After
reading Tubes by Andrew Blum, I will
never see the Internet in the same perspective again. This book kept me engaged from front to back
cover with Blum's personal journey to the center of the Internet, the center
being in Palo Alto, California - one of the most expensive cities in the United
States. During my reading of this book I
actually Googled the PAIX because that particular chapter interested me when
Blum's adventures took him to Silicon Valley and to the Palo Alto Internet
eXchange (PAIX). When I read that
chapter I imagined the PAIX being a room full of bundles and bundles of cables
(some bundles being as big as tire tubes) running from one end of the building
to another and then through giant whole in the walls to the other rooms, and
then making connections to all the different routers and switches along the
way. It created a spider web network. Companies rented real estate in the PAIX like
it was a lot for lease. These companies
saw the PAIX as their manifest destiny; companies like Verizon, Sprint, and Facebook
expanded their presence on the Internet by having a piece of land in the PAIX. Having a server close to the center of the
Internet meant faster web sites and faster load times.
This
particular chapter got me wondering about Silicon Valley and Palo Alto, but
mostly about California and the plans I have for post-graduation. I started to wonder what I am going to do after
I graduate from K-State with a degree in CIS.
In Palo Alto, so many high technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard
and Apple started with nothing to become leaders in the technology we use every
day. Maybe it's something in the water
that makes people great in Palo Alto because the city is home to the most
educated people in the nation. Even
today information technology in California is a growing business. Most companies are downsizing and laying off
employees except for IT companies, these are the only ones that are growing and
expanding in this broken economy. After
I get my degree in CIS from K-State I plan to move back to California because
there are so many job opportunities in information technology. There are a few over here in the mid-west and
only if you don't mind teaching or working as a contractor for the military. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong
about doing either one of those, they are just not for me. Dealing with soldiers for four years when I
was enlisted in the Army is enough. Now
I can only handle soldiers in small doses.
I
would recommend this book to everyone who has a curiosity of how the Internet
works. This book provides a personal
insight of the backbone of the invention we use every day - tubes . Without these personal and physical connections
the Internet wouldn't have evolved and expanded at such a rapid rate in such a
small amount of time. These tubes bring
access to the entire world at our fingertips.
On a personal note, this book brought some enlightenment to what I plan
to with my degree after K-State. I now
know a bright future waits for me in my birthplace in the land of tubes and
silicon known as California. Why did I
even California in the first place?
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