Back when Al Gore invented the thing, dialup was the only option for consumers. A direct data connection was out of the question; it was prohibitively expensive for anyone but businesses—big businesses—and there really wasn’t enough content out there for anyone to use big bandwidth on, anyway.
Things change, though. As the Internet grew more pervasive, so too did the amount of data on it. And the size of the data got bigger, too—from 64k GIF files to massive JPEGs, MP3s, and even video.
These days, now, you need a big pipe just to surf the stupid thing. Forget doing anything useful on it; anything more sophisticated than e-mail requires DSL or ADSL or something along that line.
This is why my niece was knitting while reading a webcomic. It gave her something to do while waiting for the next page to load via dialup.
* * *
In the "O Lord, I am so surprised" department, apparently Hugo Chavez has won re-election. Allow me to express my incredulousness at this astounding development. "Words alone" and so forth.
* * *
Brian Dunbar discusses seven campaign promises that Boss Tweek has already broken. A good read--and a pithy one. (Pithier than anything you'll see here, that's for sure.)
* * *
Vlad Putin advises the US to avoid socialism. This from a former KGB dude. That's pretty awesome advice. It's coming from someone who ought to know. Heh.
* * *
The stimulated economy. I think a behaviorist would call that "negative reinforcement", don't you?
* * *
Republicans try to follow the law, Democrats say they are playing politics. Well, that's interesting. What can one say about that?
* * *
As for me, I'm going to hit WoW while I still have battery time left....
