The internet is a series of tubes…
July 3, 2006 – 9:25 amI have no idea how to even fathom a response to this.
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.
It’s a series of tubes.
And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
This is what is running our government? Damn. (This is the same guy who proposed the “Bridge to Nowhere“)
2 Responses to “The internet is a series of tubes…”
The Senate takes action on hundreds of technical issues in a session. Senators can’t be an expert on any one thing; there simply isn’t enough time.
When those guys need an expert opinion .. well that’s what their staff is for.
He’s got it mostly right, from the 20,000 foot view. Substitute ‘pipes’ for ‘tubes’ and it might sound like a clued in tech explaining the internets to his Aunt Mabel.
By Brian on Jul 3, 2006
I don’t expect them to be an expert in everything, but when they’re up trying to explain a concept to others, I do expect them to have some idea of what they’re talking about. Maybe this guy just got a set of bad info from one of his interns, I don’t know. Of course, this is the same guy who lobbied loudly for the RIAA to be able to remotely erase data off your hard drive, then when one of his constituants bought him an iPod, he proclaimed to Congress something to the effect of “They want to take away my music?! This thing (iPod) is great! Why doesn’t everyone have one of these?”
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.”
That just doesn’t make sense. If I send you an email, and you get it a few days later, it’s not because “the internet is clogged.” It’s probably because my email server or your email server was having issues.
Yes, the internet can be described as a bunch of pipes, or tubes, or whatever you want to call them. The problem is, like you said, with the scale he uses to defend his arguement. If the internet is “busy” for a period, you may see a minor delay in recieving content, however that’s based on where, and what you’re viewing. Also, the delay won’t be days, it’ll be seconds (for 99% of the content that 99% of people use). (Brian, with you I know it’s a moot conversation, the above is mostly for other readers.)
By Seth Matheson on Jul 4, 2006