The technical cost of admission to participate in online activities has been steadily dropping for thirty years now. Back in the dial-up days modemers had to possess (on at least some level) knowledge of DOS and terminal software and modem initialization strings to get their computers to talk to one another. It wasn’t until I first saw the World Wide Web, some dozen or more years after I began calling BBSes, that I first used a mouse in conjunction with online activities — a lowering of the bar that I was sure would “ruin everything”. (The verdict is still out… (read more)