Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

HOWTO Make The Internet (as depicted in The IT Crowd)

Cory Doctorow at 9:27 pm Thu, Jan 28, 2010

— FEATURED —

Science

Making sense of the confusing Supreme Court DNA patent ruling

Book Review

The 'Geisters: spooky, scary novel

Science

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

Feature

The Snowden Principle

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle

Here's an Instructables HOWTO from Melty Mcface explaining how to make a replica "The Internet" as depicted in Series 3, Episode 4 of The IT Crowd, "The Speech." Wikipedia summarizes: "After winning Employee of the Month, Jen finds herself less than inspired to write the required acceptance speech, and having found herself arrogant from her victory, asserts her power in the IT Department. When she eventually turns to Roy and Moss for help, they seen an opportunity to humiliate her in front of the whole department when they lend her a visual aid, on loan from the top of Big Ben and completely demagnetized by Stephen Hawking himself - "The Internet". The duo tell Jen that the Internet, complete with small black box, is completely wireless, and that if the red light on the top of the box stops flashing, the Internet will be destroyed."

How to make The Internet (from The IT Crowd). (Thanks, Ed!)

Previously:
  • The IT Crowd -- season two, episode one - Boing Boing
  • The IT Crowd -- the geek comedy I've been waiting for all my life ...
  • IT Crowd third season starts on Friday! - Boing Boing
  • Cut scenes from The IT Crowd - Boing Boing
  • IT Crowd to return for a third season! - Boing Boing
  • IT Crowd to return for a third season! - Boing Boing
  • Episode 3 of The IT Crowd is available for download - Boing Boing
  • Fan t-shirt for The IT Crowd - Boing Boing
  • Dance remix of The IT Crowd theme - Boing Boing

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  Culture

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

  • Telmea Story

    Had to laugh when I heard Steve Jobs describing the iPad as “It’s like holding the Internet in your hand!!”

  • jahknow

    Yet more classic Jen: “So what does IT actually stand for?”

  • Anonymous

    Why such tiny, expensive batteries? Throw some D cells in there and it’ll run for months.

  • Jonathan Harford

    Silly. This is what the internet really looks like:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanharford/3431991066/

    I should know — we got married early last year:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanharford/3430232875/

  • Jessamyn West

    By far my favorite IT Crowd episode. Yay!

  • Anonymous

    I know how to make the internet. Obtain a box and insert a cat into it. Instant internet!

    • Anonymous

      the cat will die.
      …maybe.
      I dunno. ask Shrodinger.

  • Anonymous

    Why not just use a flasing LED from Radio Shack? They are $2 and run on 3V, so they only need one battery.

    http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2117837&y=11&x=16&retainProdsInSession=1

  • Anonymous

    However, as we all know, the internet is actually made of cats…

  • RainyRat

    Just be careful not to type “google” into Google. That’ll break the Internet too. Seriously. Not even just to see what happens. Don’t do it.

  • kpurcell

    Do they include the step to have it demagnetized by the “Hawk”?

    It’s so light!

    • Felton

      The internet doesn’t weigh anything.

  • halcyongoddess

    You there, computer man! Fix my pants!

    • politeruin

      heh heh… I miss Denholm though.

      “You wouldn’t shoot a Policeman and then steal his helmet. You wouldn’t go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the Policeman’s grieving widow, and then steal it again. Downloading films is stealing; if you do it you WILL face the consequences!”

      How ludicrous could you get and still convince a techyphobe of something like this? Most likely a single structure somewhere with a massive off switch, at the very least!

  • technogeek

    When the NY City Library system’s Science, Industry and Business branch (SIBL) first opened over a decade ago, its public network access room was still an unusual enough concept to draw a significant amount of attention. Fairly quickly, the staff noticed that there was a class of library visitor who was coming through because they had heard about the Internet and just wanted to know what all the buzz was about. The library quickly solved this by starting a series of introductory classes in using the resources made available, from the web to proprietary databases. But, as one librarian was heard to observe: “You know, if we just mounted a big cable on the wall with a complicated-looking device in the middle of it and labeled it appropriately, many of these people would go away perfectly happy, since they could say they had Seen The Internet. Think of all the training time we’d save.”

  • mdh

    Will the reception work properly so far from Big Ben?

  • dross1260

    Now the elders of the internet will know me!