Some people say the Net is a great wasteland, all those billions of bits and bytes of data zooming around in all directions, without form or content. Such people are full of something savvy computer professionals call "hooey".
Fact is, it's almost impossible to spend any amount of time on the Net without accomplishing something, even when you don't want to. Now, doing nothing - that takes focus and discipline. Sounds odd, but the hardcore slacker must be the very picture of diligence in his fight against that old bugaboo - productivity. Let your guard down for a second and you'll be calculating your mortgage before you can say "dude". While it's true there's nothing out there, if you want to find Nothing you gotta know where to look.
For your first foray into oblivion, try Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (www.bartley.com/100). Seems quotable people have always had plenty to say about Nothing, (although some of it is really something, so watch your back). Geoffrey Chaucer once wrote, "Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently". Since he wrote that instead of saying it, I think it's safe to say wiser words were never not spoken about Nothing. And, of course, it was William Shakespeare who wrote, "Nothing will come of nothing", which makes a lot of sense when you don't think about it.
If you want to receive breaking news about Nothing in particular, the clear choice is NewsTracker from Excite (nt.excite.com), which in my double-blinded scientific study unearthed 1201 articles with a connection to Nothing, in no time flat. If you need to know Nothing in a big hurry, you could do a lot worse. Be warned, though, that NewsTracker also logged 1876 breaking news stories about Something, and an additional 1062 articles about Everything, so be careful when you're clicking along. One false hyperlink and you're back on track, which - trust me - is not where you want to be.
AltaVista ( http://altavista.com ) is another great resource if you're looking to get something for nothing. A quick search for "404 Not Found" provides roughly 5688282 nil-filled opportunities right off the bat. Why not surf through some sites you missed the first time? It's your big chance to miss all of them over again. AltaVista's best match for 404 Not Found, a site so much more Not Found than any other Not Found site that's not even funny, is a little site I like to call http://www.weatherwatchers.org/bbs/wx200board/index.html - containing nothing whatsoever. It's easy to why AltaVista lists this one first. The rest, while just as empty, are somehow less vacuous.
Here's another tip for voyagers into the void: if you find a database-driven site that returns the error message, "document contains no data", be sure to bookmark it. You'll want to see it again and again. After all, you can't buy that kind of Nothingness for any amount of money. Think about it: There could be anything there! Absolutely anything at all, but instead there's Nothing. And you know, Nothing is really much rarer than something because as soon as anybody stumbles across a place that's no place, they make it someplace, ad everything's all over the place everywhere, leaving practically no room at all for Nothing.
This is an alarming trend, but, with vigilance, one which can be reserved. If you've taken from the vanishing reserves of Nothing, it's high time you started giving back. It's time to erect your own empty space online, your own digital shrine to The Great Void. Act now, before it's too late. Remember, we have everything to gain - and Nothing to lose.
About the Author
Dr. Adnan Ahmed Qureshi holds a Ph.D. in IT with specialization in the induction of information technology in developing countries. He is the former Editor of Datalog, Computech, ISAsia and columnist for The News International. At present he is working as Senior Industry Analyst and IT Consultant.