At the speed of research

Here's an object lesson in the difficulties of dealing with Internet time: a congressionally mandated study of how the domain name system is working has finally been completed -- a mere seven years after it was commissioned.

As the Associated Press notes, a few things changed during that time: "Google emerged to dominate the Web, technology executives made then lost billions in stock options, lawyers shut down Napster over music piracy, high-speed Internet connections soared and the number of Web addresses climbed from 2.2 million to more than 65 million. The job of Commerce secretary, the top U.S. official responsible for overseeing the study, turned over three times."

Charles Brownstein, director of the computer science and telecommunications board at the National Research Council, which conducted the study, cited "dramatic changes" to the topics being studied as one factor in the report's tardiness.

In case you're wondering, the report concludes that the DNS "has performed well" but could be improved.