Martin Roell has blogged a pithy quote from Curt Cloninger in an article that responds to the cry: “”Man, you dudes are taking this online stuff waaaay too seriously. You need to unplug, turn off your computer, and go for a walk or something. Get some perspective.”

But the online world is not a game of Mario Brothers. The online world is networked, which means there are living PEOPLE out there. Yes, the computer is the interface to this network, but the network itself is comprised of people, not computers. Any place where people share beliefs and concerns and humor and friendship and commitment — that place is a real world.

That’s not a bad way of summarizing Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Of course, the interesting thing about the Web is that it is also a game of Mario Brothers and an infinite variety of possibilities not real enough for the Real World^TM.

An unrelated fact (except in the way that everything is related by metaphor): Martin also has a photo of an open-air theatre in Dresden that has become an underwater theatre because of the overflowing of the Elbe.

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