Re: What is Usenet? [REPOST]

[from: news.groups, alt.fan.usenet]

Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote:

[...]
> Larry Doering posted the following to talk.bizarre in the mid-nineties:
> 
> ] THINK of the computer highway AS a highway.
> ] 
> ] There it is again.  Some clueless FOOL talking about the "Information
> ] Superhighway."  They don't know JACK about the Net.  It's NOTHING
> ] like a Superhighway.  That's a BAD metaphor.
> ] 
> ] Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the OTHER direction.  Suppose
> ] the HIGHWAYS were like the NET.  All right!  Severe craziness.  A
> ] highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide.  Most with potholes.  Privately
> ] operated bridges and overpasses.  No highway patrol.  A couple of
> ] rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles.  500 member VIGILANTE
> ] POSSES with nuclear weapons.  237 ON RAMPS at every intersection.  NO
> ] SIGNS.  Wanna get to Ensenada?  Holler out the window at a passing
> ] truck to ask directions.  AD HOC traffic laws.  Some lanes would VOTE
> ] to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday
> ] through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00.  Other lanes would just SHOOT
> ] you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
> ] 
> ] AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA
> ] victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it.  Throwing
> ] DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which
> ] have been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits.  Some are 2.5 horsepower
> ] LAWNMOWER ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour.  Others
> ] burn NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120.
> ] 
> ] No license tags.  World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead.  Terrifying
> ] paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES.  Bumper mounted MACHINE
> ] GUNS.  Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE
> ] PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe.  Flatbed trucks with ANTI-
> ] AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch
> ] helicopter.  A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with
> ] HYDROCHLORIC ACID.
> ] 
> ] NO OFFRAMPS.
> ] 
> ] Now THAT'S the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
> 
> 
> I hope this is helpful.  Much of this applies to Usenet.
> --scott


-- 
^Ï^.      Sn!pe, PA, FIBS  -  Professional Crastinator.   
                    My pet rock Gordon just is.

Google Groups articles not seen unless poster is whitelisted.