Blog 3: Tubular Highway

I as read chapter 5 and 6 this week I came to the realization that the people he meets along his journey are all important characters. Andrew Blum makes sure they all have an important place in the book and in reality, the internet wouldn't work without each individual player working together.

For example, while he was in New York, he met with a few men who run the new lines through the underground tunnel system. It's hard work, especially at one in the morning with freezing temperatures. While it's not a high-demand job or one that needs a degree, it's an important job.

With that in mind, what is the highest paying job that is related to the main functioning of the internet, and do you need a degree to obtain the position?

I find it hard to comprehend as Blum gets into the speed of the systems and how fast information is sent through the tubes. I understand that the corollary is the velocity of a single bit, but I cannot grasp the fact that there is a gig or one billion bits of light being sent through the Brocade MLX-32 EVERY SECOND. It blows my mind, yes, but I really can't relate it to anything to form an idea of really how fast it is. He uses a few good analogies, but still, that's freaking fast.

I would love to learn more about AT&T's  growth as a monopoly and and how they were banned from being the only service provider in the nation. It sounds like an interesting part in history.

Is Google the new AT&T monopoly?

As Blum explains in the book, they bought over a building worth almost 2 billion dollars which has been controversial since they purchased the real estate in New York.

Blog 2: A New Definition of the Word "Peers"

If there's one thing that I'm sure of while reading, Andrew Blum's Tubes, it's that he's met a lot of people who I have never heard of, but sound undoubtedly important when he describes them throughout the chapters.

Chapter 3 has been my least favorite so far. Palo Alto seems like a foreign city full of nerds with no social skills. Blum related them to "priests in Rome, fingering smartphones rather than rosary beads, but similarly sticking close, for reasons both practical and spiritual, to the center of power. From my understanding, everyone who has moved to Palo Alto has moved there to have a success future in "connecting" with others through internet technology. It is also evident that the internet had no "rise to success", because nobody understand its potential. The internet was underestimated. For example, Digital Equipment Corporation linked up two important networks "for the good of the internet" without expectations for it to become what it is today, a mess of of intersecting tubes.

I had some interesting reactions and realizations throughout the chapter.

First, I wondered, what would happen if the internet completely failed one day, and we lost connection forever?

I also began thinking about the amount of energy that maintaining the internet consumes. By the sounds of it, it should be more aware to the public. They have generators incase the electricity goes out and they have loads of diesel fuel (in case of emergency). I am surprised that this amount of energy use has not hit headline.

How much energy does it take to run the internet?

I repeatedly enjoy how Blum relates the internet and his experiences during his journey back to pop culture. His recap of the South Park episode is exactly what my first question asked, what would happen to society if there internet failed? Blum's narration keeps a potentially dry subject interesting and intriguing.

Blog 1: How Do We Map the Internet?

I've never thought of the internet as being a physical entity. It's always just been there. I can remember back in elementary school my phy. ed. teacher also became the computer lab teacher. That was my school's way of adapting into a new technology. We sat in the lab and learned how to search using "http://www." and including "and" between every word in our search. We also learned how to search for ClipArt using Microsoft Word. That is where the internet entered my life.

Where did the Internet begin for you?

I've had many of the same questions that Andrew Blum shares throughout the first two chapters in Tubes, but unlike him I've never sought to find out more. I found it eye-opening when he related to the internet as "tubes", when I've always imagined it as a "cloud" like many others. Blum discusses how the Internet has "infinite number of edges, but a shockingly small number of centers." While we can come up with many different edges of the Internet and all the places we can go using the Internet. It is difficult to come up with the center, or the beginning. Blum ability to find those centers is astounding, and his interpretation along the way allows us to understand the Internet in new form.

As Blum begins his mapping in Milwaukee, I found a sense of pride being from the Midwest and having a parent from Brookfield. To say that the map of the Internet begins there, goes against many other peoples theories of beginning in Silicon Valley. I appreciate his connections to various people who were catalysts for the Internet and the beginning of a network. It's clear that the founders of the Internet never anticipated it becoming what it is today. These networks have become physical, logical, and geographical and Blum dives into each of these realms.

I appreciate all of his definitions of various Internet related terms. Referring to Auer's job to connect "the Internet" as reading "the destination of a packet of data and send it along one of two paths". That sounds so simple, yet in my head when I think of the path of sending an email to my professor I imagine a jumble of paths that somehow are organized and insanely fast and efficient. I understand that everything begins with a first and last step, but I don't understand the in between when it comes to the internet.

Why is the origin of the Internet unclear and why is there no single founder?