I think this is an excellent article (although something went wrong with the fornatting). I got my Commodore 64 in 1984. Went online in 1986, at 800 baud. Mostly bulletin boards, often local.

When it went public, I thought the internet was an anarchist’s dream come true. How wrong I was. Now it is a giant, virtual shopping mall and information gathering device, not to mention a surveillance bonanza.

I use Ubuntu on an aging HP laptop. I would go completely off line if I had to use Windows or the Mac OS.

I used to dream of something like the Internet. Now I know that dreams can quickly become nightmares.