The Monday following the spring changing of the clocks, how many things started late yesterday?  Today we start the week with a kid asking questions about the Internet and answers most adults don’t know.  A new newsletter to us will make you feel Almost Famous, and as we get real for a minute, a story about how to make an apology.  Another interesting mix of ideas and creative writing to start the week.

The Conversation has a series called Curious Kids, and kids send questions experts answer.  Today Nora, age 8, asked:

In an actual "explain it to me like I'm five" way, we appreciated the answers. 

Professor Fred Martin wrote the response, and the breakdown goes like this:

American Engineer Paul Baran worked on a networking problem, looking for a solution to reliably send messages electronically.  His answer; was hot potato networking which became ARPANET.

Expanding on Baran's works, Vinton Cerf developed Transmission Control Protocol.  Cerf turned the "potatoes" into packets (of data) and broadened the architecture of the lines between the computers.  This allowed for standards and further development of "The Internet."

With the network in place and data transmission standards in place, a British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee wanted a way to host page information on a computer and link those pages using an index of names referred to as a URL (uniform resource locator).  Berners-Lee named the system the World Wide Web, and most of that is still used today.

From hot potato network to TikTok in about 50 years, people are great – thanks for the question, Nora, and to The Conversation for writing about it!

This weekend, we were introduced to a newsletter on The Atlantic by Lizzie Plaugic, and Kaitlyn Tiffany called Famous People.  We love this idea, writers are always looking for exciting stories, and people are the air on most levels.  Here is the description of the newsletter from the writers:

The concept is fun, and the writing is excellent.  Enjoy a ten-minute dip into fame today.

With A Shout only does a little How-To stuff in the newsletter; our audience knows how to Google.  Vox wrote a good story on How to give a good apology.  In a seemingly deteriorating communications world, offering a sincere apology can change your life.  Once again, we will use the phrase "simple but not easy."  The mechanics of giving a good apology are simple; getting deeply vulnerable and admitting mistakes is hard. 

Whether you are giving or receiving an apology, most come from a place of pain; what's not thought about is the confidence expressed by a person who can admit when they have made a mistake and explain what they did wrong and how they expect to change going forward.  The other side of an apology is the recipient and the strength to accept an apology gracefully and offer forgiveness.

Here are the steps to make a good apology, and see if even reading this doesn't make you uncomfortable; it made us wonder how many "floating apologies" we need to start giving.

From Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy.

The authors also include a half step of listening to the person you are apologizing to, and we call that a full step, not a half step.  We think miscommunication or lack of listening in the first place is the cause of many things a person would need to apologize for in the first place.

Just for Laughs

Ball of Confusion.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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