Tubes or pipe?

Posted on 7/17/2006 by Dylan Tweney

Without trying to defend the clueless Senator Ted Stevens, I still have to ask: Why was it stupid for him to say the Internet is a “series of tubes” but it’s smart when people in the know call it a “bunch of pipes“? Huh? (Yeah, I know Doc says it’s not just pipes, it’s also a marketplace, which as we know means it’s also a conversation.) Here’s a map of all those pipes, btw. Looks like a big clusterfuck of tubes, actually, more than a “series.”

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  • http://robert.strohmeyer.org Strohmy

    Context is everything, man. When people in the know refer to the Net as a bunch of pipes, they mean it metaphorically and their audience understands this. When Stevens says it’s a series of tubes, he seems to mean it literally, and his speech carries the implication that he thinks he knows more about the subject than everyone he’s talking to.

  • http://dylan.tweney.com Dylan

    there’s also the fact that he sounded like a freakin’ idiot. “I got an Internet yesterday” is the stupidest part of his commentary, in my opinion.

    Still, I’m holding out for dubbing the internet “a clusterfuck of pipes.” Or of tubes. I don’t really care which.

  • thane

    John Stewart had two good commentaries on this. In the first, he explains the internets:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClkE64nFDY

    And in the second, he brings in an expert to explain how the internets are not like a dump truck.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc06y7iaZ20