The internet is supposed to be about the future. Pure sf. The Library of Alexandria for the 21st century. The whole planet linked in instantaneous communication. The greatest invention of all time.

Instead it's mostly the past. Tom Swift's Amazing Electric Attic.

Used to be the past went away and stayed away. Now you just have to rummage around the internet. Ancient television shows and movies are all there. Trying to recall the name of an obscure sixties band that cut two singles and broke up? Once upon a time they were never to be heard of again. Today they've got a new CD available at their website. And look, between that bag full of beloved old advertising jingles and the box of radio dramas -- there's one of my mini-comics! Who the heck saved that?!

Why with things like the Google cache and the Wayback Machine the internet is busily preserving its own past.

In the long ago, when I sat reading Detective Comics with a cracked 45 of the The Purple People Eater for a soundtrack, a cool glass of root beer Fizzies in my hand, I sometimes felt a frisson, almost like I was being watched.

Now I know what it was. Me peering back at myself from the future through the internet.