Xbox Live. The PlayStation Network. Steam. This website. Your email. They’re all nothing without the internet. Yet do you ever stop and wonder what the internet actually looks like? Where all the cables go? Where it sleeps?
This amazing documentary goes behind the scenes at Telx, a company whose Lower Manhattan offices are one of the busiest internet exchanges in the world.
This is what the internet looks like. Places like this are where you can reach out and touch it. It’s fascinating.
If you think that sounds like there’ll be a lot of cables in there, you are 100% correct. They should call the place Cabletown. Or maybe even Kabletown.
Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors [Ben Mendleson, via Boing Boing]
Reader
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 6:56 PM** Series
Mike Hunt
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 7:12 PMNeeds more dragons…
Cats
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 7:14 PMThis is why I always wondered why that guy got flack for calling it a “series of tube”. IT IS. Well not entirely thanks to wireless, but there are a ton of cables out there and you need repeating towers and satellites at least.
Chazz
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 9:06 PMTubes are hollow by definition. Cables, wires etc are not.
Cats
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 9:56 PMThe protective outer casing for a cable is certainly hollow though.
Chazz
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:00 PMIf it’s an outer casing for something then that means something is inside it therefore not hollow…
PlimpyD
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:11 PMI still love Ghost in the Shell…
Cooper
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:42 PMWould love to see the video. Too bad I’m using an iPhone. Thanks Kotaku
DaBow
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 12:38 AMThanks Apple** fixed
Steve M
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 1:25 AMThe problem isn’t with Apple or the iPhone, it’s with how Kotaku’s mobile site deals with the video code.. You can play the video just fine on iOS if you view the standard version of the site, but it just shows up as a chunk of code if you’re using the mobile site.
So yes, “Thanks Kotaku” was reasonable… But at least there’s also a pretty simple way around it.
Chris
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 1:25 AMYeah same.. :(
El Phantasmogoro
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 12:31 PMThat politician was given flak because his actual quote was (from memory) “It’s a series of tubes, not a dump truck. You can’t just dump all of your youtube videos into it and blogging and expect your own personal internet to work. My own personal internet got an email delayed by three days because of people sending useless emails and videos”. This man was the US Federal member for computers and internet technology. Telling people that they clog up the tubes with their emails and youtubes which make his OWN PERSONAL INTERNET take 3 days to deliver an email.
He copped flak because he was criminally ignorant of a thing he was supposed to make and review policy on for a nation of 300 million people that also just so happens to be the largest concentration of internet infrastructure in the world.