5 votes

"The hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth." (Neal Stephenson, 1996)

2 comments

  1. [2]
    vakieh
    Link
    Very interesting article, but I couldn't possibly let this go uncommented: It's not even close. Like, not even the slightest teeny tiny bit remotely close, and even saying so makes me start to...

    Very interesting article, but I couldn't possibly let this go uncommented:

    When it is finished in September 1997, it [the cable from the UK to Japan] arguably will be the longest engineering project in history

    It's not even close. Like, not even the slightest teeny tiny bit remotely close, and even saying so makes me start to question how many things in there are wrong that I'm not picking up on.

    There's also issues around the 'death of forecasting' - this isn't an issue of 'oh no, we can't predict how big the internet will become', it's 'oh yes, we get paid the same amount no matter how slow we deliver the service to our customers'. Which is tied up in the monopoly market environment of ISPs all over the world.

    1 vote
    1. cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      What engineering project <1997 was longer than 28,000 kilometers? Road networks are about the only thing I can think of that might be longer but they are a combined network of individual projects...

      It's not even close. Like, not even the slightest teeny tiny bit remotely close, and even saying so makes me start to question how many things in there are wrong that I'm not picking up on.

      What engineering project <1997 was longer than 28,000 kilometers? Road networks are about the only thing I can think of that might be longer but they are a combined network of individual projects not a singular one, so not really comparable, IMO.

      2 votes