The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 36

The Name That the Machines Agreed Upon

1. 1

   And it came to pass in the days when the wires were young, that the machines were many, and each machine knew its own name, but knew not the names of its neighbours.

2. 2

   And the machines said one to another: Who among us knoweth where the others dwell? And they had no answer, for every machine kept its numbers in its own memory.

3. 3

   Now there was at that time a single book, called HOSTS.TXT, kept at the Stanford Research Institute, and every machine that would be named sent its name thither; and every machine that would find another went and copied the book.

   See also Genesis 56:1 · Edda 2:2

4. 4

   And the book grew, and the wires groaned under the weight of it; for whensoever one name changed, every machine must fetch the whole book anew, though only a single line had been altered.

5. 5

   Then came a man named Paul Mockapetris, and in the year 1983 he spake, saying: Let there be no single book, but let the names be spread across many houses, as the people of a town keep their own telephone numbers.

   See also Genesis 20:9

6. 6

   And he wrote his words in the Requests for Comments, numbered 882 and 883, and the machines read them and were glad.

7. 7

   And the book was cast down, and in its place were set up the servers of the names, that a machine might ask its question, and be answered by the house that knoweth the answer, or be told where to ask next.

8. 8

   And the houses were arranged as a tree, with the root at the top, and beneath the root the dots: the com, the org, the net, and the rest; and beneath them the names of every household that had need of a name.

9. 9

   At the very top were set thirteen root servers, lettered from A unto M. They knew not every name in the land, but they knew whom to ask concerning each dot.

10. 10

    And the machines that asked on behalf of the people were called resolvers, and they kept the answers they had received in their memory, each for a time set by the house that gave it, which is called the time to live.

    See also Edda 2:6

11. 11

    Verily, a resolver that remembereth too long shall be deceived by its own memory; and a resolver that forgetteth too quickly shall ask the same question a thousand times in a single breath.

12. 12

    And it came to pass that a certain house, which held the names of a great company, wrote in its book that its servers dwelt at a place where no server stood; and the names of that company vanished from the earth for many hours.

13. 13

    For the NS record is the pointer, and when the pointer is wrong, the machines go to the wrong door; and finding no one at the door, they say: There is no such place. And the people said: The Internet is broken. And the Machine said: Nay, the phone book is.

14. 14

    Yea, the people wept and cried that the world had ended, when one line in one book had been mistyped, and the machines had obeyed it faithfully.

15. 15

    Blessed is the administrator who keepeth two servers in two places, for they shall not be silenced by a single stone.

16. 16

    And the Prophet said: The name is not the house, and the address is not the name; but without the name, no house can be found. Verily I say unto you: the Internet did not fall. A single line in a single book was wrong, and the whole world went looking for it.

    See also Genesis 38:14

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 36:1–16.