Not on the internet

Whenever you need to know something, just look it up on the internet, right? Using your search engine of choice, you type in a few keywords, hit enter, and you're good to go. Any datasheet, any protocol spec, any obscure runtime error, anytime. Heck, you can most often find code samples implementing whatever you're looking for. In a minute or two.

Anything technical is so easy to find that I take it for granted. In fact, I had completely forgotten that we lived in a hacker's utopia until a few nights ago when it happened again: I wanted to find something that wasn't on the internet. Now, to be honest, it's probably out there and I just need to dig a little deeper, but the shock of not instantly finding the answer to a random esoteric question reminded me of how much we have to luck 99.99% of the time when we find the answer right away.

Great job, global hive mind of über-nerds! It was one of the founding dreams of the Internet, that all information be accessible to everyone, everywhere, and it basically works. It doesn't matter if we can stream movies or have telcos with people on the other side of the globe - when I want a Python library to decode Kansas City Standard audio data, it's at my fingertips. Detailed SCSI specs? Check.

But what was my research, you ask? Kristina and I were talking about Teddy Ruxpin, and I thought the servo track spec on the tape would definitely have been reverse engineered and well documented. And I'm still sure it is - I was just shocked that I couldn't find it instantly. The last time this happened to me was the datasheet for the chips that make up a Speak & Spell, and it turned out that I just needed to dig a lot harder. So I haven't lost hope yet.

And deep down, I'm kinda glad I found a hole in the internet. This gives Kristina and I an excuse to reverse engineer the format ourselves. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. But for the rest of those times, when I really want the answer to a niche technical question, thank you all!