I'm surprised that the internet so often comes up in the context of humanities great technical achievements. Don't get me wrong, a seamlessly interconnected ne

I'm surprised that the internet so often comes up in the context of humanities great technical achievements. Don't get me wrong, a seamlessly interconnected network of computers has changed society and our lives tremendously. Technically speaking, it was not that remarkable of an achievement though. We already had some forms of remote communication for quite a while (telegraph, telephone, radio). With the rise of computers, connecting them was bound to be the next step, and not that much of a challenge as far as hardware and technology goes. The actual (technical) achievement was the computer.