Sunday, November 13, 2022

The Internet is for Dummies

Back when email first started, my husband and I both signed up with the leading purveyor of the service, which was then called AOL (it stood for America Online). In 1998, the smash hit movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, You've Got Mail, highlighted the web browser's growing popularity. Everyone used it.

Eventually competitors popped up, and in 2004 people started using Google's own Gmail, leaving AOL to try out the new kid on the block. Mitch and I never changed our email provider because we moved around a lot, from DC to Utah and back to DC, and then to Maine, and changing would have been a giant hassle and possibly result in the loss of valued personal and professional contacts dating back many years.

So here I am in 2022, stuck with this ridiculous mail provider that has been bought and sold to huge companies several times over the years, with each iteration becoming less reliable as a news source while still providing good mail service. So despite being seen as dinosaurs because we still use AOL, we still use AOL. (I may be a dinosaur but at least I'm not a democrat.)

But today I might have to call it quits after reading a story, in its entirety which was a real drag because it's one where they spoon-feed you a little editorial content on a page full of ads, so you have to click about a million times to get through the whole thing. Anyway, this story, with a byline of 2020 which in itself is a complete riot, is about actress Patty Duke and the many men she slept with, one of whom fathered her actor son. Here is how it looks online today:


The thing is, Patty died in 2016, a fact never mentioned in the article, which continually refers to her in the present tense. From Wikipedia:

"Duke died on the morning of March 29, 2016 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, of sepsis from a ruptured intestine at the age of 69. Her son Sean Astin invited the public to contribute to a mental health foundation in his mother's name, the Patty Duke Mental Health Initiative. She was cremated and her ashes were interred at Forest Cemetery in Coeur d'Alene."

Just in case you think that thing you just read online is true....😜!


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