Two of my favorite things written by Neal Stephenson:
- Cryptonomicon, a book that seems scientifically designed to push the maximum number of my buttons.
- “Mother Earth, Mother Board”, Stephenson’s long but fascinating essay about submarine cables. This was originally published in Wired almost 24 years ago, and (interestingly enough) is reprinted as part of the back matter to the Kindle edition of Cryptonomicon.
I mention these things because this came across my YouTube recommendations, and I thought it was worth running on a Sunday: “The Voice Beneath The Sea”, about laying a trans-Atlantic cable to link the US, Canada, and the UK. Brought to you by “The American Telephone and Telegraph Company Long Lines Department”.
Man, I miss the days of organizations like the “Long Lines Department” and people with names like “Wildman Whitehouse” (even if the latter was grotesquely incompetent).
Bonus video #1: This seems oddly appropriate in these days of Zoom and Skype and WebEx: “Face to Face”, a 1970s promo film from AT&T for the Picturephone.
This is weird, but: I have a really vivid memory of seeing a Picturephone demonstration on TV when I was very young. Specifically…on “Captain Kangaroo”. I kid you not. I guess there were a lot of five to seven year old kids in the target market for AT&T’s service. Or perhaps it was really targeted at all the stay-at-home moms who were watching the show with their small children?
Bonus video #2: “Tools of Telephony”, produced by Western Electric.
I have another video or two along the long lines line (see what I did there?) that I want to put up, but I’m waiting for it to get hot again: I’m hopeful that at least one of those videos will cool you down a bit.