48 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
48 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
Subject: If superhighways were like the internet. <off. to
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technophobes>
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Here's something I got (appropriately) over the net from
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someone, who got it from someone, who in turn got it from
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somebody else. I have no idea who originally wrote it.
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"Think of the Internet as a Highway."
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There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the
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"Information Superhighway." They don't know didley
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about the net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's
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a rotten metaphor.
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Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction.
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Suppose the highways were like the net. . .
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A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls
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for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No
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highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with
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broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear
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weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.
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No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at
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a passing truck to ask directions. Ad hoc traffic laws.
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Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-
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vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between
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7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a
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trial for talking on a car phone.
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AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of
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ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten
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cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled
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at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower
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lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour.
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Others burn nitrogylcerin and idle at 120.
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No license plates. World War II bomber nose art
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instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire
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eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the
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finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up
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your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-
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aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic
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helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirtguns filled
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with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.
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NO OFFRAMPS. None.
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Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system. |