Internet Versus World Wide Web

Twenty-five years ago (23 August 1991), the World Wide Web first went public when Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN, granted the general public access to the web for the first time.  Despite confusions about this, it was not the start of the Internet.

What Tim did allowed less technical computer users to get on the Internet in a simple way. Some people call August 23 Internaut Day ('internaut' being a portmanteau of 'internet' and 'astronaut' – an early reference to technically able internet users).

Many people think the internet and the World Wide Web are the same thing – but they are different systems.

The Internet is a network of computers that are connected.

The World Wide Web refers to the web pages found on this network of computers. Your web browser uses the Internet in order to access the web.

Some chronology:

• 12 March 1989, Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for a "distributed hypertext system" that would allow scientists at CERN, the renowned particle physics laboratory in Switzerland, to share data from experiments across networks.  He was using a NeXT computer, which was one of Steve Jobs' early products.
• October 1990, Berners-Lee began working on the world's first web browser, called WorldWideWeb – but it was later renamed Nexus so not to cause confusion between the WorldWideWeb (the software) and the World Wide Web (the information space).
• August 1991, the first website went online: http://info.cern.ch (check it out - they have preserved some cool things there)
• April 1993, World Wide Web technology was made available to all for free. "CERN relinquishes all intellectual property rights to this code, both source and binary and permission is given to anyone to use, duplicate, modify and distribute it," a statement read.

Tim Berners-Lee is now the director of the World Wide Web Consortium, which works to develop the Web. It is abbreviated WWW or W3C.

Washington DC baseball teams

Current Washington Nationals home jersey

The first professional teams appeared in Washington D.C. (District of Columbia) in 1870. There was a team called the "Olympics" and another called the "Nationals". Other teams were known as the "Nationals" and other names that played off the city being the "Capital City," such as the "Statesmen" and "Senators." Those names have bounced back and forth in and out of D.C. over the years.

By the late 1800s, "Senators" was commonly used in the media as the name for the National League team and that name carried over to the new American League entry in 1901.

When new owners took over in 1905, they solicited fans and writers for a new nickname and they decided to bounce back to using "Nationals" which was what the shirts said in 1905 and 1906.

But their name was somewhat ambiguous and since writers frequently referred to individual major league teams as being  "Americans" or "Nationals" (in reference to their league affiliation), you can find the Washington Nationals of the American League a confusing name and print references to the team as "Senators," "Nationals" (or even the "Nats") interchangeably.

According to Wikipedia, the 1933 programs for the games played in New York City advertised "Giants vs. Senators", while programs for the games played in Washington included a photo of Washington manager Joe Cronin with the caption "Nationals' Manager."

"Nationals" or "Nats" was still used on baseball cards issued by Topps as late as 1956, that name was falling out of fashion. (The popular 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees referred to the club as the "Senators.")

The Senators faced the heavily-favored New York Giants in the 1924 World Series and came away with the only World Series triumph for the franchise during their 60-year tenure in Washington.

t-shirt with the old Washington Senators logo via amazon.com

After the 1956 season, owner Calvin Griffith decided to officially change the name to Senators, but it wasn't until 1959 that the word "Senators" finally appeared on their shirts.

Frank Howard, Washington Senators 1970 Topps card via amazon.com 

The Washington Senators was also the name of an NFL American football team that played from 1921 to 1922.

In the confusing world of team expansions and moves from city to city, in 1961, the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Minnesota Twins.

After the 1971 season, the new Senators moved to Arlington, Texas, and debuted as the Texas Rangers the following spring.

The current Washington Nationals team (now in the National League) was a transplanted team from Montreal in 2005, where they had been known as the Expos. The old Nationals name and "classic" headline abbreviation "Nats" was also revived. Actually, there was no possibility of using the old "Washington Senators" trademark as that is still owned by the Texas Rangers organization.

cutting, leading and bleeding edges

Companies all want to be at the edge. The university I teach at, NJIT, has as it's tagline "At the edge of knowledge." I always thought it was an odd line because being at the edge seems to be not quite there. Of course, it is playing off the terms leading edge, bleeding edge and cutting edge. Are they all the same edge?

plow via wikipedia.org

The cutting edge (also cutting-edge when used as an adjective) had a quite literal meaning back in the early 1800s of being the edge of a blade, especially in reference to plows. The more modern and figurative use appeared in the mid-1800s. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines it as “A dynamic, invigorating, or incisive factor or quality, especially one that delivers a decisive advantage. Hence: the latest or most advanced stage in the development of something; the forefront, especially of a movement.” I suppose the idea is of a blade making a clean cut through what we know (norms, expectations, barriers) to new ground.

“Leading edge” (noun or also adjective) appeared in the 19th century. Again, it had a literal meaning similar to that knie or plow edge with it being the forward edge of the blade of a screw propeller that you would find on a ship. That would be the part that cuts through the water. It also referred to the edge of an airfoil on an airplane wing that faces the direction of motion.

Usages such as being on the "leading edge of technology" became common. I also found it to mean during WWII the “upswing” of an electrical pulse.

Appearing more recently (the 1980s) was the term “bleeding edge.” It seems to be just another version of the two previous terms which are often used interchangeably, combining the knife cutting image (bleeding) with the other figurative uses. However, it seems to be distinguished in its usage by the idea that something on the "bleeding edge" is very advanced but still quite experimental. It may be a technology that has no current practical application. That is something that can be risky. The word “bleeding” is sometimes used in reference to a financial loss. I would say that the bleeding edge is something that is beyond, perhaps not in a positive sense, the cutting edge.

pog

My sons were kids in the 1990s and one of them became obsessed with a fad game of the time call pog.  By osmosis, I learned about things like slammers and helped him both buy, make and organize his collection in tubes. The fad bled over to include characters from Pokemon and sports card collecting. A comic book shop in our town even ran tournaments for a time where you competed against other kids.

The game was also known as "milk caps" but the brand name "Pog" was more popular and that capitalized version is owned by the World Pog Federation.

In that odd way that origins sometimes go, the p-o-g of the term comes from a brand of juice made in Hawaii by Meadow Gold from passionfruit, orange, and guava. In its earliest incarnation, players used Pog juice and also milk bottle caps to play the game. This early, pre-commercializtion of the game seems to have originated in Hawaii in the 1920s or 1930s.

The current Pog juice product via products.lanimoo.com

The origin of the game has also been associated with Menko, a Japanese card game that goes back to  the 17th century and that used circular disk cards in a similar way to compete.

Menko cards

The use of the caps as a game and collectible in 1990s was popularized by the creation of the World POG Federation and the production of the game by Canada Games Company using the Pog brand name in the 1990s.

The Pog fad grew quickly and peaked quickly in the mid-1990s. I don't know that it is still played very much, but the game is still available for purchase and I found an active collection of links to new pogs and accessories online in places like Amazon.com and eBay.

I also see that more modern characters, like Angry Birds pogs, have appeared, so there may be some life still in the game - and maybe some resale value in my son's collection. Now, if those Beanie Babies that he also collected would only have a resurgence in value...

My son's version of the game

I found that besides the game and drink the word is also associated with the POG FC football (soccer) team, Port-Gentil Football Club, which is a Gabonese club based in Port-Gentil, Gabon.

INXS

INXS, pronounced as "in excess," started out as an Australian rock band, The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney. The main players were composer and keyboardist Andrew Farriss, drummer Jon Farriss, guitarists Tim Farriss and Kirk Pengilly, bassist Garry Gary Beers and main lyricist and vocalist Michael Hutchence.

Playing gigs with local bands like Midnight Oil, the suggestion was made to have an edgier name.

The INXS name was inspired by bands such as the English band XTC and Australian jam band IXL used a kind of acronym/abbreviation.

IXL ran ads with a man saying "I excel in all I do," and XTC stood for ecstasy.

INXS was fronted by Hutchence for about 20 years and their debut self-titled album charted in 1980.

On November 11, 2012, during their performance as support act to Matchbox Twenty at Perth Arena, Australia, INXS announced that the performance would be their last, though they did not officially announce a permanent band retirement.

Official band site www.inxs.com
INXS on Wikipedia