----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
My cells all operate as a single cohesive system with an actual central control (one brain).
Nope; not really. Look up autonomic nervious system; your body makes *wide* use of distributed processing.
Human bodies which do not have that property suffer badly from it.
All of them, then, I guess.
There is no central brain managing what we call "THE internet" and my point isn't that INTERNETs don't exist, it's that there's no particular one you can point to and call it "THE internet".
I can point to any jack that is part of it, and say it's "The Internet" (note, please, capitalization) and be describing it accurately. This is not an issue of engineering; it's one of nomenclature and taxonomy. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274