MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE DIGITAL WORLD

MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE DIGITAL WORLD

I was quite reluctant to start a blog. But there’s no other way to find readers. I realize that if the inventor of the printing press himself launches a blog, then by that very act I’m joining the choir of those who preach the impending death of dead wood publications. It was my wife (the mother of the printing press) who convinced me that it was time to enter the digital world.

--Guty, she said, someone needs to reinvent the printing press. And no one better than you to do it.

As soon as I sat down in front of the computer, I realized that I had a huge challenge ahead. Since the way I made history was by publishing -- for the first time ever -- a bible, I thought about recreating the Holy Book digitally. My wife suggested that before getting myself involved in such a undertaking, I should check Google to see if there weren’t other versions already online.

-- Google?

-- Yeah, it’s a search engine.

-- Uh-huh. OK.

Seeing that I was still a bit befuddled, she put it in simpler terms.

--Guty, Google is a sort of oracle capable of answering any question you can come up with. For example, what was Bayern de Munique’s 1972 starting line-up? Where can I find brackets for high-tension wires? Who hooked up with Brittany Spears last week? And when Google can’t find the answer, it’s a sure sign that you didn’t ask the right question.

So I went to the oracle and asked: “Dear Oracle, what’s out there about the bible?” The response was definitive: 21,400,000 items related to the term, the first few pages of results filled with online bibles. To add insult to injury, my wife showed me the Kindle, an electronic device that allows you to read thousands of books on its screen.

--Guty, why don’t you start a blog? Now that you won’t be producing any more books, produce your own thoughts on life. If it gets a lot of hits, you might even make some money.

My wife’s suggestion gave me another idea.

I went back to the oracle and asked it how I could make money on the internet. This time, the result was much more encouraging: 97,600 results. I still didn’t understand why, with such a wealth of information available, more internet users hadn’t become rich, but that’s another story. I liked one link that promised me I could make money without leaving the comfort of my home. I clicked on it and they asked for a credit card number to send me their book and give me online access to all the tricks that would turn me into a digital magnate. While I was filling out the form with my info, I was interrupted by a pop-up announcement (that invited me to gamble in a casino) and by a banner ad (that introduced me to various women who all wanted to meet me). I resisted all such temptations, except for one: a device that promised to augment my “competitive advantage.” But that’s another matter, of, shall we say, miniscule importance.

And that’s how I started wandering from link to link. After 15 minutes, I couldn’t even remember where I had started my search, or what I was searching for. I was getting upset. It seemed that I was always on the wrong site, that much cooler sites were at other addresses. That’s how I learned not to read the entire text on every screen. I skipped over words, ignored phrases -- nothing held my attention. Exhausted, I went to my wife and asked “I need a newspaper. Or a magazine. It can even be a really old one.”