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Living in the past

To celebrate its tenth birthday, Google is offering the opportunity to search its earliest archived index (which is from 2001, not 1998), together with links to pages on the Internet Archive. Obvious but worth-noting points; Wikipedia wasn’t in the topslot for pretty much every search, and the ratio of academic to media and corporate sites was a lot higher. So for example searching “climate” back then gave a first page on which the US government and academia was very highly represented, and the word change wasn’t. Today “change” is everywhere, and so are media organisations and ngos. Though not necessarily part of a trend, also interesting to note that back then Michael Phelps was a distinguished scientist.

Sites in academia weren’t just topping the listings in science: searching “living in the past” used to send you to a site on a server at Rutgers university, apparently in the computer labs, which, like most of the first page of results, took the phrase as a reference to Jethro Tull (a popular beat combo). Now it sends you to Wikipedia and Amazon and a place you can buy a ringtone (though the Rutgers site is still there) and to a number of sites that have nothing at all to do with Jethro Tull at all, which may represent the net de-geeking of the medium. But today you do get YouTube

Also: then only 4.5 million results for porn; 200 million today. Such is progress.

More discussion at Crooked Timber.

Meanwhile, Beloit College has produced its latest mindset list — a rundown for professors of the world as it is seen by this year’s eighteen year olds, and another mildly thought-provoking insight into recent change. Excerpts below the fold:

Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.

GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.

Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.

All have had a relative–or known about a friend’s relative–who died comfortably at home with Hospice.

The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.

McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.

Personal privacy has always been threatened.

Caller ID has always been available on phones.

Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.

Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.

The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.

98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.

Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.

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