Why is it that drug addicts and computer aficionados are both called users?

If you don't have an e-mail address, you're in the Netherworld. If you don't have your own World Wide Web page, you're a nobody.

I sense an insatiable demand for connectivity. Maybe all these people have discovered important uses for the Internet. Perhaps some of them feel hungry for a community that our real neighborhoods don't deliver. At least a few must wonder what the big deal is.

The Internet has no such organization - files are made available at random locations. To search through this chaos, we need smart tools, programs that find resources for us.

We'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.

While I admire the insights of many of the people in the world of computing, I get this cold feeling that I speak a different language.

Data isn't information. ... Information, unlike data, is useful. While there's a gulf between data and information, there's a wide ocean between information and knowledge. What turns the gears in our brains isn't information, but ideas, inventions, and inspiration. Knowledge-not information-implies understanding. And beyond knowledge lies what we should be seeking: wisdom.