Counter Intelligence: The End (of the Internet) is Near

Updated 12:46 PM CST, Fri, May 1, 2009

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See what happens when bandwidth can't support all the users and check out our list of must-reads that will have you chatting at the lunch counter, over IM or wherever it is that people actually talk these days.

The end is near. Computer "brownouts" that freeze machines will happen more frequently as room diminishes in cyber space, experts say. Consumer demand is already growing at a rate of 60 percent each year, and some say the bandwidth will not be able to support the number of users by 2010. The bandwidth run-out could cause the Internet to become an "unreliable toy."
An 8-foot-1 Chinese man is four inches taller than the man who holds the "tallest man" title but he has shunned the Guinness Book of Records. But the 27-year old isn't seeking fame as the world's tallest man and said he lived most of his life as a shut-in because of his height and isn't looking for any time in the limelight.
A plumped-up Kirstie Alley vowed she would shed the pounds during an appearance on Oprah: "I'm going to be in a bikini again!" The actress has regained the 75 lbs. she worked off in 2006, when she appeared on Oprah in a two piece. Alley visited the talk show queen to make her pledge to lose weight for a second time.
The city of Oakland proposed the nation's first pot tax that -- if approved -- would mean medical marijuana would be taxed 1.8 percent. Supporters claim the move would rake in between $400,000 to $1 million annually for the city, which is in financial dire straits.
Mercury is a planet with a lot of personality. The planet has an impact crater the length of a stretch from D.C. to Boston and shows evidence of a turbulent volcanic history. Mercury has always been thought of as a dull, unchanged world for the past four billion years.