Tom is a huge tech and gadget geek with a broad range of interests including travel, art and design. Much of his time is spent blogging on CreativeCloud but he also enjoys writing for other blogs in the design niche.
Of course, if you omitted all the ‘adult’ content, the book would come down to the size of a cigarette box and you could print it in five minutes flat.
Rod September 15th, 2009 at 6:38 am
With me writing this comment, you now have to update all those numbers… and start writing “the Internet 2″
And how long would it take if hole the world would print a portion of the internet?
Knowing that not everyone is able to print, because they simply don’t have internet or a printer or they’re to jung to use a printer.
The reason I ask:
I don’t want to print the internet all by myself
sequoia September 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
plus, in 1800 BCE, they only had dot-matrix printers. so, like, if you made one of those little fold up chains out of the guide holes torn of the sides, it would, like, go to the moon or something!! lol remember dot-matrix printers? craaaazy!!
This is a great article.Really makes think about how vast the internet is and the fact that it’s still expanding. It’s like the universe!
damageDone September 20th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I think those are actually very underestimated. Think of the blogs, torrents at everyone of their torrent sites under ever tab, all the repeated material from website to website (rephrased or not), all the wikipedia pages and their source links, and all the websites out there that you would have never thought of.
Neat concept, but I don’t really understand. Is this based of printing every email, every website (imagining a single website for every combination of dynamic content sites), every chat log and every newsgroup? Is it just the websites or webpages (and therefore should be if you printed the web?) or what?
That is pretty interesting. I wonder if that includes audio files, and if that’s printing out binary or ascii, text for text. What for images? Is this based on petabytes or physical text/images?
Kim Quinn September 21st, 2009 at 12:12 am
And this assumes nothing new is added!
Mike Deland September 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
But if you printed the internet, then editors would remove 95% of the unverified opinions, pages of links to other pages (it’s not a Choose Your Own Adventure), and LoL drivel.
Davido September 25th, 2009 at 5:25 am
You know what ? I found this surprising, but not as expected… 2 x Central Park trees is a lot, but… We’re talking about the WHOLE Internet !!! I thought it would take all of the trees in Brazil or something.
Patrick Donnelly September 27th, 2009 at 3:58 am
This is clever, and illuminating. But in all seriousness I am beginning to be concerned, as I guess many people are, about the amount of energy it takes to support the Internet in its ever-growing state. Everyone seems to assume that as this marvelous resource has appeared, it will never disappear. In fact, like everything else, it is contingent on variety of fragile conditions for its continued existence.
sam October 20th, 2009 at 6:57 am
well thank god the internet was created. a much more effitiant and environmentaly concious decision than having ALL our infomation available from books and what not.
Nick Stroud October 26th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
And how much electricity would be needed to print it all, I wonder?
Thank you for this striking summary!
J888 October 2nd, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Wow only 40k trees to print the entire Internet? Printing technology sure has become effecient.
Came to this page via a link provided by my uni lecturer. As a teacher I have to say a big thank you and let you know how impressed I am with the committment to excellence in how it is all presented and that I appreciate the effort involved. Now I just have to get my students to understand how the spelling and the maths and the formatting etc. all come together to create an easy to read, (even if the actual content is confronting) item.
And if we printed the internet, how much will it cost?! :7
Baljinder Singh July 4th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Imagine if someone needs 2-3 print out copies of Interner
Digihuman August 17th, 2011 at 11:44 am
Of course, you wouldn’t necessarily print it in one book – you’d print it as several volumes. Though about 99% of those volumes would go in the adult section of the libraries.
Pino June 5th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
That’s probably not counting the growth of the internet WHILE printing.
Alec June 14th, 2013 at 3:15 am
What a splendiferous blog post! I heartily enjoyed this!
jump to the comment form ↓
September 14th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I just printed this page to do my part
lol
September 14th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I think the lesson here is to print the internet as double sided pages
September 14th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Let’s do it! (we can use recycled paper)
September 15th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Neat stuff.
I would imagine these are underestimates too.
September 15th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Sounds like a great plan – when do we start?
September 15th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Of course, if you omitted all the ‘adult’ content, the book would come down to the size of a cigarette box and you could print it in five minutes flat.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:38 am
With me writing this comment, you now have to update all those numbers… and start writing “the Internet 2″
September 15th, 2009 at 11:31 am
And how long would it take if hole the world would print a portion of the internet?
Knowing that not everyone is able to print, because they simply don’t have internet or a printer or they’re to jung to use a printer.
The reason I ask:
I don’t want to print the internet all by myself
September 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
plus, in 1800 BCE, they only had dot-matrix printers. so, like, if you made one of those little fold up chains out of the guide holes torn of the sides, it would, like, go to the moon or something!! lol remember dot-matrix printers? craaaazy!!
September 15th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Obviously it’s impossible to judge the accuracy of the statements made in these images, but it sure was a lot of fun to look at them!
Check it out, I’ve just added a little bit of weight to that 1.2 Billion pound book!
September 15th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
You forgot to mention that it would read like a start your own adventure book with 404 not found around every corner.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Printing the Internet, thus, is certainly not a good idea!
September 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I don’t know why I just love posts like this…Useless information but so fun none-the-less!
Great post!
September 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
6 hours and 36 minutes? Hell, the Chinese can do it in 90 minutes. No wonder we’re losing our status as world leader.
September 16th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
What’s funny is that since the capacity of the internet is doubling at a such a fast rate, you’ll never be able to finish reading it.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Good grief!!! That’s amazing, and to think that it keeps adding information every second. I wonder what the stats would be 5 years from now?
September 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
That’s all? I would’ve expected the Internet to be much larger than that.
But you’re not printing the HTML source code, I suppose. So it makes sense. Just the real, plain-text content. But what font, and what font size?
And how many trees are sacrificed each day for our general printing needs?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The most brilliant thing of it all is that you wouldn’t in fact, finish printing or reading. The internet grows too fast to keep up.
September 19th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Tom also has WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much time on his hands.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:25 am
This is a great article.Really makes think about how vast the internet is and the fact that it’s still expanding. It’s like the universe!
September 20th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I think those are actually very underestimated. Think of the blogs, torrents at everyone of their torrent sites under ever tab, all the repeated material from website to website (rephrased or not), all the wikipedia pages and their source links, and all the websites out there that you would have never thought of.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Neat concept, but I don’t really understand. Is this based of printing every email, every website (imagining a single website for every combination of dynamic content sites), every chat log and every newsgroup? Is it just the websites or webpages (and therefore should be if you printed the web?) or what?
Great visuals though…
September 20th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
That is pretty interesting. I wonder if that includes audio files, and if that’s printing out binary or ascii, text for text. What for images? Is this based on petabytes or physical text/images?
September 21st, 2009 at 12:12 am
And this assumes nothing new is added!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
But if you printed the internet, then editors would remove 95% of the unverified opinions, pages of links to other pages (it’s not a Choose Your Own Adventure), and LoL drivel.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:25 am
You know what ? I found this surprising, but not as expected… 2 x Central Park trees is a lot, but… We’re talking about the WHOLE Internet !!! I thought it would take all of the trees in Brazil or something.
September 27th, 2009 at 3:58 am
This is clever, and illuminating. But in all seriousness I am beginning to be concerned, as I guess many people are, about the amount of energy it takes to support the Internet in its ever-growing state. Everyone seems to assume that as this marvelous resource has appeared, it will never disappear. In fact, like everything else, it is contingent on variety of fragile conditions for its continued existence.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:57 am
well thank god the internet was created. a much more effitiant and environmentaly concious decision than having ALL our infomation available from books and what not.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
And how much electricity would be needed to print it all, I wonder?
Thank you for this striking summary!
October 2nd, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Wow only 40k trees to print the entire Internet? Printing technology sure has become effecient.
January 19th, 2011 at 4:56 am
How would I cite this in a research paper?
March 7th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Came to this page via a link provided by my uni lecturer. As a teacher I have to say a big thank you and let you know how impressed I am with the committment to excellence in how it is all presented and that I appreciate the effort involved. Now I just have to get my students to understand how the spelling and the maths and the formatting etc. all come together to create an easy to read, (even if the actual content is confronting) item.
June 5th, 2011 at 9:09 am
And if we printed the internet, how much will it cost?! :7
July 4th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Imagine if someone needs 2-3 print out copies of Interner
August 17th, 2011 at 11:44 am
Of course, you wouldn’t necessarily print it in one book – you’d print it as several volumes. Though about 99% of those volumes would go in the adult section of the libraries.
June 5th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
That’s probably not counting the growth of the internet WHILE printing.
June 14th, 2013 at 3:15 am
What a splendiferous blog post! I heartily enjoyed this!
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