Using an amazing sense of foresight, E. B. White has transformed a page into an exciting description of today's Internet. Charlotte is the big server (based in North Carolina) that uses voice recognition to interpret Wilbur's comments.

The story turns when Charlotte makes a Usenet posting of "Some Pig!" where the pig represents the user, and the pig is saved from death, symbolizing the user being happy because of all the new ways they have to waste time.

However, this is severely lacking in discussion of the underlying protocols. A good discussion of packet routing is in order even for the novice. It is important that users know the difference between http, ftp, gopher, telnet, ssh, and other mainstream protocols. In addition, there needs to be a better description of the underlying network structure of the Internet

I also congratulate E.B. White for inventing search engines, as Charlotte searches for flies.

Nonsense. It is because of this horrid book that I eat sausage every morning and tell my dad to kill every spider I see. :-)

> 1 Charlotte's Web, E. B. White's beguiling
> story of story of a spider named Charlotte
> and her friendship with a pre-Web 1.0 and
> 2.0 pig named Wilbur. Rumored to be the
> best-selling children's book of all time.

I must confess that having just read "Animal Farm" shortly before reading this book, I was a little hesitant about excepting this as a pure children's story without any hidden political agenda. I kept expecting the talking animals to rise up behind the pig and take over the farm!