Ben Franklin and the Internet

Ben Franklin and the Internet [Satire]
By Eolake Stobblehouse

Did you know that Facebook was invented on the same day as the Internet? ... Don't feel ashamed, very few people do, yet.

On the dusky June day in 1752 when Franklin flew his famous kite, when the lightning struck, a picture and a sentence formed in Franklin's mind; the image of a bearded man and the thought "Ach du lieber got".

Unbeknownst to him at the time, this was the thought and the face of German scientist Herman Liebstmirnicht, which was coincidentally conducting the kite experiment at the same time as Franklin, half way around the globe!

Remarkably, the Leyden Jar which stored the electricity from the lightning strike also stored for several hours Liebstmirnicht's thought and his picture, thus providing the very first electronic memory. Benjamin Franklin printed out the thought and image on rice paper from the "ur-RAM" of the jar, using a jury-rigged printer made from rubber stamps and a loom. And so this was the world's first "face-book" page!

Also not publicised widely is the fact that the Zuckerberg family, after a protracted legal battle, has a contract with the Franklin estate to pay 2.5% in royalties a year for the next five hundred years from Facebook  profits. Dr. Liebstmirnicht sadly did not survive his lightning strike and left no heirs, so Zuckerberg is still comfortable.

Thankfully, due to today's wire-traveling electricity and the safety of modern "eye-phone" PDAs, we can communicate with our global friends without being electrocuted.

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[Not a word of this is true, but who knows, it might have been.]