Nine Year Old Aims to Print the Internet
Written by Chica Loca
Thursday, 16 February 2006
In an effort to help nine year old Cody Darnell win a $50 bet made with his older cousin at their family's thanksgiving lunch last November, the townsfolk of Springwood in North Dakota, USA have joined forces to lend assistance.
Dorothy and Dwight Darnell, were surprised last week when they discovered reams of pages printed from the Internet in their son Cody's bedroom and learned of his plan to print a hard copy of all of the Internet to win a $50 bet with his seventeen year old cousin, Mikey Darnell-Wilson. The bet came about during the main course of the family's Thanksgiving lunch after a heated debate between Cody and Mikey about the size of the Internet and the feasibility of printing it out. Under the terms of the bet, Cody has six months to complete the printing and if Mikey can find a site on the Internet which has not been printed he wins the bet, if he can’t he loses.
After hearing about the bet, Dwight phoned Mikey who immediately apologised to his aunt and uncle for unfairly teasing his younger cousin and offered to call off the bet. Cody, however, insisted that he be allowed to continue and Dorothy and Dwight reluctantly agreed under the condition that websites which contain adult or obscene content be excluded from the bet. Dwight explained, "I know there’s some nasty filth on the Internet that a good Christian family like the Darnells don’t want to see so we got us some clever software that stops it getting into our humble home."
News of the bet became public when Mikey's regular posts of progress reports and photos on his personal homepage were featured by one of Springwood’s local radio stations. Since then, the town's residents have flooded the Darnells with offers of assistance. The local computer supplies store, Big Frank’s World of Computers, has donated a large capacity laser printer and the Springwood Traders' Association is seeking donations from local businesses to cover the costs of paper and printer toner. Others are helping by taking it in turns to do the printing, creating lists of websites to be printed and providing storage space for the printouts.
Environmental organisations were outraged when they heard of the bet and the president of the Springwood Conservation Society, Art Grossmann, was forthright in expressing his opinion, saying "You have got to be joking. Some dumb kid is wasting all that paper to win a stupid $50 bet." In the light of this criticism, Cody has agreed to use recycled paper and to use a printer driver that can print eight pages on a sheet of paper.
This heart warming story of determination and community spirit has been featured on national and international news services and the Darnells have become local celebrities. Dorothy, a waitress at a local diner and Dwight, an unemployed truck driver, have been surprised by the amount of interest in Cody’s story. As Dorothy explained, "We've been getting hundreds of calls from all sorts of people. Most of them want interviews and we've even had Hollywood people wanting to make a feature film. Imagine that, a film about our Cody and little ol’ Springwood."
The bet will be decided on May 24th, 2006 and will be celebrated a special holiday proclaimed by the mayor of Springwood, Ed Newsome, as Internet Day. Cody summed up the sentiment of the town by saying, "This is like, totally, the coolest thing ever. I'm gonna show Mikey that he’s wrong." before returning to his computer and printer.
9 Year Old Tries To Print the Internet
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nicely said.
