data, must we hack?
Perhaps some day, a renaissance
The pendulum can swing
Where normal folks do not depend
On Google, and on Bing
For now, we must be vigilant
Of where our data goes
Our choices are not myriad
As this forum surely knows
But for now, there’s /e/OS
and its useful middle ground
‘Twixt some ROMs’ hardcore privacy
And Google’s runaround