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Comments: 174 +- Technology: How Heavy Is the Internet? on Friday November 20, @06:08PM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday November 20, @06:08PM
from the he's-not-heavy-he's-my-router dept.
from the he's-not-heavy-he's-my-router dept.
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internet
An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered how much the internet physically weighs? 498,438,559,990kg, according to CNET. To reach this figure, they added together public data on the weight of every computer, server and connecting cable. To this they added 6,075,000kg of iPhones, and over 6,800,000kg of Blackberries. Finally, they added the weight of 287,524 viruses and 85 billion+ webpages."
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Submission: How heavy is the Internet? by Anonymous Coward
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OOOPS! (Score:2)
I just typed something, and made it heavier than that!
Re:OOOPS! (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry for this lame thought: One day, long after it as it becomes self-aware, the Internet will collapse under it's own weight into a black hole, becoming the creator of a whole new universe.
Parent
Slightly heavier then... (Score:5, Funny)
"How Heavy Is the Internet?"
Slightly heavier then the total weight of the worlds useless journalists.
Re:Slightly heavier then... (Score:5, Funny)
What a fucked up metric. That's like asking "how red is 7?" or "what's the personality of a grapefruit?"
Parent
Re:Slightly heavier then... (Score:5, Funny)
"how red is 7?"
Just about half, assuming 4 bits per channel.
"what's the personality of a grapefruit?"
Bitter.
Parent
Re:Slightly heavier then... (Score:4, Interesting)
Top half or bottom?
Parent
Re:Slightly heavier then... (Score:5, Funny)
What a fucked up metric. That's like asking "how red is 7?" or "what's the personality of a grapefruit?"
Your momma is so fat, her circumference is 3.1415 internets.
/idleispants
Parent
Re: That's like asking "how red is 7?" (Score:2)
That's not nearly as f'ed up as you might think. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme-color_synesthesia [wikipedia.org]
Ask enough people and I'm sure you can actually come to an appropriate answer to the question of just how red the number 7 is.
Not to mention (Score:2)
the users...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And CowboyNeal accounts for half of all that user weight.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be silly. (Score:5, Funny)
The internet doesn't weigh anything [youtube.com].
idleispants (Score:4, Insightful)
Why isn't this in idle?
If it's supposed to be serious, you have to amortize the weight of the equipment over its uses. A desktop that spends half its use playing solitaire, 1/4 of its use surfing the web, and 1/4 of its use spamming the world under viral control only counts for half.
Re: (Score:2)
Why isn't this in idle?
If it's supposed to be serious, you have to amortize the weight of the equipment over its uses. A desktop that spends half its use playing solitaire, 1/4 of its use surfing the web, and 1/4 of its use spamming the world under viral control only counts for half.
If you're weighing traffic, sure. I figured they were weighing connectivity - an analogous question might be, "how much does your corporate network weigh?" Being part of a network doesn't require actually using it
Of course, you'd still have to decide whether/how to amortize time spent off the network (e.g. computer is off, phone is outside of data plan area, etc).
why equipment? (Score:2)
I'm wondering why the measurement is with the equipment at all. 'The Internet' isn't so much the hardware it's being run on, is it?
Wouldn't do much good if that hardware wasn't moving bits and bytes around.
So perhaps the question should be... how much data traffic is there for 'the internet' and, by splitting that up into electrons and photons (presuming wireless signals have no mass), how much does that weigh.
I wonder if that could actually end up being an appreciable amount if measured over the course of
They forgot.... (Score:2)
To add the weight of all the Tubes and Dump Trucks!
Rosie O'Donnell still has it beat. (Score:3, Funny)
Chevy (Score:2)
Seriously though this is the shit
Weight Distribution (Score:2)
When I saw the headline (Score:2)
Something this heavy... (Score:2)
Something this heavy... must be slow, right? Slow like this slow news day maybe? ... What do you mean, it's constantly getting faster? Are you nuts?
That number needs updating. (Score:2)
I've just removed the watercooling system on my PC so the internet weighs 10KG less now.
So its exactly 498,438,559,980kg now.
Re: (Score:2)
Fat PC Guy - I'm on a diet because the Internet weighs too much.
Fat Mac Guy - I'm eating thirty twinkies a minute because the Internet needs more weight!
Trim Linux Guy - I think I'm going to puke.
Malnourished OpenSolaris Guy - When is someone going to drop off some crates of food.
Outdated Amiga Guy - I remember when we grew up in a hole in the road and our ol' dad used to come and kill us before breakfast.
What a useless question (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose I could get a start on that by running VMs of the most popular OSs, and examining snapshots of each one, multiplying that by... oh, and do the same with backbone traffic... be a bit of a pain to handle all the embedded stuff, but in principle... well, in principle, the internet could be represented as a single number. I wonder if it's odd or even. I guess it depends on who has the last bit.
Ooops, time to takes me pills again.
Re: (Score:2)
"Library of Congress" is a measure of information (bits, bytes)
What you want is, oh, I don't know, some massive object. LoC does not have a well defined mass (do you mean just the books? What about the CDs? Digital stuff? The whole building?)
Your Internet (Score:2)
No (Score:5, Funny)
Ever wondered how much the internet physically weighs?
No.
And, oddly, even after someone else has asked the question, I still don't.
How heavy is the Internet (Score:2)
Well, I don't know about you guys but I actually get asked this question quite often. Just the other day I was in a board meeting when my CEO turned to me and whispered in my ear "Do you know how heavy the internet is?" I didn't know the answer and ended up looking like a fool.
Re: (Score:2)
Just the other day I was in a board meeting when my CEO turned to me and whispered in my ear "Do you know how heavy the internet is?"
He's not the internet, he's my brother.
Amazing precision (Score:2)
What about the colos? (Score:2)
Given their methodology, you'd better add the weight of all the colocation facilities. That's a heap of concrete, lead-acid batteries, flywheels, generators, steel supports and cabinets, etc.
It's a good thing.. (Score:2)
It is a good thing they didn't try to calculate the amount of power used and how much it adds to global warming.. They may decide to shut it down tomorrow.
are they counting stupid stuff on monitors (Score:2)
like the Dogberts and "beatings will continue" buttons and mirrors to see the boss coming up behind you?
add another 300,000 Kg at least.
did they add E/c^2? (Score:2)
E = mc^2, hence m = E/c^2. How much energy is there in a running computer compared to one switched off? Convert to mass, multiply by the number of computers on the internet to get... well, yet another meaningless figure, but it might be fun to estimate.
Not weight (Score:2)
and for (Score:2)
The next stupid question:
How long is the Internet?
How wide is the internet?
and then calculate the area of the internet using standard units like football fields, or states of texas.
The weight of a virus (Score:2)
Not as heavy as its users! (Score:2)
*thank you* *thank you* - Don't forget to tip the waitress on the way out!
Made me wonder (Score:2)
Units (Score:2)
The internet has no weight... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Data does have mass:
http://scottkurowski.com/massbit/index.htm [scottkurowski.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you!!!
I came to read this posting thinking there would be some great discussion on the weight of information. What's the difference in weight between a full hard drive and an empty hard drive for instance, and what can qualify as empty (since it's possible having a series of alternating 1s and 0s is lighter than pure 0s for instance... I wouldn't know) .. point being, that there is a difference between the average drive containing random or "no" bits encoded on it, and one that does actually contain
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Argh, hit submit too soon. Reference: IT Crowd [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
But there are no wires or anything...
It's WIRELESS!!
**********************
I LOVE that episode and was gonna post it but figure there had to be at least one person who'd beat me to it. Thanks
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Negative mass gets kind of weird [wikipedia.org], though.
Re: (Score:2)
Or the e-anus you have it stuck in.
Re: (Score:2)
Netbooks would have been a diet, except Microsoft fucked everything up.