Undersea Cables

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by bestselling author Jason Pargin (new novel “If This Book Exists, You’re In The Wrong Universe”) for a look at why undersea cables are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• ORDER the new novel by Jason Pargin! It’s called If This Book Exists, You’re In The Wrong Universe.
• Audiobook of If This Book Exists, You’re In The Wrong Universe, narrated by Stephen R. Thorne
• Jason’s website
• Jason’s Substack
• Jason Pargin on Twitter
• Jason Pargin on Tiktok

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)
• “Finding Lenapehoking” (YouTube / Hudson River Maritime Museum)

FUN VIDEOS:

• Video of a shark biting an undersea cable, via the Sydney Morning Herald. 
• Here’s a sampling of @stairwellfarts on Tiktok.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Atlas Of The Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti
• The Nashville Bombing: A Timeline (The Tennessean)
• Why the Russian threat to undersea cables is overblown (Christian Science Monitor)
• Will Russia attack undersea internet cables next? (Politico)
• A dozen undersea cables connect Australia to the internet. What happens if they get hacked – or cut? (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• BoM floats idea of Antarctic subsea cable and satellite upgrades (ZDNet)
• Why do most international phone calls and data links go through satellites? (Dr. Christopher Baird, West Texas A&M University)
• HowStuffWorks: How Satellite TV Works
• Starlink is getting a lot slower as more people use it, speed tests show (Ars Technica)
• Elon Musk says an IPO of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet business is still 3 or 4 years away (CNBC)
• Section of TAT-8 transatlantic optical fibre cable, 1989 (UK Science Museum)
• The Father Of The Web Is Worried About How Ugly It’s Become (NPR)
• The World Wide Web at 30: We got the free and open internet we deserve (Engadget)
• SubmarineCableMap.com: SeaMeWe-3
• The Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable: 150th Anniversary Celebration 1858-2008 (The University Of Salford)
• The global internet is powered by vast undersea cables. But they’re vulnerable. (CNN)
• Who Made America?: Samuel Morse (PBS)
• The Great Transatlantic Cable: Gutta-percha (PBS American Experience)
• Feds confirm historic fusion ignition at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (CBS Bay Area)

Map of 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable:

Map of modern “SeaMeWe-3” fiber-optic Internet cable: