Series of tubes: Difference between revisions
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In the 2007 [[Penny Arcade Expo]] keynote speech given by [[Wil Wheaton]] he makes reference of remembering when the internet was more like a truck than a series of tubes.<ref>[http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/PAX07_Keynote.mp3 Wil Wheaton's speech can be found here.]</ref>. |
In the 2007 [[Penny Arcade Expo]] keynote speech given by [[Wil Wheaton]] he makes reference of remembering when the internet was more like a truck than a series of tubes.<ref>[http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/PAX07_Keynote.mp3 Wil Wheaton's speech can be found here.]</ref>. |
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== Technical Analysis of the comment == |
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Stevens' speech |
Stevens' speech analyzed by [[Princeton University|Princeton]] [[computer science]] professor [[Edward Felten]], who said that he disagreed with Stevens' argument but felt that the language "series of tubes" was entirely reasonable as a non-technical explanation given off-the-cuff in a meeting.<ref>[[Edward Felten]], [http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1042 Taking Stevens Seriously], ''Freedom to Tinker'', Monday [[17 July]] [[2006]].</ref> |
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<!-- According to [[Reuters]], Stevens is open to going on ''The Daily Show'' to rebut Jon Stewart and defend his use of the term by asserting, "I have a letter from a big scientist who said I was absolutely right in using the word 'tubes'".{{fact}} --> |
<!-- According to [[Reuters]], Stevens is open to going on ''The Daily Show'' to rebut Jon Stewart and defend his use of the term by asserting, "I have a letter from a big scientist who said I was absolutely right in using the word 'tubes'".{{fact}} --> |
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Revision as of 16:20, 25 September 2007
United States Senator Ted Stevens described the Internet as a "series of tubes", while discussing network neutrality.[1] On June 28, 2006, he used this metaphor to criticize a proposed amendment to a committee bill. The amendment would have prohibited Internet service providers from charging fees to give some companies higher priority access to their networks or their customers. This metaphor, along with several other odd choices of words, was widely ridiculed as demonstrating Stevens's poor understanding of the Internet.
Partial text of Stevens' comments
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.[2]
Publicity
On June 28 2006, Public Knowledge Government Affairs Manager Alex Curtis wrote a brief blog entry introducing the Senator's speech and posting an MP3 recording.[3] The next day, the Wired Magazine blog 27B Stroke 6 featured a much longer blog post[2] by Ryan Singel, including Singel's transcriptions of some parts of Stevens' speech considered the most humorous. Within days, thousands of other blogs and message boards, including BoingBoing,[4] Slashdot,[5] Fark, [6] DailyKos [7] and Digg[8] posted the story. Most writers and commentators derisively cited several of Senator Stevens' misunderstandings of Internet technology, arguing that the speech showed that Senator Stevens had apparently formed a strong opinion on a topic which he understood poorly (e.g., referring to an e-mail message as "an Internet", and blaming bandwidth issues for an e-mail problem much more likely to be caused by mail server or routing issues). The Internet phenomenon sparked mainstream media attention, including a mention in a New York Times story.[9] The technology podcast This Week in Tech discussed the incident in Episode 60.[10]
Citations on The Daily Show
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has made multiple references to Steven's "series of tubes" description.
- July 12 2006: In breaking the story on the show, host Jon Stewart featured audio excerpts and text transcripts of Stevens' speech, acommpanied first by Stevens' photo and later by photos of Gabby Hayes and of Grampa Simpson. Stewart compared him to "a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3:00 am", then going on to answer his question, "Why?" with, "Maybe it's because you don't seem to know jack shit about computers or the Internet — but that's okay — you're just the guy in charge of regulating it."
- July 19 2006: In John Hodgman's faux-expert analysis on net neutrality, he defended Stevens's claim that the internet is "not a big truck;" with rare exceptions, Hodgman explained, one cannot use a dump truck to masturbate. He also explained that, should a tier system be adopted for distributing packets, a lower tier will, in fact, be a series of tubes, claiming that President Eisenhower had installed a pneumatic tube system for message delivery in homes built before 1956. Hodgman demonstrates this by recieving a "pneu-mail" of Chuck Norris jokes.
- July 24 2006: In an interview with John McCain, Stewart asked, "You know, privately, can you pull Senator Stevens aside and go, 'It's not really literally tubes'?", to which McCain replied, "I wouldn't want to disillusion him."[11]
- August 8 2006: In regard to BP's troubles with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, correspondent Rob Corddry started to explain the trouble with the pipeline, then turned it over to a recording of Ted Stevens saying, "It's not a big truck. It's, it's a series of tubes!"
- October 2 2006: Correspondent John Oliver: "Everyone knows that Congresspeople are assigned to committees based on their greatest weakness! Why else would Senator Ted Stevens, a man more comfortable in the horse and buggy era, wind up in charge of regulating the Internet... which, he believes, is a series of tubes... a series of tubes through which other Congressmen can reach in and fondle sixteen-year-old boys?" (a reference to the Mark Foley scandal.)
- December 18 2006: Stewart, interviewing then Presidential candidate Tom Vilsack, referenced the quote while plugging Vilsack's website, stating "Is that one of them Internets? ... Go visit him on the series of tubes."
- January 23 2007: When discussing current presidential candidates' use of the Internet as a campaign tool, Stewart said "The candidates are now turning to the interwebs, a series of tubes..."
- March 2007: By this time, Stewart's tube references had become shorter, but possibly more frequent, e.g., "intertubes," or "tubular interwebs."
- April 16 2007: Stewart pretended to call Stevens in regards to the deletion of 5 million emails from the White House server. Stevens' answers to Stewart's questions included excerpts from his "series of tubes" speech, in addition to audio excerpts of Stevens's speaches, including one of the Senator yelling "NO!"
Video game citations
Gears of War for Microsoft's Xbox 360 included an achievement titled A Series of Tubes that required the player to host and complete 50 ranked matches over the Internet.[12]
Other citations
As of version 0.1.47.0, the Firefox Add-on Google Gears sports the description, "These are the gears that power the tubes!"
The webcomic xkcd makes references to the "tubes" on two pages: first, by including the word on a chart of terms used to make fun of the internet, and secondly showing "The Series of Tubes" on its map of internet communities, as a mountainous peninsula off of MySpace.
A plugin written by a user named xdog for the AppleTV and entitled "A Series Of Tubes" was released May 23, 2007. The plugin allows users to browse and watch popular YouTube videos using their AppleTV.
In the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo keynote speech given by Wil Wheaton he makes reference of remembering when the internet was more like a truck than a series of tubes.[13].
Technical Analysis of the comment
Stevens' speech analyzed by Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten, who said that he disagreed with Stevens' argument but felt that the language "series of tubes" was entirely reasonable as a non-technical explanation given off-the-cuff in a meeting.[14]
The term pipe is a commonly used idiom to refer to a data connection, with pipe diameter being analogous to bandwidth.[15]
Routers use a data structure called a queue to buffer packets.[16] When packets arrive more quickly than can be forwarded, the router will hold the packets in a queue until they can be sent on to the next router or be dropped.[17] On links that become congested, packets typically spend more time waiting in the queue than they do actually moving down wires or optical fiber. It is the delay of packets in the queue that causes the latency problems that make certain types of services impossible to use.[18]
Media
References
- ^ "stevens-on-nn.mp3" (MP3). publicknowledge.org.
- ^ a b Singel, Ryan and Kevin Poulsen (29 June 2006). "Your Own Personal Internet". 27B Stroke 6, Wired.com. Retrieved 2006-08-24.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
(help) - ^ Alex Curtis' original blog entry
- ^ BoingBoing's take (7/02/06)
- ^ Slashdot's take (July 3 2006)
- ^ Sen. Stevens explains the internets: "And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes"
- ^ Ted Stevens on the internets
- ^ Digg's take (July 2 2006)
- ^ New York Times - Tail is wagging the internet dog (July 8 2006)
- ^ This week in tech episode 60 - A Series of Tubes.
- ^ Senator McCain on the Daily Show discuss tubes (DEAD LINK)
- ^ Mark (December 6, 2006) A Series of Tubes in Gears of War, txfx.net
- ^ Wil Wheaton's speech can be found here.
- ^ Edward Felten, Taking Stevens Seriously, Freedom to Tinker, Monday 17 July 2006.
- ^ Michael Drapkin, Jon Lowy, and Daniel Marovitz (2001). Three Clicks Away: Advice from the Trenches of Ecommerce. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0471396826.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/614/15.html
- ^ http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2309.txt
- ^ http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=606583&rl=1
See also
- Pneumatic tubes
- Speaking tubes
- Optical fiber
- Queue (data structure)
- List of political catch phrases
- Peter Openshaw
External links
This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. |
- Mr. Stevens's wild ride through a "series of tubes", an early history of the meme by former Public Knowledge intern Tim Schneider
- Senator Stevens is Not As Dumb as He Sounds, a defense by Lew Rockwell
- New York Times: Senator’s Slip of the Tongue Keeps on Truckin’ Over the Web
- this WEEK in TECH podcast talking about net neutrality and the series of tubes
- How Internet Infrastructure Works