full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So we've built this system where we understand all the prtas of it, but we're using it in a very, very different way than we expected to use it, and it's gotten a very, very different scale than it was densgeid for. And in fact, nobody really exactly understands all the things it's being used for right now. It's turning into one of these big emergent ssetyms like the finaiacnl system, where we've designed all the parts but nobody really exactly understands how it oeeparts and all the little details of it and what kinds of emergent behaviors it can have. And so if you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it can do this, or it does do this, or it will do that, you should taert it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather, or something like that. They have an informed opinion, but it's changing so quickly that even the experts don't know exactly what's going on. So if you see one of these maps of the Internet, it's just somebody's guess. Nobody really knows what the Internet is right now because it's different than it was an hour ago. It's constantly cinhgang. It's constantly reconfiguring.

Open Cloze

So we've built this system where we understand all the _____ of it, but we're using it in a very, very different way than we expected to use it, and it's gotten a very, very different scale than it was ________ for. And in fact, nobody really exactly understands all the things it's being used for right now. It's turning into one of these big emergent _______ like the _________ system, where we've designed all the parts but nobody really exactly understands how it ________ and all the little details of it and what kinds of emergent behaviors it can have. And so if you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it can do this, or it does do this, or it will do that, you should _____ it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather, or something like that. They have an informed opinion, but it's changing so quickly that even the experts don't know exactly what's going on. So if you see one of these maps of the Internet, it's just somebody's guess. Nobody really knows what the Internet is right now because it's different than it was an hour ago. It's constantly ________. It's constantly reconfiguring.

Solution

  1. financial
  2. changing
  3. systems
  4. treat
  5. parts
  6. designed
  7. operates

Original Text

So we've built this system where we understand all the parts of it, but we're using it in a very, very different way than we expected to use it, and it's gotten a very, very different scale than it was designed for. And in fact, nobody really exactly understands all the things it's being used for right now. It's turning into one of these big emergent systems like the financial system, where we've designed all the parts but nobody really exactly understands how it operates and all the little details of it and what kinds of emergent behaviors it can have. And so if you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it can do this, or it does do this, or it will do that, you should treat it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather, or something like that. They have an informed opinion, but it's changing so quickly that even the experts don't know exactly what's going on. So if you see one of these maps of the Internet, it's just somebody's guess. Nobody really knows what the Internet is right now because it's different than it was an hour ago. It's constantly changing. It's constantly reconfiguring.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
building blocks 3
email address 2
telephone number 2
rocket ship 2
basically built 2

Important Words

  1. behaviors
  2. big
  3. built
  4. changing
  5. comments
  6. constantly
  7. designed
  8. details
  9. economist
  10. economy
  11. emergent
  12. expected
  13. expert
  14. experts
  15. fact
  16. financial
  17. guess
  18. hear
  19. hour
  20. informed
  21. internet
  22. kinds
  23. maps
  24. operates
  25. opinion
  26. parts
  27. quickly
  28. reconfiguring
  29. scale
  30. skepticism
  31. system
  32. systems
  33. talking
  34. treat
  35. turning
  36. understand
  37. understands
  38. weather
  39. weatherman