3 ms·

Stevens' whole quote: "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? Beca

by cjoh 13y ago

Stevens' whole quote: "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... 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 doesn't strike me as someone who knows what they're talking about.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> 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. See, this is the funny part, not the "tubes". His staff sent him an internet? Yeah, I can see why that might take a while to deliver.
- anfedorov 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure he meant "email" and misspoke. The overall point that the people regulating things often don't know as much about them as a specialist would, but it seems rude to laugh at a small mistake like that.
  - furyg3 13y ago
    The point is that he is trying to convince people to regulate the internet. His rhetoric includes nonsense analogies that he doesn't even get straight. It's ridiculous. Far better to simply say "I've consulted with experts so-and-so, and their conclusion was [reads a quote from expert]"
    - cjoh 13y ago
      The underappreciated brilliance of this quote is that it's not clear what regulated industry he doesn't understand from his quote. Is it the Internet? Transportation? Waste removal? Plumbing?
  - cjoh 13y ago
    Also worth pointing out that if his staff (house.gov) sent him an email (house.gov) and they all presumably use the same mail server (they do, House IT is all in house), then the tubes he's referring to were literal wires going from the basement of the capitol building into his office. I suspect it'd be pretty hard for the "commercial" stuff to get caught up in that. Sounds like House IT was bad at administering a mailserver (they are -- when I was at the Sunlight Foundation, we linked to them and they called us accusing us of a DDoS), and decided to blame it on "the commercial internet."

by cjoh 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

> 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. See, this is the funny part, not the "tubes". His staff sent him an internet? Yeah, I can see why that might take a while to deliver.

anfedorov 13y ago
I'm pretty sure he meant "email" and misspoke. The overall point that the people regulating things often don't know as much about them as a specialist would, but it seems rude to laugh at a small mistake like that.
- furyg3 13y ago
  The point is that he is trying to convince people to regulate the internet. His rhetoric includes nonsense analogies that he doesn't even get straight. It's ridiculous. Far better to simply say "I've consulted with experts so-and-so, and their conclusion was [reads a quote from expert]"
  - cjoh 13y ago
    The underappreciated brilliance of this quote is that it's not clear what regulated industry he doesn't understand from his quote. Is it the Internet? Transportation? Waste removal? Plumbing?
- cjoh 13y ago
  Also worth pointing out that if his staff (house.gov) sent him an email (house.gov) and they all presumably use the same mail server (they do, House IT is all in house), then the tubes he's referring to were literal wires going from the basement of the capitol building into his office. I suspect it'd be pretty hard for the "commercial" stuff to get caught up in that. Sounds like House IT was bad at administering a mailserver (they are -- when I was at the Sunlight Foundation, we linked to them and they called us accusing us of a DDoS), and decided to blame it on "the commercial internet."