To Gauge the Internet, Listen to the Steam Engine

By WILLIAM J. HOLSTEIN

The Internet’s impact is only beginning, says the author John Steele Gordon.

John Steele Gordon did not pass judgment on the Internet in his book, “The Business of America.” In a recent interview, however, he did have some things to say about dot-com mania and its historical precedents.

I should read this.

Damn, what an odd fellow. (my wife strikes again)

Graham Barker’s Navel Fluff Page

In the beginning…
It was on the 17th of January 1984 that I found myself under-occupied in a youth hostel in Brisbane. The night was steamy and stormy – too wet outside and too hot inside to do very much, and my attention drifted to my belly button. There it was … fluff! I must have seen it before that night, but this occasion was the first time I ever picked it out and wondered about it. I thought if I started collecting it, I’d eventually have enough to stuff a cushion, and so I stored my first piece of navel fluff in an empty film canister. The collection had begun.

Lookee here at what my wife found:

Mutter Museum, Philadelphia. Roadside America The Big Colon
One highlight is a giant colon that looks like a sand worm from Frank Herbert’s Dune � arranged with one end rearing up from the tastefully underlit display. Doctors were applauded for being able to correctly diagnose this whopper a gross enlargement of the colon and not as a tumor � without using X-rays. This digestive distension serves as an inspiration to new generations of doctors, and a warning to those of us who sometimes feel a little backed up.