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Long ago, man was in wretched state.

[EDSAC - first stored program computer 1949]

We lived in squander, ungraced by the marvels of invention.

[UNIVAC - first Commercial Computer 1951]

It was not until a titan, a giant among men,

[IBM Mainframe Manufacturing 1952]

stretched forth his arm toward the heavens;

[Hard Disk Random Access File 1953]

he stole their eternal fire, to give to us, that we might live as gods.

[Local Internet 1968]

Oh, and with that spark what blazes did we ignite

[Bill Gates develops BASIC 1975]

the kindling of education, the fires of industry, and the warm glow of a connected hearth

[Steve Jobs develops Apple I 1976]

But fires can also burn.

[Global Internet 1977]

The gods, angry that man had that which they had no right to,

[Macintosh 1984]

devised a plan to punish the mortals who dared to climb so high.

[Hard Drive 1985]

They chose the most innocent, who used fire only benignly,

[World Wide Web 1989]

and gave her a gift, to make life easier; they said.

[AOL Instant Messenger 1997]

She took it, unknowing of its perfidious nature

[Google 1998]

And in opening the gift, she unleashed plagues upon the world.

[Wikipedia 2001]

Viruses. Wasted time. Broken lives and wealth of lies.

[MySpace 2003]

Disease of mind, and death of body.

[facebook 2004]

All flew out, to infect the world

[Twitter 2006]

but only one remained,

 

Hope.

 

For though the fires smoke and leave naught but ash there is still beauty in them.

There is still power.

If we can learn not to burn ourselves, if we can claim that potential,

if we can change the way we use technology, then we can change the world.

For if we can tame the fire, we can certainly tame the stars.  

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