How did we ever survive without the internet?  I can’t imagine life without it.  The thin sliver of metal weighing 5.5 pounds that is my Macbook Pro performs all of the functions traditionally associated with a dictionary, encyclopedia, cookbook, radio, CD player, television, typewriter, and a host of other now-archaic devices.  It’s incredible how one machine paired with a single entity can render all of these gadgets obsolete in the blink of an eye.  Need to know what a word means?  Go to dictionary.com.  Click on the tab to the right to go to Thesaurus.com and find a synonym or an antonym.  Translate the word to Spanish, French, Italian, German, or Russian at wordreference.com.  Need some new music?  Go to modyfier-modifying open your ears to experience one of 190 specially-crafted process-driven tracks or mixes and open your mind to read about the ideas that fueled their creation.  Curious what your name means in urban-speak?   Go to the Urban Dictionary, key it in, and pick a definition.   Craving intellectual enlightenment?  TED.com has something to offer you.  Choose from a plethora of short video clips by topic, by some of the world’s leading experts on the subjects of technology, entertainment, business, design, science, culture, arts, or global issues.

It’s flabbergasting really to think what has become of the internet in the fifty or so years since its original incarnation.  And scary to think what we would do without it, if it were to suddenly disappear from our lives.  And amazing to ponder how life was even possible before the existence of the search function.