The Internet is the Information Everglades -- a bewildering network of channels, sloughs, bogs, islands, dead ends, open spaces, and undergrowth that contains a varied mix of edible, predatory, beautiful, loathsome, benign, and toxic beings, all under no central direction.

Jeez Louise! That is, in its inimitable way, a FAN-tastic description of the Internet. Information Highway, my *ss! Godzilla made of montages!

Now, move aside, I gotta take my blower-mounted pogostick with chrome-reversed muffler-bearings and zproing outta here. CUL-

Maybe the guy was thinking of the Long Island Expressway during rush hour, or the Southern State Parkway with or without the toll booths. I can get a worm or a virus from another continent in seconds without leaving the room. I have found some good stuff at sites like this on the off ramps. Hmmm, I dunno, that highway thingy may hold up.

Not sure of the origin of this description, but the opening paragraph is eerily similar to Randy's dinner table musings in "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. And the rest of it squares almost exactly with the novel's view of the Net, too.

If the Internet is a highway, then you have to get off, move at least three miles from the interchange, walk into some obscure eatery, and hope your immune system can handle the strain. In exchange, you get the wisdom of your countermate, perhaps a recipe. Those who benefit from the Internet the most are users who forsee the unforseen. Like Socrates, they know they don't know everything, and they have an ability to sift value out of volume. It takes work. It takes some belief.