Datacenter Confidential #4
Recently, when hanging out with a couple of old friends in my apartment, I raised the specter of the "geeklab rule." The originator of the rule, we'll unkindly refer to him as "NRH", was someone I met on the "Internet Relay Chat" network in 1992. At this time in the narrative I need to make a few things clear. First of all, in 1992 there was an "internet" but there was no such thing as the web. I can't emphasize that point enough, because in 2007 the internet is synonymous with "the web" as we know it today. Explaining the internet without the web to the average person is like trying to explain to a blind person what colors smell like. It can't be done. But there was an internet before browsers. And it was a world of text, by and large. The "Geeklab Rule" came into being probably in 1993 or 1994. The rule was very simple: "given a group of people in the same room or building, if there is a terminal available, ...