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Balloon Internet

Title text: I run a business selling rural internet access. My infrastructure consists of a bunch of Verizon wifi hotspots that I sign up for and then cancel at the end of the 14-day return period.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect. If you see a way to improve it, edit it! Thanks.

The comic references Google's new Project Loon, a balloon powered Internet service which was officially announced June 14, 2013 and is currently in proof-of-concept testing stages. A test above New Zealand, involving about 30 balloons and about 50 users, was successfully conducted on June 16th. The project, taglined "Internet for Everyone," is intended to eventually provide Internet access to people in rural areas and in disaster areas that have limited or no access to land-based Internet services.

Randall is poking fun at the tagline "Internet for Everyone" -- meant to mean anyone could have Internet access regardless of location -- by instead literally bringing the Internet to Cueball, who is reading a standard paper book and therefore has no immediate need or desire for the Internet. In the comic, one of the balloons sneaks up on Cueball before speaking and startling Cueball, effectively becoming a nuisance, interrupting Cueball's reading of a book and leaving Cueball wondering what has happened. In Randall's world, the tagline could be restated as "Internet for Everyone -- whether they want it or not."

Transcript

[In a natural landscape, perhaps hills or sand dunes, Cueball reading.]

[Cueball still reading. Small lighter-than-air balloon appears on top, descending.]

[Cueball still reading. Balloon continues to descend, approaches Cueball's head closely from behind.]

Balloon basket: Internet.

Cueball: Augh!

[Lighter-than-air balloon ascends. Cueballs looks behind him as if not understanding where the voice came from.]