tubes and lasers

welcome: to the world of tomorrow! 

the internet is pretty amazing for a series of tubes. i mean, sure, we all remember that senator who couldn't articulate at all - AT ALL - the internet in any vaguely recognizable way ("an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock"). but seriously, who can rightly explain the internet?

google image search, that's who: the internet is lasers.

personally, my favorite term was always information superhighway because if brevity is the soul of wit, surely al gore and some guy from south korean are surely the wisest of us all. check out this picture of the T1 backbone of the internet circa 1996. 

in closing this brief, non-sensical entry, everyone should go read this newsweek article from 1995 about why the internet will never amount to anything. of particular hilarity: 

"Yet (some expert who makes me look like an ass) predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure ... We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?"

umm, amazon averaged $1,236,250.00 a month last year. how much did your mall make? 

amazon.com's income statement, 1997-2007 (source: morningstar.com)

(USD $MI)