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INFORMATION COURTESY OF GOOGLE TRENDS
Eureka’s Googles The top Google queries from 2004 to present from the “Eureka, CA” area:
The top image search queries from 2008 to present from the “Eureka, CA” area:
facebook humboldt you google craigslist youtube yahoo weather news games
Black Girl Quotes Tattoos Love Women California Dog Beach Pink
connection, he explained, but rules attached to the subsidies that pay for most of the service don’t allow the school to share its bandwidth with the community — or even with other public agencies or institutions. McLaughlin sees that as a waste of bandwidth and a redundancy in service. “The industry has made it difficult for public agencies to share [service] because they get to sell it five times instead of one,” he explained. “You cannot underestimate the influence of telecommunication and cable industries on a regulatory environment. That’s why places like Humboldt get underserved, because there’s not enough profit for them.”
The passage of 20 years
has left modest dreams like reading Shakespeare online in the dust. Goldberg, who started Humboldt’s first electronic town, has moved out of technology and into environmental advocacy. “In some respects I was a pioneer but now I’m just a follower trying to keep up with it all,” he said. He still sees untapped potential in the Internet, even if his visions range into the realm of sci-
The top worldwide search terms including the word “Humboldt” from 2004 to present:
Humboldt Von Humboldt county Humboldt state Humboldt Alexander university Humboldt Humboldt Alexander berlin von Humboldt Humboldt state Humboldt university universitat Humboldt craigslist ence fiction. He predicts that eventually people will be hardwired to a vast neural network — text messages will be as antiquated as dial-up modems are now. “You’ll be able to think it, and friends everywhere in the world will know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s going to be an evolutionary leap.” He sees computers becoming selfaware — and while it’s a thought he’s not entirely comfortable with, he sees environmental and humanitarian potential in the concept. “We may have to relegate decisions about climate change, community planning to computers. Because we cannot rely on people to make these decisions any longer. Because we really cannot make decisions based on the best interests of humanity.” Sci-fi dreams or prescience? It’s hard to say. But imagine your skepticism 20 years ago about the news, commerce and entertainment now contained in a smartphone or laptop computer — there’s no denying that those decades have made some of Humboldt County’s Internet dreams a reality. ●
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northcoastjournal.com • NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014
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