week 6

in todays lecture we had a real quick rundown on a few topics, the history of the internet, and vitual reality and the screen age. now i already knew that it all began with ARPANET. and i knew the basics with ports, firewalls, etc... but funny enough, that little cartoon really helped piece it together, and it did it so simply.

the part which really caught my attention though was the virtual reality. the whole where do we draw the line between 'virtual' and 'reality' for now, true enough, there are no senses of touch or smell within a virtual world, but who's to say in the near future that won't be the case? true enough, interest in the public eye has seen virtual reality decline over the last few years, but i've no doubt that soon enough, it will rise again, it can have so many applications, military training, in fact....any training at all. i mean flight simulator is already a standerd for pilot training. there could be recreational uses also, what if you wanted to see what it was like to be on a beach in the bahamas, without having the time to fly there and take a holiday? virtual reality could give the user a quick escape. the main issue which surrounds this is that users may get addicted to their 'virtual' world, and not be quite so productive in the real world. though if we could figure out a way to take it in moderation, i think it would be great.

who knows, maybe in many years to come, we may be living in a world where being 'plugged in' like in the matrix, may be a completely normal thing to do lol