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The Resource Tubes : a journey to the center of the Internet, Andrew Blum

Tubes : a journey to the center of the Internet, Andrew Blum

Creator
Summary
When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives--and the broader scheme of human culture--can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. It is a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, populated by a special caste of engineer who pieces together our networks by hand; where glass fibers pulse with light and creaky telegraph buildings, tortuously rewired, become communication hubs once again. From the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the caverns beneath Manhattan where new fiber-optic cable is buried; from the coast of Portugal, where a ten-thousand-mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa, to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built monumental data centers--Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first-ever in-depth look inside its hidden monuments. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. For all the talk of the "placelessness" of our digital age, the Internet is as fixed in real, physical spaces as the railroad or telephone. You can map it and touch it, and you can visit it. Is the Internet in fact "a series of tubes" as Ted Stevens, the late senator from Alaska, once famously described it? How can we know the Internet's possibilities if we don't know its parts? Like Tracy Kidder's classic The Soul of a New Machine or Tom Vanderbilt's recent bestseller Traffic, Tubes combines on-the-ground reporting and lucid explanation into an engaging, mind-bending narrative to help us understand the physical world that underlies our digital lives
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
294 p.
Contents
  • The map
  • A network of networks
  • Only connect
  • The whole Internet
  • Cities of light
  • The longest tubes
  • Where data sleeps
  • Home
Isbn
9780061994937
Instance
Label
Tubes : a journey to the center of the Internet
Title
Tubes
Title remainder
a journey to the center of the Internet
Statement of responsibility
Andrew Blum
Creator
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives--and the broader scheme of human culture--can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. It is a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, populated by a special caste of engineer who pieces together our networks by hand; where glass fibers pulse with light and creaky telegraph buildings, tortuously rewired, become communication hubs once again. From the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the caverns beneath Manhattan where new fiber-optic cable is buried; from the coast of Portugal, where a ten-thousand-mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa, to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built monumental data centers--Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first-ever in-depth look inside its hidden monuments. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. For all the talk of the "placelessness" of our digital age, the Internet is as fixed in real, physical spaces as the railroad or telephone. You can map it and touch it, and you can visit it. Is the Internet in fact "a series of tubes" as Ted Stevens, the late senator from Alaska, once famously described it? How can we know the Internet's possibilities if we don't know its parts? Like Tracy Kidder's classic The Soul of a New Machine or Tom Vanderbilt's recent bestseller Traffic, Tubes combines on-the-ground reporting and lucid explanation into an engaging, mind-bending narrative to help us understand the physical world that underlies our digital lives
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Blum, Andrew
Dewey number
384.309
Index
index present
LC call number
TK5105.875.I57
LC item number
B58 2012
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Internet
  • Internet
  • Telecommunication systems
  • Information technology
  • Information superhighway
Label
Tubes : a journey to the center of the Internet, Andrew Blum
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 273-280) and index
Contents
The map -- A network of networks -- Only connect -- The whole Internet -- Cities of light -- The longest tubes -- Where data sleeps -- Home
Control code
ocn758392010
Dimensions
24 cm.
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
294 p.
Isbn
9780061994937
Lccn
2012009519
System control number
(OCoLC)758392010
Label
Tubes : a journey to the center of the Internet, Andrew Blum
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 273-280) and index
Contents
The map -- A network of networks -- Only connect -- The whole Internet -- Cities of light -- The longest tubes -- Where data sleeps -- Home
Control code
ocn758392010
Dimensions
24 cm.
Edition
1st ed.
Extent
294 p.
Isbn
9780061994937
Lccn
2012009519
System control number
(OCoLC)758392010

Subject

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