RuddNet Day 3. The armchair-expert “network engineers” who infest Whirlpool, people who’ve never built a network more complex than the one linking their p-rn stash to the TV, are suddenly spouting off about national-scale infrastructure not just there but everywhere. Pity their friends.

As John Safran once said, thanks to the internet, “We can all now chip in and pool our ignorance.” The Dunning-Kruger Effect operates full force. As always.

And also as always — get used to it, this is your future, people! — misinformation spreads fastest on Twitter. Everyone’s not only a network engineer but a macro-economist too. If you thought talkback radio was inane, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

“Personally I think its a bad investment — in 5yrs we’ll all be using wireless,” says @newsbee aka Lanai Vasek, editor of Business Owner at news.com.au.

I hope not, Lania. If a surgeon’s operating a remote robot, scalpel deep in a farmer’s chest after a tractor accident, the last thing he wants is interference causing the data link drop out.

For reasons like this, @skwashd asks, “trying to locate info on the #nbn. cant find any mention of what the upload speed & latency will be like for the 10%ers, 1M/s & <100ms pls.”

“Imagine if the gov crowdsouced [sic] the requirements, specs and policy for #nbn #nocleanfeed amateur passion with proffessional [sic] scale!Our money”, says @irldexter. Yes, imagine.

This morning, the entire National Broadband Network debate was reduced to p-rn versus hospitals. A conversation with twitterer @ozdj was typical.

“Our kids will be still paying off the #nbn lemon as they attend the Sydney 2040 Olympics,” claims @ozdj. “Any country which puts high speed p-rn ahead of homelessness and healthcare doesn’t have vision. #nbn #priorityfail,” he adds.

“Any person who believes high-speed internet simply = p-rn doesn’t have vision. #nbn #visionfail”, retorted @rbjsmith.

@ozdj told me, “Unfortunately, #nbn zealots (with their largely undisclosed vested interests), are rather defensive of their p-rn habits. ;-)”

I hope he doesn’t mean me. He can’t mean me. My p-rn habits are not undisclosed. Apart from the goat dominatrix thing.

“The pro #nbn cheersquad has lots of #geekswithnosocialconsciousness (Hospitals, schools, mental h/care, public housing need to come first),” he continued.

And how would he achieve this? “Let’s start with (say) 100,000 new public housing residences at ~$200Kea. Haven’t even spent HALF of the #nbn #gluttony”

But as DDsD points out, “With the #NBN you might never have to goto [sic] a GP if you can just videoconference with your doctor remotely.” Precisely.

Note, too, that no-one’s suggesting that they’d be happy to return their $900 Rudd handout so it can be spent on hopitals.

Follow the folly yourself! You can use Twitter Search to find every tweet mentioning “nbn”. But for a richer experience, the much prettier Twitterfall lets you view an animated twitterstream, pearls of wisdom dropping as Manna from Heaven.

Just imagine. With the NBN it won’t just be typed words, you’ll be able to see and hear all this in living colour and surround sound. Ah, $43 billion…

Disclosure: The biggest network I’ve built connected eight suburban offices with an encrypted VPN. The trick isn’t getting it to work, it’s getting it to work reliably.