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I think both assertions are wrong: Regulators still have no real conception of how any of this technology works, and you can watch the congressional hearings wi

I think both assertions are wrong: Regulators still have no real conception of how any of this technology works, and you can watch the congressional hearings with Facebook for evidence that mostly they didn't really have a clue what to do once they had him in the room, or how exactly Facebook even makes money. The court system only confirmed your rights to use webcrawlers within the last year, and webcrawlers have been around since the start of Google. And as for the series of tubes guy, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He clearly still didn't have a good grasp on the subject, but I don't think he was being literal.

efaref 6y ago
I think the people who mocked the senator for the "series of tubes" comment would also be the kind of people to brag about their "phat pipe".
joshspankit 6y ago
(for the record, I don’t mean to call out the fellow who actually made the series of tubes statement, it was just clear to me that even as an analogy it showed a lack of understanding of the basics of how the internet actually functioned, and that people in his position had no ongoing mandate to understand it.) Here’s an example of what I mean by they have more understanding now: https://youtu.be/o1MZOtKYnfM https://youtu.be/o1MZOtKYnfM And to a lesser extent: https://youtu.be/kd3Qa9tlA3o https://youtu.be/kd3Qa9tlA3o
- sanderjd 6y ago
  I always thought it was a pretty good metaphor and didn't understand why he got so much grief for it. Breaking up messages into little chunks, sticking each chunk into one of those little capsules like they have at the bank, putting each capsule into a pneumatic tube, sending it down a series of tubes with switching stations along the way, and reconstructing all the chunks (which may have taken different paths through the series of tubes and may have arrived out of order) at the destination -- this is a good metaphor for the internet!

efaref 6y ago

I think the people who mocked the senator for the "series of tubes" comment would also be the kind of people to brag about their "phat pipe".

joshspankit 6y ago

(for the record, I don’t mean to call out the fellow who actually made the series of tubes statement, it was just clear to me that even as an analogy it showed a lack of understanding of the basics of how the internet actually functioned, and that people in his position had no ongoing mandate to understand it.) Here’s an example of what I mean by they have more understanding now: https://youtu.be/o1MZOtKYnfM https://youtu.be/o1MZOtKYnfM And to a lesser extent: https://youtu.be/kd3Qa9tlA3o https://youtu.be/kd3Qa9tlA3o

sanderjd 6y ago
I always thought it was a pretty good metaphor and didn't understand why he got so much grief for it. Breaking up messages into little chunks, sticking each chunk into one of those little capsules like they have at the bank, putting each capsule into a pneumatic tube, sending it down a series of tubes with switching stations along the way, and reconstructing all the chunks (which may have taken different paths through the series of tubes and may have arrived out of order) at the destination -- this is a good metaphor for the internet!