Why I love writing online: Reason 99

Of the many things I love about electronic publishing is that I will never be compelled to atone for a bad prediction by running my words through a blender and drinking the resulting text-smoothie in front of hundreds of people.

If you believe everything you read in the Wall Street Journal, you should be worried about the coming "exaflood" that will soon drown the last mile of internet connectivity and for which the only solution is to give up on this idea of net neutrality.

As Nate Anderson explains in one of those long essays at Ars Technica, the exaflood threat may just a wee bit overblown. Not too surprising, considering where the author of that WSJ scare story works. And a scary story it is: he's gone and got the Hollywood Reporter all stirred up.

Thanks to Nate for reminding us that Bob Metcalfe, who knows a lot more about network capacity than Bret Swanson, had to eat his column on stage a decade ago for predicting internet "gigalapses" in 1996. "I was wrong," Metcalfe wrote. "I ate the column. I am sorry. I am not worthy."

Perhaps we can save Swanson the trouble (and indigestion) and say the same for him.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 04:24 PM  Permalink