Surfing the Internetz (using Land Lines, yo.)

I can make some basic assumptions about your aptitude on the World* Wide Web because you can read this article.
*(Excepting assorted dictatorships like China)**

Obviously, unless you're in the increasingly tiny demographic that hates porn watching adorable videos of kittens, you've been on the web. Hell, odds are you've not only been on the web, but have been on it for the past 2 hours (raise that number to 2 weeks if coming here from TVTropes).

And, not only are you on the web, but you can perform tasks that lower your value to humanity, for example, spending any significant time on Farmville.

Bonus negative points if you're playing during work. Of course, that assumes people play outside of work- which may actually be worse, considering. Because if they are, they either a) consider playing not out of boredom, but because they find it fun and b) they find it more fun that doing anything else.

Better than sex

Other examples- knowing what Rule 34 means. More bonus negative points you've actually been to a message board about it, and triple positive bonus multiplier if you didn't weep for your childhood.

Or having over 1000 friends on any social networking site, or spending more time updating the wikipedia pages of Gundam than your job (this really happened). The list goes on.

The Internet can be a force for good too, don't get me wrong. Its allowed all kinds of amazing things to happen, and is how I get 100% of my news, and 98% of my social contact in any given day.

The other 2% is why my liver hates me

But, pray tell, do you know how the Internet actually works? Where does the Internet exist? If I told you all it took was a really retarded shark or careless anchor drop to take entire countries off the web, would you believe me?

Well, lets look at phone lines. All you kids going, "Whats a phone?" can shut up. Its that stupid app on your iPhone that lets you talk to someone else. But ignore cell phones for a minute (and by minute, I mean the rest of this post).

No, this isn't a tangent about technology that's older than you. The Internet and those old rotor phones are remarkably similar, when it comes down to it.

Here's the quick and dirty (but not like a cheap whore) rundown: You dial a number, that number is sent along your phone line to your phone company's office. The phone company connects your line and the line you dialed, and viola, you can say happy birthday to the cousin you don't really like.

The Internet is like that, except more. Confused? Thought so. Lets break it down.

Preferably with a dancing montage to 90's pop

You start Firefox or Google Chrome (or if you're stuck in a time warp, Internet Explorer or AOL depending on your era). Then, when you want to go to Google to look up pictures of memes, you type Google's address in the white bar up there.

Stop. Parallel time: that collection of letters and dots you just typed? That's a phone number. www.google.com is the "phone address" to Google's server. The moment you hit enter, your computer sends the "phone address" to your Internet Service Provider's Point of Presence- which is sorta like the phone company's office. They then send your request for Google to a fiber optic line, which then goes to Google's server, making a few stops along the way at other servers. Then, viola, you can get pictures of one of the Kardashians.

So, the Internet isn't some sort of abstract Information Superhighway or some great data cloud that hovers above our heads, waiting for our computers to plead with it for information.

Its just like phone lines you see running down your street.

above- ten thousand troll posts

Now, I know. The more sinister of you want to know what I mean by "taking countries off the net." Well, remember, fiber optic lines are that- lines. And in order to connect two places that happen to be divided by an ocean, we need to lay down lines. On the bottom of the ocean. Because that's safe. And Cheap.

As the more animated and chipper say these days, LOL no. There are only a handful of lines that span the Earth's oceans, to continue that example. They have about as much protection as an xbox controller- and my cats chew through those suckers like its goddamn candy. So, to force a country, or entire continent, off the web, simply sever the lines. This isn't even a new thing, it recently happened to Armenia. And that was a land line she severed.

Wait. I think I just found a way to get rid of 409 scammers once and for all. Or at least drastically reduce the number of African royalty estranged from their funds.
**Please don't hack my blog, China