Jason and the Internet (Part 1)
Jason since childhood did not like geeks. He felt contempt for them, mixed with disgust; however, like any other, he poorly understood them, sometimes considering the geeks of those who had nothing to do with them, and sometimes violently defending those whom he treated with sympathy. Jason remembered those times with a smile, and even liked to talk about how he didn’t want to hear that one of his favorite groups, Radiohead, distributed music over the Internet. Through the Internet! Oh god In this place, everyone used to start laughing, but Jason continued - “Well, all sorts of indie teams that were on the Internet in thousands of thousands. But Radiohead! No, I refuse to believe it! ”
***
And now, on a dank autumn evening, twenty-year-old Jason walked, wrapped in a coat, checking the crumpled piece of paper with an address, and thought to himself: “I am a geek. And I go to the Internet. " The thought gave him some kind of inexplicable pleasure, especially at the sight of people around. “They are going, and do not even suspect that this decent-looking young man was on the Internet the day before yesterday,” Jason thought to himself, “was the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and I will be today.” From these thoughts, Jason even laughed and caught the surprised looks of passersby. He suppressed laughter and stopped at the entrance of a ten-story building. Judging by the paper, he was there. Walking up to the fourth floor, he knocked on the door. Footsteps were heard, then they fell silent. You could hear the music playing outside the door, Jason felt his eye being carefully examined through the peephole.
')
“This is Jason,” Jason said loudly.
The door opened and Jason saw the provider. He looked as if he had come down from a photo from an illustrated article about the times of the information revolution - a penguin T-shirt, shorts, from the pocket of which the headphone wire was coming out, on the wrist of a hard-to-identify gadget. Jason was a stranger to a similar style of clothes, he was not very attracted to the external attributes of geeks. All he needed was information.
“I'm from Phil,” Jason clarified.
- I understood, - the provider grinned in reply, and, having passed Jason into the hallway, he introduced himself, - Ayfrank.
Phil was Jason's previous provider. Phil tied up, but he gave Jason this address.
- Will you go? - asked iffrank. From the room I heard a woman’s laughter, a man’s voice telling something enthusiastically, and clicking with a mouse. Jason shook his head and handed the flash drive to Ayfrank.
“Sorry, username, I have business,” he said and smiled guiltily.
“I understand,” he said, and laughed. Picking up a flash drive with two fingers, he retired down the corridor. Jason looked around, trying to see the wires that Ifrank had connected to the Internet. Naturally, he did not notice anything. Then a girl looked out of the room, and, smiling, looked at Jason.
- Where-ee eo-oh-oh naga-a-an, I - setema-a-an! - she mockingly sang a line from a famous song, looking at Jason, - who are you, username?
“I'm Jason,” said Jason.
“Are you on the board, Jason?” She asked.
“Yes,” he replied, a little embarrassed.
Then Ithrank pulled out of the corridor, carrying Jason's transcend. He looked sternly at the girl and handed the flash drive. The girl showed Ayfrenku language.
“500,” he said dryly. Jason counted out the money.
“Thank you,” he said.
- There was a PM Just Eve, Jason, - smiling, said the girl.
“Bye, username,” said Ifrank. The door slammed shut.
***
The screen displayed the unpacking process. “The time until the end of the process is 16 minutes,” Jason read out loud and went to the kitchen for tea. While he was whistling waiting for the kettle, Mom came into the kitchen and leaned on the doorjamb, looking attentively at Jason.
- What? - asked, smiling, Jason.
“Jay, I need to talk to you seriously,” she said.
Jason's heart sank in his heels and pounding wildly from there. The Internet, he thought.
- Tell me, Jay, just be honest. Do you go online?
- Why did you decide so, mom? - Jason portrayed the insult, as far as could be convincing.
- Then what is it? She asked, pulling a CD from behind her back in a large color package adorned with Naruto characters. Jason exhaled in his mind, and his heart returned to its place.
“Mom, it's a CD, you can't rewrite it,” he said, “Andy brought this to me as a gift from Japan.”
Mom looked at him incredulously.
- See for yourself.
Jason turned on the tablet that hung on the wall in the kitchen, waited until Windows was out of hibernation (“Proprietary”! Proprietary ”, he thought at that time), and inserted the CD into the slot. The media player was launched, showing a splash screen from Naruto. Mom looked at Jason, opened the conductor and tried to drag a shortcut from the desktop to the disk.
“File cannot be transferred to disk!” Issued Windows. Jason gazed triumphantly at his mother, who peered anxiously into his eyes.
“Jason, be careful,” she said, “you're a smart boy, but very impressive.”
“Ma-a-am,” Jason drawled.
“You're listening to this indie all the time!”
- But this does not mean that I sit on the Internet, moms! I buy CDs in the store, you know. I just like that kind of music. This is not prohibited?
“Jason, Jason,” Mom shook her head, “Jay, it's better to drink whiskey than to surf the Internet.”
- Why is this? - Jason was outraged, but stopped short, realizing that now is not the time for discussion.
- Jason, you will again sit until the morning at the computer! Go to bed early!
- Yes mom.
- Be careful, I'm so worried about you.
- OK, mom.
Jason took a mug of tea, pulled the cookies out of the bowl, and kissed his mother on the cheek, squeezed past her into the corridor.
- Jason, go to bed.
- Now, mom.
He closed the door to the room behind him, Jason leaned his back against it, and wiped his forehead with his hand, looked around the room. “If mom saw it all now,” he thought cheerfully and almost laughed. On the table was a laptop, Ubunt already unpacked everything and asked to click OK; next to it was an external CD writer, an open package with blanks and flash drives. Everywhere there was a tangled twisted pair, wires from the headphones and a charge. Jason, smiling, sat down in the chair and pressed Enter.
Saving most interesting things for later, Jason first installed the updates and rebooted. Then I downloaded the mail program and plunged into parsing the letters. Three new personal messages from the board came, a letter from the dude with a high nickname, whom Jason met on the geeklive.org forum, any spam, notifications from Ubunt about the bug reports left by Jason - Jason tried to be a good geek. Having dealt with the main mail, Jason opened a letter from Huy.
“Be careful, brother% username%!” As usual, the letter began. "Read this article and tell me what you think about it." Next was the link. Jason frowned annoyingly - was it really impossible to cite the article in a letter, now we have to wait for the next time. "This is it on purpose, he wants me to mature," thought Jason. - "Or maybe he has no money, so saves traffic." Jason threw the link in the outbox - the information on these links will be downloaded to him by the provider the next time. Next in line were a couple of news feeds that Jason was looking through, and a university conference. In the conference there was a post with an overwhelming amount of comments about how two third-year geek from the electrical engineering faculty soldered modems, established a connection with each other and started Startcraft-2 in network mode. Twenty minutes later GosInformControl came to both of them and took the ruchenka under the white, and, judging by the impudence of the action, they did not have to count on a suspended sentence. Most agreed on the fact that both could not not know how the case would end, and went for it on purpose. Jason could not help but have respect for such people, but he realized that such an action would not give anything but a weekly surge of activity on the forums.
Jason thought and went for tea. Houses all slept, it was already the third hour of the night. It's time to wrap up, he thought, returning. However, it was not possible to finish everything quickly, Jason climbed on freeasabird.org for the new release of Aerodron, watched the music that came this time, carefully corrected id3 tags, recorded a CD with Bob Dylan’s first 10 albums for Mac, and, having got a marker, signed CD “Freedom! Equality! Piracy! ”Updated status in friendbook, looked at new photos in another'a blog. It was dawn outside. Jason looked at all the links for the next download. Recognizing himself, again opened the board and formed the PM for just_eve. Then he encrypted and packed the archive on a USB flash drive.
***
Of course, Jason slept through the first couple. But the second he could not get. The whole company has already gathered on the bench in front of the faculty building.
- Jay, are you going to the theory of probability? Mack shouted from afar.
- What is the chance that Jay will hit the pair? - asked Sergey. Sergei was from Russia, his parents brought him here as a child.
“It looks like a little chance,” said Jason, smiling, coming up, “hello, guys.”
- But the probability that we go to drink coffee is great! - declared Mack and all rose.
“Coffee will be just right for you,” he continued, turning to Jason. “You look like you slept for two hours.” Jason, what did you do at night?
“I wrote you Dylan,” Jason answered, and pulled the disc out of his backpack.
- What are you, fool? - Mack immediately turned to a whisper, taking the disk from him, - was completely stunned, or what?
Jason, laughing, slapped him on the shoulder.
In the cafe, Eugene, the fourth of their company, asked:
- Have you heard about the two idiots from the electrical?
Everyone nodded their heads, except Sergey. Sergey did not go to the Internet.
“You're a loser,” said Eugene, turning back toward him.
“Fucking cetephages!” - Sergey shouted. They laughed nearby, some students were sitting in a cafe, and such statements were not taken seriously.
“The story has a continuation,” Eugene said in the meantime, “the fact is that they had something to do with one of the basic nodes. And GosInformControl split them. Where do you think this node was located?
- In university? Mack asked.
- In the basement of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
Sergey whistled.
“It's full of cops right now.” Everything is cordoned off, classes are canceled, and switching equipment and servers are carried out from there.
“Someone was unlucky,” Jason said. This meant that everyone who, directly or through intermediaries, had access to the Internet through this site, would remain without a network for an indefinite time.
- Hello! Can you sit down? - George approached the table. George was either a double or a third brother of Mac, and two years younger. Compared with the guys, he looked very neat and well-groomed. Eternally rosy cheeks did not add solidity to George either, but Jason liked him - probably because of his openness and softness. Jason moved so he could sit down.
“Um ...” said Eugene, “so who goes to the concert?” Today, Twitter users in Che Guevara.
“I'm coming,” Jason said.
“We are going,” said Mac for himself and Sergey.
- Will you come with us? Jason asked George.
- What is this music? - he asked.
“Well, it's like ...” began Jason, but Sergei interrupted him:
- This is indie. You know, fashionable indie music! - with these words he winked cheekily at George.
George's cheeks were sore.
“And it seems that indie was fashionable forty years ago,” he finally said.
“Sergey is joking,” Jason said. He was pretty laughing.
***
The club was very noisy, crowded and smoky. The guys settled down on the couch near the stage. A young girl was grimacing in front of the microphone, supported by keys, trumpet and bass with drums. It was a warming up team, Twitterians stood nearby, smoked and rather shook their heads to the beat. Jason climbed into the hallway, dialed the number and shouted into the phone:
- Hello! IFrank?
“Don't yell,” it came from the tube. Without giving a word, Iphrank asked:
- Read news?
Jason swallowed.
- Do not explain anything?
“Don't,” Jason said weakly.
“I'll dial you,” came the other side, and they hung up the phone.
"Someone was unlucky," Jason mimicked himself. "You are unlucky, dear." The fact that Ayfrank was at large meant that, as soon as he had risen, he took all the communication lines going from the discovered node to his apartment. An unimaginable amount of stretched fiber and twisted pair remained in the inheritance from the two thousandth, providers themselves pulled their networks, so the cables were everywhere - in attics, in the basements, and there was no way to understand them. It was enough to pull the cables out of the apartment to the attic, and no one in life would determine what apartment the geeks were hiding in. But now Jason will have to wait, how much? A week? Month? For the time being, Ayfrank will agree with another node, stretch them to the communication line, set up all the equipment. Jason sighed bitterly. He immediately remembered the link that Huy sent him, about Eve, which he sent to PM. When will he contact them now?
Jason returned, and, frowning, ordered whiskey, trying to look a year older. The guys were hanging out there, waving their hands, and even George was smiling - he seemed to like it here. Jason returned to them, trying not to show anything on his face. From the stage they sang “Twitterians”: “I am without you, like the sun without light, you are without me, like indie without Ineta”.
- Why do they sing like that? George asked Jason.
- How?
- Well, about indie without an Internet. Is it impossible to listen to indie and not go to the Internet?
- It is possible, it is possible, - Sergey laughed. Eugene looked at him sternly.
- What do you know about the Internet? He asked George.
“Well,” said George, “it's embarrassing,” is harmful. And causes addiction.
Mack burst out laughing.
“Just the fact that you came here from unimaginable wilderness excuses you, young man,” said Eugene, “are you reading the newspapers?” Listen to music? Does it make you addicted?
“Well, oh, no,” said George. He was very confused.
- So I ask you, why should the same thing through the Internet be addictive? BUT?
“But through the Internet, the amount of information consumed is much more,” George did not give up, “and a person cannot control himself, he wants more and more. So they say.
Eugene saddled his horse. The arguments that George cited were known to him from A to Z — they were quoted in school textbooks, brochures handed out at the metro station, and social advertising posters that were amazing in their moronity. To disprove them to Eugene was not difficult. Everyone was pretty smiling, anticipating how the events would unfold.
- Even the most ill head-on geek comes into the Internet once a day. Usually less often - it’s too difficult to access and too much money to spend on it. All information coming through the Internet is very limited. How can we talk about uncontrolled consumption? And this is not yet discussing what dependence is from the physiological and psychosomatic points of view.
“Why then is the Internet banned?” - asked George.
Mack smiled. Sergey was pretty sipping beer.
- Because the Internet has given unprecedented opportunities in the dissemination of information! - said Eugene, - Information tends to be infinitely copied without loss of quality. This is not a sausage, young man! - poor George, hearing such a sedition, was afraid to move, - and some people really didn’t want the information to be distributed freely and for free!
- Programmers and musicians? - asked George.
- Programmers and musicians! - Eugene mimicked him, - labels and software companies! Have you heard anything about Linux, about open source? These initiatives were intended to spread free and open information for everyone, for free! See, young man? And all this was forbidden. That which can lead people to freedom does not please those who earn money!
- Do not listen to them, they are fucking geeks! - Sergey shouted.
They laughed around. George was smitten.
- You want to say that you go online? - He babbled.
“But not me,” Sergei put in.
“But you are not at all like geeks.”
- What do you think should look like people who go online? - asked Mac, - with stubble, unwashed hair, red eyes and indispensable gastritis?
George looked back at Jason. He smiled.
“Well, oh, that's all, of course, interesting, but I ...” George blushed deeply.
“I bet, I know what his last argument is,” Sergey laughed.
“Well, uh ...” George’s ears were burning in the darkness of the club, “I wouldn’t really like ... well, this ... to watch child pornography.”
- Yes! - Sergey shouted. His exclamation sank in general laughter. Mack beat his hand on the table so that he knocked over a glass of beer.
“None of us are interested in watching pornography,” said Eugene, putting a hand patronizingly on George’s shoulder, “pornography is a matter for completely lost personalities.”
At this time, Mac pulled a netbook out of his backpack and, holding it over his head, moved his eyebrows expressively. But then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Mack flinched. There was a club guard behind me.
“Only not here,” he said, “go outside, damn geeks.” There is no internet in the club. Come back when you slam the laptop.
Eugene and Mack take George away. Sergey stretched out on the freed sofa and with his eyes closed shook his head to the music. Jason sipped his beer when he heard a whisper near his ear:
- Hi, username!
Jason looked around. In front of him, dressed in a short dress, stood a girl from the square of Ifrank.
- Eve?
- What are you so sad? - Eva asked, - aaa, I think I know what the matter is. She laughed.
“I sent ... I wanted to send you a message,” Jason said, “but you probably wouldn't have time to read it anyway.”
“Honey,” Eve said, looking him straight in the eye, “I live with Iphrank.” I can be online around the clock.
She laughed rather, seeing Jason's reaction. Online round the clock! Jason couldn't even imagine that this was possible. He tried to imagine what he would do if he had such an opportunity. Nothing came of it.
She laughed again. She has a very nice laugh, Jason thought.
“Come, let's go,” Eve said, “it's too loud here.”
Violin "Twitter" snarled like mad. They went out into the corridor. Jason leaned against the wall, and Eve laid his hands on his shoulders.
“I like you,” she said, “don't you think it's pretty boring?”
- What?- asked Jason, - "Twitter"?
Eve laughed again.
- No, stupid. Carry the Internet on flash drives. Bored and stupid.
She looked at him mockingly.
“I have a more interesting offer,” she whispered, leaning toward Jason's ear. Before his eyes flashed a few pictures with the participation of Eve. Jason was silent. Eve smiled slyly.
- Would you like to come to the computer club? - she asked and continued, - you know, the computer club is so interesting. Many computers are networked. And they are all connected to the Internet. Do you understand?You can play online MMORPG. Do you know what it is?
Does Jason know what an online MMORPG is? Of course, damn it, he knows it. Jason, wide-eyed, looked at Eve. Ta did enjoy her position.
“And you can chat in a chat,” she continued, “you can talk like on the phone.” On different topics, you know?
Jason understood.
“But, really, it’s very expensive,” Eve said, “Expensive,” she repeated, “but you are a smart boy and you could pay for your right to be there not with money, but with your head,” and she jabbed on Jason’s head with a cam - Do you understand?
At this time, from above, on the stairs leading from the club to the street, heard footsteps. Downstairs, Eugene, George and Mack walked past them. Eugene walked with a strict missionary missionary, and George walked with a look of deep surprise on his face. Mack, passing by, winked at Jason, and, shaking his head, raised his thumb.
“Bye, bye,” Eve said, and, kissing Jason on the cheek, she went upstairs. - Think, Jason. Use your head.
Jason put a card in his jeans pocket that Eve had given him unnoticed.
***
This is the first part of the story "Jason and the Internet", to be continued . The text is distributed under the Creative Commons by-nc-nd license (free distribution for non-commercial purposes with the indication of the author - frony or another-frony.lj.ru )
I would be happy to comment on inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the text, and of all related issues.
***
And now, on a dank autumn evening, twenty-year-old Jason walked, wrapped in a coat, checking the crumpled piece of paper with an address, and thought to himself: “I am a geek. And I go to the Internet. " The thought gave him some kind of inexplicable pleasure, especially at the sight of people around. “They are going, and do not even suspect that this decent-looking young man was on the Internet the day before yesterday,” Jason thought to himself, “was the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and I will be today.” From these thoughts, Jason even laughed and caught the surprised looks of passersby. He suppressed laughter and stopped at the entrance of a ten-story building. Judging by the paper, he was there. Walking up to the fourth floor, he knocked on the door. Footsteps were heard, then they fell silent. You could hear the music playing outside the door, Jason felt his eye being carefully examined through the peephole.
')
“This is Jason,” Jason said loudly.
The door opened and Jason saw the provider. He looked as if he had come down from a photo from an illustrated article about the times of the information revolution - a penguin T-shirt, shorts, from the pocket of which the headphone wire was coming out, on the wrist of a hard-to-identify gadget. Jason was a stranger to a similar style of clothes, he was not very attracted to the external attributes of geeks. All he needed was information.
“I'm from Phil,” Jason clarified.
- I understood, - the provider grinned in reply, and, having passed Jason into the hallway, he introduced himself, - Ayfrank.
Phil was Jason's previous provider. Phil tied up, but he gave Jason this address.
- Will you go? - asked iffrank. From the room I heard a woman’s laughter, a man’s voice telling something enthusiastically, and clicking with a mouse. Jason shook his head and handed the flash drive to Ayfrank.
“Sorry, username, I have business,” he said and smiled guiltily.
“I understand,” he said, and laughed. Picking up a flash drive with two fingers, he retired down the corridor. Jason looked around, trying to see the wires that Ifrank had connected to the Internet. Naturally, he did not notice anything. Then a girl looked out of the room, and, smiling, looked at Jason.
- Where-ee eo-oh-oh naga-a-an, I - setema-a-an! - she mockingly sang a line from a famous song, looking at Jason, - who are you, username?
“I'm Jason,” said Jason.
“Are you on the board, Jason?” She asked.
“Yes,” he replied, a little embarrassed.
Then Ithrank pulled out of the corridor, carrying Jason's transcend. He looked sternly at the girl and handed the flash drive. The girl showed Ayfrenku language.
“500,” he said dryly. Jason counted out the money.
“Thank you,” he said.
- There was a PM Just Eve, Jason, - smiling, said the girl.
“Bye, username,” said Ifrank. The door slammed shut.
***
The screen displayed the unpacking process. “The time until the end of the process is 16 minutes,” Jason read out loud and went to the kitchen for tea. While he was whistling waiting for the kettle, Mom came into the kitchen and leaned on the doorjamb, looking attentively at Jason.
- What? - asked, smiling, Jason.
“Jay, I need to talk to you seriously,” she said.
Jason's heart sank in his heels and pounding wildly from there. The Internet, he thought.
- Tell me, Jay, just be honest. Do you go online?
- Why did you decide so, mom? - Jason portrayed the insult, as far as could be convincing.
- Then what is it? She asked, pulling a CD from behind her back in a large color package adorned with Naruto characters. Jason exhaled in his mind, and his heart returned to its place.
“Mom, it's a CD, you can't rewrite it,” he said, “Andy brought this to me as a gift from Japan.”
Mom looked at him incredulously.
- See for yourself.
Jason turned on the tablet that hung on the wall in the kitchen, waited until Windows was out of hibernation (“Proprietary”! Proprietary ”, he thought at that time), and inserted the CD into the slot. The media player was launched, showing a splash screen from Naruto. Mom looked at Jason, opened the conductor and tried to drag a shortcut from the desktop to the disk.
“File cannot be transferred to disk!” Issued Windows. Jason gazed triumphantly at his mother, who peered anxiously into his eyes.
“Jason, be careful,” she said, “you're a smart boy, but very impressive.”
“Ma-a-am,” Jason drawled.
“You're listening to this indie all the time!”
- But this does not mean that I sit on the Internet, moms! I buy CDs in the store, you know. I just like that kind of music. This is not prohibited?
“Jason, Jason,” Mom shook her head, “Jay, it's better to drink whiskey than to surf the Internet.”
- Why is this? - Jason was outraged, but stopped short, realizing that now is not the time for discussion.
- Jason, you will again sit until the morning at the computer! Go to bed early!
- Yes mom.
- Be careful, I'm so worried about you.
- OK, mom.
Jason took a mug of tea, pulled the cookies out of the bowl, and kissed his mother on the cheek, squeezed past her into the corridor.
- Jason, go to bed.
- Now, mom.
He closed the door to the room behind him, Jason leaned his back against it, and wiped his forehead with his hand, looked around the room. “If mom saw it all now,” he thought cheerfully and almost laughed. On the table was a laptop, Ubunt already unpacked everything and asked to click OK; next to it was an external CD writer, an open package with blanks and flash drives. Everywhere there was a tangled twisted pair, wires from the headphones and a charge. Jason, smiling, sat down in the chair and pressed Enter.
Saving most interesting things for later, Jason first installed the updates and rebooted. Then I downloaded the mail program and plunged into parsing the letters. Three new personal messages from the board came, a letter from the dude with a high nickname, whom Jason met on the geeklive.org forum, any spam, notifications from Ubunt about the bug reports left by Jason - Jason tried to be a good geek. Having dealt with the main mail, Jason opened a letter from Huy.
“Be careful, brother% username%!” As usual, the letter began. "Read this article and tell me what you think about it." Next was the link. Jason frowned annoyingly - was it really impossible to cite the article in a letter, now we have to wait for the next time. "This is it on purpose, he wants me to mature," thought Jason. - "Or maybe he has no money, so saves traffic." Jason threw the link in the outbox - the information on these links will be downloaded to him by the provider the next time. Next in line were a couple of news feeds that Jason was looking through, and a university conference. In the conference there was a post with an overwhelming amount of comments about how two third-year geek from the electrical engineering faculty soldered modems, established a connection with each other and started Startcraft-2 in network mode. Twenty minutes later GosInformControl came to both of them and took the ruchenka under the white, and, judging by the impudence of the action, they did not have to count on a suspended sentence. Most agreed on the fact that both could not not know how the case would end, and went for it on purpose. Jason could not help but have respect for such people, but he realized that such an action would not give anything but a weekly surge of activity on the forums.
Jason thought and went for tea. Houses all slept, it was already the third hour of the night. It's time to wrap up, he thought, returning. However, it was not possible to finish everything quickly, Jason climbed on freeasabird.org for the new release of Aerodron, watched the music that came this time, carefully corrected id3 tags, recorded a CD with Bob Dylan’s first 10 albums for Mac, and, having got a marker, signed CD “Freedom! Equality! Piracy! ”Updated status in friendbook, looked at new photos in another'a blog. It was dawn outside. Jason looked at all the links for the next download. Recognizing himself, again opened the board and formed the PM for just_eve. Then he encrypted and packed the archive on a USB flash drive.
***
Of course, Jason slept through the first couple. But the second he could not get. The whole company has already gathered on the bench in front of the faculty building.
- Jay, are you going to the theory of probability? Mack shouted from afar.
- What is the chance that Jay will hit the pair? - asked Sergey. Sergei was from Russia, his parents brought him here as a child.
“It looks like a little chance,” said Jason, smiling, coming up, “hello, guys.”
- But the probability that we go to drink coffee is great! - declared Mack and all rose.
“Coffee will be just right for you,” he continued, turning to Jason. “You look like you slept for two hours.” Jason, what did you do at night?
“I wrote you Dylan,” Jason answered, and pulled the disc out of his backpack.
- What are you, fool? - Mack immediately turned to a whisper, taking the disk from him, - was completely stunned, or what?
Jason, laughing, slapped him on the shoulder.
In the cafe, Eugene, the fourth of their company, asked:
- Have you heard about the two idiots from the electrical?
Everyone nodded their heads, except Sergey. Sergey did not go to the Internet.
“You're a loser,” said Eugene, turning back toward him.
“Fucking cetephages!” - Sergey shouted. They laughed nearby, some students were sitting in a cafe, and such statements were not taken seriously.
“The story has a continuation,” Eugene said in the meantime, “the fact is that they had something to do with one of the basic nodes. And GosInformControl split them. Where do you think this node was located?
- In university? Mack asked.
- In the basement of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
Sergey whistled.
“It's full of cops right now.” Everything is cordoned off, classes are canceled, and switching equipment and servers are carried out from there.
“Someone was unlucky,” Jason said. This meant that everyone who, directly or through intermediaries, had access to the Internet through this site, would remain without a network for an indefinite time.
- Hello! Can you sit down? - George approached the table. George was either a double or a third brother of Mac, and two years younger. Compared with the guys, he looked very neat and well-groomed. Eternally rosy cheeks did not add solidity to George either, but Jason liked him - probably because of his openness and softness. Jason moved so he could sit down.
“Um ...” said Eugene, “so who goes to the concert?” Today, Twitter users in Che Guevara.
“I'm coming,” Jason said.
“We are going,” said Mac for himself and Sergey.
- Will you come with us? Jason asked George.
- What is this music? - he asked.
“Well, it's like ...” began Jason, but Sergei interrupted him:
- This is indie. You know, fashionable indie music! - with these words he winked cheekily at George.
George's cheeks were sore.
“And it seems that indie was fashionable forty years ago,” he finally said.
“Sergey is joking,” Jason said. He was pretty laughing.
***
The club was very noisy, crowded and smoky. The guys settled down on the couch near the stage. A young girl was grimacing in front of the microphone, supported by keys, trumpet and bass with drums. It was a warming up team, Twitterians stood nearby, smoked and rather shook their heads to the beat. Jason climbed into the hallway, dialed the number and shouted into the phone:
- Hello! IFrank?
“Don't yell,” it came from the tube. Without giving a word, Iphrank asked:
- Read news?
Jason swallowed.
- Do not explain anything?
“Don't,” Jason said weakly.
“I'll dial you,” came the other side, and they hung up the phone.
"Someone was unlucky," Jason mimicked himself. "You are unlucky, dear." The fact that Ayfrank was at large meant that, as soon as he had risen, he took all the communication lines going from the discovered node to his apartment. An unimaginable amount of stretched fiber and twisted pair remained in the inheritance from the two thousandth, providers themselves pulled their networks, so the cables were everywhere - in attics, in the basements, and there was no way to understand them. It was enough to pull the cables out of the apartment to the attic, and no one in life would determine what apartment the geeks were hiding in. But now Jason will have to wait, how much? A week? Month? For the time being, Ayfrank will agree with another node, stretch them to the communication line, set up all the equipment. Jason sighed bitterly. He immediately remembered the link that Huy sent him, about Eve, which he sent to PM. When will he contact them now?
Jason returned, and, frowning, ordered whiskey, trying to look a year older. The guys were hanging out there, waving their hands, and even George was smiling - he seemed to like it here. Jason returned to them, trying not to show anything on his face. From the stage they sang “Twitterians”: “I am without you, like the sun without light, you are without me, like indie without Ineta”.
- Why do they sing like that? George asked Jason.
- How?
- Well, about indie without an Internet. Is it impossible to listen to indie and not go to the Internet?
- It is possible, it is possible, - Sergey laughed. Eugene looked at him sternly.
- What do you know about the Internet? He asked George.
“Well,” said George, “it's embarrassing,” is harmful. And causes addiction.
Mack burst out laughing.
“Just the fact that you came here from unimaginable wilderness excuses you, young man,” said Eugene, “are you reading the newspapers?” Listen to music? Does it make you addicted?
“Well, oh, no,” said George. He was very confused.
- So I ask you, why should the same thing through the Internet be addictive? BUT?
“But through the Internet, the amount of information consumed is much more,” George did not give up, “and a person cannot control himself, he wants more and more. So they say.
Eugene saddled his horse. The arguments that George cited were known to him from A to Z — they were quoted in school textbooks, brochures handed out at the metro station, and social advertising posters that were amazing in their moronity. To disprove them to Eugene was not difficult. Everyone was pretty smiling, anticipating how the events would unfold.
- Even the most ill head-on geek comes into the Internet once a day. Usually less often - it’s too difficult to access and too much money to spend on it. All information coming through the Internet is very limited. How can we talk about uncontrolled consumption? And this is not yet discussing what dependence is from the physiological and psychosomatic points of view.
“Why then is the Internet banned?” - asked George.
Mack smiled. Sergey was pretty sipping beer.
- Because the Internet has given unprecedented opportunities in the dissemination of information! - said Eugene, - Information tends to be infinitely copied without loss of quality. This is not a sausage, young man! - poor George, hearing such a sedition, was afraid to move, - and some people really didn’t want the information to be distributed freely and for free!
- Programmers and musicians? - asked George.
- Programmers and musicians! - Eugene mimicked him, - labels and software companies! Have you heard anything about Linux, about open source? These initiatives were intended to spread free and open information for everyone, for free! See, young man? And all this was forbidden. That which can lead people to freedom does not please those who earn money!
- Do not listen to them, they are fucking geeks! - Sergey shouted.
They laughed around. George was smitten.
- You want to say that you go online? - He babbled.
“But not me,” Sergei put in.
“But you are not at all like geeks.”
- What do you think should look like people who go online? - asked Mac, - with stubble, unwashed hair, red eyes and indispensable gastritis?
George looked back at Jason. He smiled.
“Well, oh, that's all, of course, interesting, but I ...” George blushed deeply.
“I bet, I know what his last argument is,” Sergey laughed.
“Well, uh ...” George’s ears were burning in the darkness of the club, “I wouldn’t really like ... well, this ... to watch child pornography.”
- Yes! - Sergey shouted. His exclamation sank in general laughter. Mack beat his hand on the table so that he knocked over a glass of beer.
“None of us are interested in watching pornography,” said Eugene, putting a hand patronizingly on George’s shoulder, “pornography is a matter for completely lost personalities.”
At this time, Mac pulled a netbook out of his backpack and, holding it over his head, moved his eyebrows expressively. But then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Mack flinched. There was a club guard behind me.
“Only not here,” he said, “go outside, damn geeks.” There is no internet in the club. Come back when you slam the laptop.
Eugene and Mack take George away. Sergey stretched out on the freed sofa and with his eyes closed shook his head to the music. Jason sipped his beer when he heard a whisper near his ear:
- Hi, username!
Jason looked around. In front of him, dressed in a short dress, stood a girl from the square of Ifrank.
- Eve?
- What are you so sad? - Eva asked, - aaa, I think I know what the matter is. She laughed.
“I sent ... I wanted to send you a message,” Jason said, “but you probably wouldn't have time to read it anyway.”
“Honey,” Eve said, looking him straight in the eye, “I live with Iphrank.” I can be online around the clock.
She laughed rather, seeing Jason's reaction. Online round the clock! Jason couldn't even imagine that this was possible. He tried to imagine what he would do if he had such an opportunity. Nothing came of it.
She laughed again. She has a very nice laugh, Jason thought.
“Come, let's go,” Eve said, “it's too loud here.”
Violin "Twitter" snarled like mad. They went out into the corridor. Jason leaned against the wall, and Eve laid his hands on his shoulders.
“I like you,” she said, “don't you think it's pretty boring?”
- What?- asked Jason, - "Twitter"?
Eve laughed again.
- No, stupid. Carry the Internet on flash drives. Bored and stupid.
She looked at him mockingly.
“I have a more interesting offer,” she whispered, leaning toward Jason's ear. Before his eyes flashed a few pictures with the participation of Eve. Jason was silent. Eve smiled slyly.
- Would you like to come to the computer club? - she asked and continued, - you know, the computer club is so interesting. Many computers are networked. And they are all connected to the Internet. Do you understand?You can play online MMORPG. Do you know what it is?
Does Jason know what an online MMORPG is? Of course, damn it, he knows it. Jason, wide-eyed, looked at Eve. Ta did enjoy her position.
“And you can chat in a chat,” she continued, “you can talk like on the phone.” On different topics, you know?
Jason understood.
“But, really, it’s very expensive,” Eve said, “Expensive,” she repeated, “but you are a smart boy and you could pay for your right to be there not with money, but with your head,” and she jabbed on Jason’s head with a cam - Do you understand?
At this time, from above, on the stairs leading from the club to the street, heard footsteps. Downstairs, Eugene, George and Mack walked past them. Eugene walked with a strict missionary missionary, and George walked with a look of deep surprise on his face. Mack, passing by, winked at Jason, and, shaking his head, raised his thumb.
“Bye, bye,” Eve said, and, kissing Jason on the cheek, she went upstairs. - Think, Jason. Use your head.
Jason put a card in his jeans pocket that Eve had given him unnoticed.
***
This is the first part of the story "Jason and the Internet", to be continued . The text is distributed under the Creative Commons by-nc-nd license (free distribution for non-commercial purposes with the indication of the author - frony or another-frony.lj.ru )
I would be happy to comment on inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the text, and of all related issues.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/76104/
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