Mother Earth Mother Board (1996) | Hacker News Reader

Mother Earth Mother Board (1996)

wired.com

79 pointswallflower20 comments

This is an extraordinary essay. I read it on an hour-long bus ride, expecting a history of undersea cabling to put me to sleep. Instead, I devoured it.

The history of undersea broadband is the history of human civilization - it requires amazing leaps in technology, in international cooperation, in private-public negotiation. These three forces shaped the 20th century and are going to determine whether we survive the 21st century.

Absolutely essential reading.

I hate to be the low-life slouch here, but is there no _shorter_ version – one that rather just lists the facts than sets a mood? The information density seems so low. I dove eight paragraphs deep without hitting any solid material at all.

If there is none, maybe I should one day condense it to its essential points myself.

It's basically the story of laying the FLAG cable with heavy digressions. The wikipedia page is enough if you want just the facts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber-Optic_Link_Around_the_Gl...)

TLDR: The internet is a series of tubes.

But the essential points aren't the point,in that case you're better off going to an encyclopedia. There's a place for long form content that can't be summarized to a lazy TLDR.

It was better in print. I mean honestly, it was so beautiful. Teenage me read it and re-read it. Wish I still had my old copy.

Yup. Kept my old Wireds for a decade or more, but I think I eventually let them go.

I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (very good book), and this article was included at the end of the E-Book version (literally finished reading it this morning).

As someone who's interested in technology (obviously) and boats / the ocean, this article hit an unexpected confluence of interests, on an unexpectedly complex subject. I definitely recommend reading it.

This is, afaik, the longest article ever published in Wired. It is one of the most iconic tech articles ever.

A classic. This is reprinted in Stephenson's book Some Remarks, which also has some other essays and stories (all quite a bit shorter than this though). Worth checking out if you like Stephenson.

This is one of my favourite ever Wired articles. I remember reading it in the mag originally, and printing it several years later to read again - it was something like 53 pages?

I re-read this every few years. I love the combination of technology, geography, and history.

I'll now probably lose the next few hours panning around undersea cable maps. Again.

One of my favorite long form pieces of all time. I think about this piece probably once a month.

Is there an audio version? I am happy to read it but this would be perfect for a podcast length piece. He could be the tech Dan Carlin!

> He could be the tech Dan Carlin!

I think Neal Stephenson might be a bit more accomplished than that, no offense to Dan Carlin.

I listened to it on the "Some Remarks" audio book.

1990s Neal Stephenson was incredible.

He still is. Reamde is a fantastic story of the seedy underbelly of World of Warcraft gold.

Disagree. Nothing fits together and the whole thing makes no sense. He even explicitly acknowledges how the real-world/game integration is entirely pointless, and then just proceeds to go straight past it. It's his weakest work of all aside from the collaborations.

Seveneves is much better, though still not quite up to his early standards.

Anaethem was incredible, but since then I haven't enjoyed his stuff as much, but based on his earlier work he's still one of my favorite authors

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