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could be worse...

This quickly wanders OFF-TOPIC and then drives the highway metaphor into a ditch, but that is because the topic at hand (moronic metaphors) does influence said OFF topic; which is in fact, in a ditch anyway. So mod this thing sKiz0phr3niK (if it ever gets read at all) because I don't know where such a tautological polemic belongs, but the fact that that is precisely what this entry is, helps me to believe that it belongs with the rest of its ilk(see brief excerpt) somewhere on /.. So if your socio-technological imagination rides around in a vintage four-wheel drive vehicle , it's time to get out and lock the wheel hubs for this rocky off-road rant, or if you're used to existential off-roading PKD-style, then take off the seat belt and enjoy banging your head against the roof with every ill-advised turn, ahead.

I'm glad that this issue of broken highway metaphors is finally helping some people realize the flaccidy ... er, fallacy of the driving metaphor to desribe the Internet; although my skeptical side wagers that many of the people now saying the highway metaphor is retarded for access are the same people who defended the metaphor with regards to transit (bandwidth). My point is, let's link this line of thinking back to the Ethernet First Mile bandwidth issue, because the two are not unrelated.

Capacity, capability, culpability, and community are all interdependent with respect to building the rest of the Internet. Contrary to popular mass delusion, as of the end of 2003, the Internet is less than 50% built. It will not be complete until there is free and unfettered Ethernet Everywhere.

As the current stupid "driver license" idea clearly reveals with respect to access, so transit (bandwidth) is not like a highway, either. The Internet doesn't take you somewhere, that was a FICTION work, but many still seem mindfscked into believing that, at least on a subconscious level. (Also mindfsked was the hype about the movie, apparently.)

The Internet is communication, not transportation. The Information Superhighway is perhaps one of the most malevolent memes unleashed on the world since "the most bewitching and insidious work of literature ever written," namely, Brave New World (and I even voted for the True President, Al Gore!). The highway metaphor is the underlying lie that is giving government the idea that it should own our communication infrastructure! Ummm ... didn't we just topple the evil Soviet Empire for doing things like running all state-controlled communications channels? For all his own misplaced highwayisms, our True President Gore did NOT envision a government owned and controlled Internet; but don't tell that to local government control freaks. If a municipality suggested that it own all of the phone, radio, and TV transmission facilities, can you imagine the uproar? But somehow it's a daydream for government to build and own the communications medium that transcends the Old Comms Trinity.

I propose that we get our analogies consistent and make a concerted effort to destroy this Highway to Hell internet metaphor. I'm amazed on a daily basis at the lengths supposedly smart people will go to defe

Here are some of the best examples of windows crashing on high visibility systems that are relied upon:

in the street
At the airport
at the atm
on CNN
At disneyland
On your phone
In an airplane
At the bus stop

I'm not expecting many comments on this, but there is the .nz domain SRS project. There's been a lot of discussion on it. From InternetNZ:

The SRS will, as much as possible, be built on an open source platform, particularly software meeting the licence approval conditions of the Open Source Initiative (see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html ), So long as the security requirements of the system are not compromised, this means that the source code of the system will be available to all and with no licence fees.

I'm interested to see how this pans out. - Jonathan

Normally, I'd relegate this sort of post to that of a humorous troll. But, this is wonderfully applicable here. A few people, in jest, have pointed out that in a civil trial Ian could exonerate himself by proving that his statements were completely true.

Check this shit out:

Milford, Utah, high-school teacher Cherry Florence was fired in February for an indiscretion. According to the local board of education, after the school, for health reasons, interviewed students individually as to their level of sexual activity, Florence released to her classes a list of which of the school's 170 teenagers were virgins.

Source: http://www.42.dropbear.id.au/wrd_news3. html (annoying javascript keeps the window on top. bastards.)

(I'm going to presume the above is true, as 170 people in high school is about right for a town of 1100 or so. I graduated with 20 and I came from a town of 300, so it seems right.)

Now, pressuming this goes to trial, couldn't Ian just hold up the list and say, "See! She really is a slut!" Actually, that's another problem in and of itself--define slut. Drunk. Incompetent. Very relative terms, giving him a lot of wiggle room. Here in North Dakota, I know quite a few people (old country Lutherans actually; listen to Garisson Keilor) who consider any woman who has sex for reasons other than procreation, or--[sarcasm]dear god forbid[/sarcasm]--marriage is a slut. This is a rather nice chink in the plaintiff's armor I'd suppose.

Thoughts?

And please check out my previous post, just a few below, with Milford High School's snail mail address. I want to see that school office innundated with mail on this one. It's the least we could do, helping out a kid so he doesn't have to go through the shit a lot of us did/do.