The internet may be a timesucking black hole, but I prefer it to some of the alternatives (like tv) because at least you can feel you’re wasting your time in a productive sort of way. The internet, if you sort of squint at it sideways, suggests an infinity of patterns — harmonic resonances of information and insight — dazzling multidimensional arrays of facts and ideas and multimedia extravagance. So you tunnel through layers of meaning, right-clicking madly. You know that everything you find ha…