Рубрика:
27
their own digital kingdom in the Internet confederation. A mere twenty years had
passed since the invention of the ARPANET, but few people remembered it now.
For it had become a happy victim of its own overwhelming success. Its users
scarcely noticed, for ARPANET'S functions not only continued but steadily improved.
The use of TCP/IP standards for computer networking is now global. In 1971, there
were only a handful of nodes in the ARPANET network. Today there are hundreds of
thousands of nodes, scattered over virtually every country in the world. Five hundred
million people use this gigantic mother of all computer networks.
The Internet's pace of growth in the early 1990s was spectacularly ferocious, at
some point achieving a monthly growth of 20%. The number of “host” machines with
direct connection to TCP/IP doubled every year from 1988 to 1997. The Internet
moved out of its original base in military and research institutions, into elementary
and high schools, as well as into public libraries and the commercial sector and, of
course, into millions of homes.
Why did so many people want to be on the Internet? One of the main reasons was
simply freedom. The Internet is a rare example of a truly, modern, functional anarchy.
There is no 'Internet Inc.' There are no official censors, no bosses, no board of
directors, no stockholders. This virtual freedom, many hold, was the major reason why
this form of communication attracted so many users so quickly.
And so the story goes. The real Internet of the future may bear very little
resemblance to today's, or even today's predictions. Predictions have never seemed to
have much to do with the seething, development of the Internet. After all, today's
Internet, bears little resemblance to those original grim plans for RAND's post-
holocaust command grid. It's a fine and happy irony.
Notes:
• amid - между, посреди, среди
• thicker – зуммер
• seethe - бурлить, кипеть
• grid - решётка, сетка; модулятор; энергетическая система
• scatter - разбрасывать, рассыпать, раскидывать; расшвыривать
• constellation – плеяда
• blistering - быстрый, скорый, стремительный
• victim – жертва
• overwhelming - огромный; несметный
• ferocious - дикий; жестокий, беспощадный, свирепый
• resemblance -похожесть, сходство, схожесть
• prediction - предсказание; прогноз; пророчество
Task 1. True or false? Find phrases in the text to support your point of view.
1) Internet was invented in the course of the Cold War.
2) The first network was created in the United States in collaboration with French and
Japanese intelligence agencies.
Страницы
- « первая
- ‹ предыдущая
- …
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- …
- следующая ›
- последняя »
