Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

19 Nov 2001, 13:27 p.m.

Had I time enough to read, time enough at last,…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2001 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Had I time enough to read, time enough at last, one work I'd enjoy would be Harper's Weekly. I spent about an hour today at lunchtime eating Chinese food and reading the November 2001 Harper's. I enjoyed many articles and found many terrific bons mots, but the best might have been in a Pakistani schoolchild's letter to an Indian schoolchild:

I have never had any experience with an Indian my age, but recently when I downloaded ICQ, I bumped into a guy older than me, Manoj....

Most of the conversations I've ever had over ICQ have been unpleasant, if educational. I associate much more pleasant communication with e-mail, Usenet, and the Web.