Mother Earth Mother Board - Neal Stephenson

I read this every year or so. (Usually about the same time I re-read cryptonomicon.) Best travel writing ever.

This was an oddly prescient paragraph. The lighthouse he refers to is the famous lighthouse at Pharos. He wrote this in 1996, five years before 9/11/2001.

"The collapse of the lighthouse must have been astonishing, like watching the World Trade Center fall over. But it took only a few seconds, and if you were looking the other way when it happened, you might have missed it entirely - you'd see nothing but blue breakers rolling in from the Mediterranean, hiding a field of ruins, quickly forgotten."

Old article, but I love it so.

I used to work at a telcom research company. This was required reading for new hires, eight years after its publication (probably still is).

Of course, the industry had changed since 1996. A lot of what he predicted hasn't come to pass. And he certainly didn't see the bottoming out of the market in the early 00's. But it is a great introduction to the world of sub cables. I passed this along to many friends when they made the mistake of asking me what I did.

This was the first really long piece I read on the Internet. Really takes me back.

tl;dr.

Ok ok, sorry. I love Neal Stephenson (I believe I've read everything he's written, including Zodiac, Big U, etc, except for his newest one), but he is one verbose guy and seems to be getting worse with age.

I hope to read this sometime in the future though.