How Data flows through your computer
Much as Dr. Who in one of the new episodes felt, I feel too the way of the universe, or more specifically, the way of analog electricity, heat, digital bits, and data as it works its way from our fingers and mouseclicks to our monitors and then to our eyes, eers, and online journals.
I see how data constructed of mere 1's and 0's is combined in established and standardised patterns to form more complex scructures: objects, arrays, hashes, and numbers; and how it transfers through the brilliance of those who came before us and their amazing (sometimes) foresight and intuition to become higher and higher forms of computer expressions and then become usable information, like webpages, mp3's and avi's.
I see header and footer information encapsulate as I type on my keyboard, the data travels through my AT to PS2 adapter, through the system BUS, into the buffers where it is decoded and piped to RAM where it's gathered in a subroutine of firefox that asks Windows to display individual characters in a textbox (all of which is held in VOLATILE MEMORY!) until it runs out of its horizontal space (as determined by my desktop resolution and LiveJournal's website design), upon which it automatically invokes some long-forgotten but insanely vital piece of code that wraps my text to the next line down automatically. Gone are the days where text would either not display, or it would wrap by letter, not by word, or even type outside the text area. Gone are the days of small-limit string areas, or textbox names limited to four or even three characters. Gone are the days of filling your available RAM with a word processor document and having your operating system lock up because you overwrote its system memoryspace with a poorly programmed memory manager (if you even HAD a memory manager).
Oh, the wonders that we take for granted. We who click a mouse button and expect the world to be literally at our fingertips. The countless layers of nested data encapsulation, security, handshaking, and seemingly "wasted" space. There was a time not too long ago where one's hard drive would be swapped out and the file clustering on the new drive would prohibitively limit your file size (you would copy 20 small files from one hard drive to another and have less space on the new drive, even though it may have been considerably BIGGER).
Now, I see the way viruses work and the way organized crime and scammers go about attacking the weak and stupid and n00by, the unpracticed and the lazy. I see millions of hapless internet users being prayed upon through this wonderous Internet we share like so many cattle at the mercy of a swarm of hungry mosquitoes hungering for their blood. Whereas others see the fantasy of the Internet, I see the harsh realities of broken hardware, fiber optic lines severed, wireless connections stretched far beyond their abilities by narrow-minded technicians and average joes alike. I see bridged routing SPI firewall-enabled media converters with dyndns support and 802.11a/b/g capabilitywhere others see simply "modem" or "internet box." Few appreciate the wonders that a simple $30.00 router gives and the insane levels of protection available.
The power of Linux, Cisco, and the enslaved midnight backup work of millions of hard drives escapes most, but not I.
Hail to technology, and hail and well met to the work of the unseen who keep our world working behind the scenes.
...
Oh WOW! I just found out that I have red raspberries and huge bulbous blackberries! YAY! FROOT is my FRIEND (I thought I had scurvy, so I ate some starfruit yesterday, and now berries magically teleported their way into my fridge! YAY! YAY YAAAAY!
I see how data constructed of mere 1's and 0's is combined in established and standardised patterns to form more complex scructures: objects, arrays, hashes, and numbers; and how it transfers through the brilliance of those who came before us and their amazing (sometimes) foresight and intuition to become higher and higher forms of computer expressions and then become usable information, like webpages, mp3's and avi's.
I see header and footer information encapsulate as I type on my keyboard, the data travels through my AT to PS2 adapter, through the system BUS, into the buffers where it is decoded and piped to RAM where it's gathered in a subroutine of firefox that asks Windows to display individual characters in a textbox (all of which is held in VOLATILE MEMORY!) until it runs out of its horizontal space (as determined by my desktop resolution and LiveJournal's website design), upon which it automatically invokes some long-forgotten but insanely vital piece of code that wraps my text to the next line down automatically. Gone are the days where text would either not display, or it would wrap by letter, not by word, or even type outside the text area. Gone are the days of small-limit string areas, or textbox names limited to four or even three characters. Gone are the days of filling your available RAM with a word processor document and having your operating system lock up because you overwrote its system memoryspace with a poorly programmed memory manager (if you even HAD a memory manager).
Oh, the wonders that we take for granted. We who click a mouse button and expect the world to be literally at our fingertips. The countless layers of nested data encapsulation, security, handshaking, and seemingly "wasted" space. There was a time not too long ago where one's hard drive would be swapped out and the file clustering on the new drive would prohibitively limit your file size (you would copy 20 small files from one hard drive to another and have less space on the new drive, even though it may have been considerably BIGGER).
Now, I see the way viruses work and the way organized crime and scammers go about attacking the weak and stupid and n00by, the unpracticed and the lazy. I see millions of hapless internet users being prayed upon through this wonderous Internet we share like so many cattle at the mercy of a swarm of hungry mosquitoes hungering for their blood. Whereas others see the fantasy of the Internet, I see the harsh realities of broken hardware, fiber optic lines severed, wireless connections stretched far beyond their abilities by narrow-minded technicians and average joes alike. I see bridged routing SPI firewall-enabled media converters with dyndns support and 802.11a/b/g capabilitywhere others see simply "modem" or "internet box." Few appreciate the wonders that a simple $30.00 router gives and the insane levels of protection available.
The power of Linux, Cisco, and the enslaved midnight backup work of millions of hard drives escapes most, but not I.
Hail to technology, and hail and well met to the work of the unseen who keep our world working behind the scenes.
...
Oh WOW! I just found out that I have red raspberries and huge bulbous blackberries! YAY! FROOT is my FRIEND (I thought I had scurvy, so I ate some starfruit yesterday, and now berries magically teleported their way into my fridge! YAY! YAY YAAAAY!