The proto-internet | Intelligent Life magazine
Mapping the submarine cables of the Victorian internet.
And by the way, why did nobody tell me about Cartophilia before now? I’m very disappointed in you.
Related links
Surfacing
An interactive map of the world’s undersea cables, to accompany Nicole Starosielski’s book The Undersea Network.
The People’s Cloud
A documentary by Matt Parker (brother of Andy) that follows in the footsteps of people like Andrew Blum, James Bridle, and Ingrid Burrington, going in search of the physical locations of the internet, and talking to the people who maintain it. Steven Pemberton makes an appearance in the first and last of five episodes:
- What is the Cloud vs What Existed Before?
- Working out the Internet: it’s a volume game
- The Submarine Cable Network
- How Much Data Is There?
- Convergence
The music makes it feel quite sinister.
Submarine Cable Map
This year’s TeleGeography map of the undersea network looks beautiful—inspired by old maps. I love the way that latency between countries is shown as inset constellations.