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Neal Stephenson. "Mother Earth Motherboard" WIRED Dec 1996: 66 pages. Print.

http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Without a doubt my favorite issue of any magazine ever. I still have my copy somewhere.

Yep. That's the first thing I though of when I started reading this article. Twenty years ago? Wow. Time flies. And while I enjoyed this Arstechnica article, I quickly came to the conclusion that Stephenson is a better writer. Dormon didn't even mention the sharks that plague the undersea cables! If I recall, for some reason, they like to chew on the cables.

They do! It is theorized they detect the electromagnetic fields given off by the cable.

Bears like to chew on armoured Teck cable too. Thought it was the taste of smell of the rubber insulation.

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