Google phrase searches can produce results that seem like random answers to a Rorschach test—only more amusing. Here are the top results (on a day in July 2008) for “The Internet is like...”:

• “a vast uncataloged library”

• “a vagina”

• “Joey Bishop”

• “a series of tubes”

• “Microsoft”

• “alcohol in some sense”

• “a newspaper”

• “going down the Chinese road”

Closer to home, “Linux is like...”:

• “switching from a car to a motorcycle”

• “a pizza”

• “ice cream—too many flavors to choose”

• “a fixed-wheel bicycle”

• “turning on your first computer and figuring out what all those weird boxes did”

• “a common cold”

• “a whole new species”

• “Ubuntu, only different”

Our hat tip for this observation goes to reader Mike Warot.
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Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal