Private Thoughts Made Public

I’d like you to imagine, if you would, that every time you wanted to read a library book, you’d have to write a request for it on a postcard, put your return address on it and post it to the library. The library (which is probably on the other side of the world) would receive your request, get the book, copy it onto postcards and post them back to you, one by one. The postcards are all numbered so that when you receive them you can put them back into the right order and read your book. If you wanted to see a photo of the author, then you’d have to write another request to the library, post it, and wait for the picture to come back on another series of postcards. You’d then have to put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle in order to see the picture.
This is pretty much what happens every time you request a web page and see it on your browser. Every second of every day billions of packets of data are whizzing along cables buried under roads and under the sea, carrying little bits of information to millions of computers all over the world. Some are earmarked for web browsers, some for email programs, some for chat programs and so on. Each packet holds about the same amount of data you’d be able to get onto an average postcard, and that includes the address it’s being sent to and the address it’s coming from.
This is pretty much how the internet works. It’s an amazing achievement of research, development, technological advancement, implementation, training and acceptance. What’s even more amazing than all that, in my opinion, is that everyone takes it all for granted, and uses it every day without paying the slightest bit of attention to what is going on, and moaning and groaning when it doesn’t work. How many people reading this have felt that losing their email connection (at home or at work) is as debilitating as losing a limb? Just ten years ago internet connectivity was hideously slow and expensive by today’s standards, and very few people had access to it. Nowadays it’s seen as a standard utility to be provided in our homes just like electricity and water.
So next time you feel like complaining if your internet connection stops working, think how amazing it is that it works at all.
(For more information, read this and this)