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Like a lot of information-age talk, the phrase is both schizophrenic and appropriate. For if this World Wide Web we grow to depend on is all-connected and all-connecting, an enfolding organism spinning out and out and out, it is also oceanic. And when it comes to using such a vast, dynamic resource, most of us are like the skinny kid in the half-zipped wetsuit, paddling just beyond the first break. On a good day, we can handle a three-foot curl. But we never stray too far from shore. And we can easily wind up a long way down the beach, with no idea how we got there. The images illustrating this article were drawn from a computer animation created by Steve Coast, a computer artist and student of physics at University College London.