Mike Wesch's Bookmarks

In the Hebrew Genesis the millesimal
expression, which is employed in that of the Persians,
is not used; but the Genesis of the ancient Tuscans, conceived
for the remainder in the same terms, as that of the Hebrews,
has preserved this allegorical denomination of the divisions of
time, during which the all-powerful action of the Sun, the
soul of Nature is exercised. Its expressions on this point, are
as follows:

“The God architect of the Universe has employed and consecrated
twelve thousand years to the works, which he has
produced, and he has divided them into twelve times, distributed
in the twelve signs, or houses of the Sun.

“At the first thousand, he made Heaven and Earth.

“At the second, the Firmament, which he called Heaven.

“At the third, he made the Sea and the waters which flow
upon the Earth (dans la terre).

“At the fourth, he made the two great flambeaux of Nature.

“At the fifth, he made the spirit (âme) of the birds, of the
reptiles, of the animals, which live in the air, on land and
in the waters.

“At the sixth thousand, he made man.”

On the freewheeling Internet, anyone can be a publisher, noted Howard Rheingold,
author of several seminal books on new media and founder of the influential WELL
on-line network. Those demonstrating the most innovative new-media products at
Connections were not newspaper publishers--they were cable companies, advertisers
developing their own content, and entepreneurs like Todd Chronis, president and
publisher of WalkSoft, an interactive newspaper culled from wire services.

Yet the future is far from bleak. "The Internet will be the CB radio of the
'90s," said Stephen Weiswasser, president of Capital Cities/ABC Inc.'s multimedia
group. "You're not going to change passive [readers] into active trollers of the
Internet....We're going to have to go to the folks who have traditional views of
mass media."