By James Hanback Jr.

Not everyone travels to faraway lands, or even nearby states, expecting to leave his mark there. I dare say, most people become the tourist expecting the converse, whether they’re hoping for a significantly darker tan or a new appreciation for foreign culture or cuisine.

Still, there are those who leave something of themselves behind, purposely or unintentionally, as their own special reminder, or maybe so they’ll have an anecdote to spin to the relatives back home.

On a three-acre plot in Washington, D.C., pinned in the soil below the black granite wall of the Vietnam War Memorial, are just a few reminders of some of the visitors who have been there before—people who were so moved by the experience that they wanted to leave a portion of themselves behind.

There are no flowers, no wreaths, no metal trinkets or solider’s dogtags. What lies just below that accounting of the Vietnam dead are small plastic sheet protectors containing printouts of e-mail sent by some of the many who visited the wall. E-mail.

Perhaps it is fitting for this most modern of D.C. memorials. After the Vietnam War, the computer age forged forward, full steam ahead, through the arcade games of the late ’70s and the early ’80s, the personal computing age of the late 1980s and the early 1990s, and now the Internet/networking age of the mid- to late ’90s.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the presence of the familiar little e-mail headers as the Scene’s production manager and I stood before that inspiring monument to those who lost their lives as a result of a little-supported war. We were in D.C. for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies annual convention, but we took the daylight hours of Saturday to experience some of our country’s history.

It was a sight that might have seemed silly in any other place and under any other circumstances—two grown men kneeling in front of the roll call of the dead, too moved for words by the black-and-white printed voices of others who had gone before us, not to mention the sheer emotional power the monument itself wields, over even the semi-patriotic.

E-mail is known for bringing out words and feelings that might not otherwise surface. The anonymity—the reduction of the human being’s presence to printed words on a page—appeals to people. If you send e-mail, there’s no one there to call you silly for what you’ve said or done. There’s no one there to argue with you. E-mail appears to offer a greater freedom of speech for most people, and thank God it does. Viewing the memorial was a more emotional experience because of that.

Attacks on the Internet’s freedom continue unabated. There are those who would seek out ways to restrict the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, calling out, “Protect the children!” as they slice their way through the Constitution. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, two bills in Congressional committee right now endanger the freedom of the Netizen. Let’s hope our lawmakers will see the error of their ways after the 1996 Communications Decency Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last year.

At 9:40 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, June 16, “Elizabeth,” a mother of four, gave birth again while an audience of Netizens watched. The birth of Sean, Elizabeth’s latest, raised a controversy that rivals the Internet pornography debate, but Elizabeth considered it an educational experience for anyone who might have watched.

Citing unrealistic television births, the mother said she wanted to give people a clear picture of what childbirth is really like.

Freedom. Think childbirth is too private to be displayed on the Web? Then go to some other URL. It’s as simple as clicking on a hyperlink.

Freedom. Want to protect your children from the sites that may be harmful to them? Get software that blocks those sites from your Web browser. You can download it from loads of places.

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to explore my own love of freedom while in D.C., and I’m excited that the caretakers of a national monument have seen fit to include the Internet community in its remembrances of the victims and heroes of the Vietnam War.

It just goes to show you that, no matter how many wires we string across this land, no matter how many people spend the majority of their days in front of a computer screen, and no matter how many mundane daily tasks we automate to make our lives easier, we are all still human. And no matter the distances between us, we can rejoice and mourn together.

Information about e-mailing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., is available on the Web at http://www.vvmf.org. Information about the fight for Internet freedom is available at http://www.aclu.org.

Bytes

Click here for your diploma

A move by universities across the country to make their courses available over the Internet for degree-seeking students has met with protest from University of Washington professors, according to a report from http://www.cnn.com. last week.

According to that article, the academics believe downloading information from the Internet is no substitute for sitting in a desk during their lectures (and, perhaps, daydreaming about the keg party from the night before). I see no reason why educational software couldn’t serve the same purpose as trudging to classes every day. If nothing else, the Internet offers a future for interactive broadcasting, allowing students to watch lectures and even ask questions without actually being in the room.

These professors aren’t concerned that Internet-based education might result in inferior learning. They’re worried about having less green with which to line their wallets.

Hint to the professors: Develop an online presence for your course material. Just because a student isn’t sitting in your classroom doesn’t mean he shouldn’t pay for and benefit from your knowledge and teaching skills. If I were still a college student, I’d rather seek my degrees online. It would save me a million in time and gasoline.

Back to the future

Years ago, computers that could do little more than add two numbers were the size of a room. (You could even walk through them.)

Nowadays, thanks to microchip technology, computers are less massive and more powerful. But they still have their glitches.

Scientists at the University of California and Hewlett Packard claim to have developed the first “glitch-free” computer. They call it the Teramac. The refrigerator-sized, 400-pound machine contained more than 220,000 bugs in its hardware, but it kept right on working under conditions that would lock an ordinary Pentium-based computer.

According to reports, the Teramac in some cases outperformed by 100 times today’s high-end computers.

Unfortunately, the Teramac is too bulky and expensive to be anything but a scientific plaything for the moment. (But that’s pretty much what the room-sized computers used to be.)

Perhaps in 20 years, we’ll all have Teramacs. Until then, we’ll have to be satisified just to reboot.

Oh, yeah

For those who want to rush out and buy it right away, Windows ’98 is out this week. But I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a copy until Microsoft has released a few bug fixes. The bugs may not be highly publicized, but they’re in there.

On the plus side, Microsoft has made it easier to download and install bug fixes at the Windows ’98 Web site—http://www.microsoft.com/windows98.

Oh, yeah

For those who want to rush out and buy it right away, Windows ’98 is out this week. But I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a copy until Microsoft has released a few bug fixes. The bugs may not be highly publicized, but they’re in there.

On the plus side, Microsoft has made it easier to download and install bug fixes at the Windows ’98 Web site—http://www.microsoft.com/windows98.

James Hanback Jr. is systems administrator for the Scene. Call him at 244-7989, ext. 272, or e-mail him at james@nashscene.com.