Andrew Blum: What is the Internet, really?

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: Miha Helbl Reviewer: Maja Budišin Lukin

I've always written primarily about architecture,

Vedno sem pisal o arhitekturi,

about buildings, and writing about architecture

o zgradbah, in pisanje o arhitekturi

is based on certain assumptions.

temelji na določenih domnevah.

An architect designs a building, and it becomes a place,

Arhitekt ustvari zasnuje stavbo, ki se razvije v prostor,

or many architects design many buildings, and it becomes

več arhitektov pa zasnuje več stavb, ki se razvijejo v mesto.

a city, and regardless of this complicated mix of forces

In kljub tej zapleteni mešanici sil

of politics and culture and economics that shapes

politike, kulture in ekonomije, ki te kraje ustvarijo,

these places, at the end of the day, you can go

jih lahko ob koncu dneva mirno obiščemo. Lahko se po njih sprehodimo.

and you can visit them. You can walk around them.

You can smell them. You can get a feel for them.

Lahko jih vdihnemo. Lahko jih občutimo.

You can experience their sense of place.

Lahko izkusimo njihov obstoj kot kraj.

But what was striking to me over the last several years

Toda v zadnjih nekaj letih me je osupnilo to,

was that less and less was I going out into the world,

da sem se vedno manj podajal v svet

and more and more, I was sitting in front of my computer screen.

in se vedno bolj pogosto znašel pred računalniškim zaslonom.

And especially since about 2007, when I got an iPhone,

Še bolj pogosto pa od leta 2007, ko sem kupil svoj iPhone,

I was not only sitting in front of my screen all day,

in nisem cele dneve le posedal pred zaslonom,

but I was also getting up at the end of the day

toda sem ob koncu dneva tudi gledal

and looking at this little screen that I carried in my pocket.

v ta majhen zaslon, ki sem ga imel v žepu.

And what was surprising to me was how quickly

Presenetilo me je, kako hitro se je spremenil

my relationship to the physical world had changed.

moj odnos do fizičnega sveta.

In this very short period of time, you know, whether you

V tem zelo kratkem času,

call it the last 15 years or so of being online, or the last,

naj bo to zadnjih 15 let, ki jih preživljamo na spletu,

you know, four or five years of being online all the time,

ali pa zadnjih štiri, pet let, ko je splet del našega vsakdana,

our relationship to our surroundings had changed in that

se je naš odnos do okolja spremenil v

our attention is constantly divided. You know,

razdvojenost naše pozornosti.

we're both looking inside the screens and we're looking

Obenem gledamo v ekrane

out in the world around us.

in opazujemo svet okrog nas.

And what was even more striking to me, and what I really

Še bolj pa me je osupnilo

in mi tudi ni dalo miru to, da mi je svet znotraj zaslona dal vtis,

got hung up on, was that the world inside the screen

seemed to have no physical reality of its own.

da je brez lastne fizične resničnosti.

If you went and looked for images of the Internet,

Če si želel poiskati slike interneta,

this was all that you found, this famous image by Opte

je to vse kar si našel, to slavno Optejevo sliko

of the Internet as the kind of Milky Way, this infinite expanse

interneta kot neke vrste Rimska cesta, ki se razprostira v neskončnost

where we don't seem to be anywhere on it.

in se ne najdemo nikjer znotraj nje.

We can never seem to grasp it in its totality.

Nikoli je ne zmoremo dojeti v celoti.

It's always reminded me of the Apollo image of the Earth,

Mene vedno spominja na sliko Zemlje, ki jo je posnel Apollo,

slika modre frnikole.

the blue marble picture, and it's similarly meant to suggest,

Zdi se mi, da na podoben način namiguje.

I think, that we can't really understand it as a whole.

da je ne moremo v razumeti v celoti.

We're always sort of small in the face of its expanse.

Vedno smo majhni navkljub njeni razsežnosti.

So if there was this world and this screen, and if there was

Če bi torej imel ta zaslonski svet

the physical world around me, I couldn't ever get them

in okrog sebe fizični svet,

ju ne bi nikoli uspel združiti na enem mestu.

together in the same place.

And then this happened.

In potem se je zgodilo to.

My Internet broke one day, as it occasionally does,

Kot se občasno zgodi, sem nekega dne izgubil internetno povezavo,

and the cable guy came to fix it, and he started with

prišel jo je popraviti serviser,

ki je začel s prašno kepo kablov za kavčem,

the dusty clump of cables behind the couch,

sledil ji je pred hišo, v klet in ven na dvorišče,

and he followed it to the front of my building and into the basement and out to the back yard,

and there was this big jumble of cables against the wall.

kjer je našel zmešnjavo kablov ob steni.

And then he saw a squirrel running along the wire,

In potem je zagledal veverico, ki je tekla ob žici,

and he said, "There's your problem.

in mi je dejal, tukaj je vaš problem.

A squirrel is chewing on your Internet." (Laughter)

Veverica žveči vaš internet.

(Smeh)

And this seemed astounding. The Internet is

To se mi je zdelo osupljivo.

Internet je transcendentna zamisel. Je serija protokolov, ki je spremenila

a transcendent idea. It's a set of protocols that has changed

everything from shopping to dating to revolutions.

vse od nakupovanja do zmenkov in revolucij.

It was unequivocally not something

Zatrdno ni nekaj,

a squirrel could chew on. (Laughter)

kar bi bila veverica zmožna prežvečiti. (Smeh)

But that in fact seemed to be the case.

Toda kljub temu je prišlo do tega.

A squirrel had in fact chewed on my Internet. (Laughter)

Veverica je nedvomno prežvečila moj internet. (Smeh)

And then I got this image in my head of what would happen

Potem pa sem si začel predstavljati kaj bi se zgodilo,

if you yanked the wire from the wall and if you started

če bi potegnil žico iz stene

to follow it. Where would it go?

in ji začel slediti. Kam bi vodila?

Was the Internet actually a place that you could visit?

Je internet kraj, ki ga lahko obiščeš?

Could I go there? Who would I meet?

Lahko pridem do njega? Koga bi srečal?

You know, was there something actually out there?

Je tam sploh možno kaj najti?

And the answer, by all accounts, was no.

In v vseh pogledih je bil odgovor ne.

This was the Internet, this black box with a red light on it,

Internet je bil to, ta črna škatlica z rdečo lučko.

as represented in the sitcom "The IT Crowd."

Kot je bila prikazana v TV seriji "Računalničarji."

Normally it lives on the top of Big Ben,

Ponavadi se nahaja na vrhu Big Bena,

because that's where you get the best reception,

ker je tam možno dobiti najboljši signal.

but they had negotiated that their colleague could borrow it

Toda dogovorili so se, da si jo sodelavka lahko sposodi

for the afternoon to use in an office presentation.

za popoldansko predavanje.

Starešine interneta so se bili od naprave pripravljeni ločiti za kratek čas.

The elders of the Internet were willing to part with it

for a short while, and she looks at it and she says,

Ona škatlico pogleda in reče, to je internet?

"This is the Internet? The whole Internet? Is it heavy?"

Celoten internet? Je težek?

They say, "Of course not, the Internet doesn't weigh anything."

Odgovorijo ji, seveda ne, internet je brez teže.

And I was embarrassed. I was looking for this thing

Postalo me je sram. Iskal sem to stvar,

that only fools seem to look for.

ki jo očitno iščejo le bedaki.

The Internet was that amorphous blob, or it was a silly

Internet je bila tista brezoblična packa,

black box with a blinking red light on it.

ali pa hecna črna škatla z utripajočo rdečo lučko.

It wasn't a real world out there.

Ni bil del resničnega sveta.

But, in fact, it is. There is a real world of the Internet out there,

Toda, v bistvu je. Resnični svet interneta zagotovo obstaja,

and that's what I spent about two years visiting,

svet, ki sem ga zadnji dve leti obiskoval, te kraje interneta.

these places of the Internet. I was in large data centers

Obiskal sem velike podatkovne centre,

that use as much power as the cities in which they sit,

ki porabijo enako količino energije kot mesta v katerih se nahajajo.

and I visited places like this, 60 Hudson Street in New York,

Obiskal sem tudi takšne kraje, stavbo na Hudson Street 60 v New Yorku,

which is one of the buildings in the world,

ki je ena izmed tistih na svetu,

one of a very short list of buildings, about a dozen buildings,

na zelo kratkem seznamu stavb, približno dvanajst jih je,

where more networks of the Internet connect to each other

kjer je med seboj povezanih več omrežij interneta

than anywhere else.

kot kjerkoli drugje.

And that connection is an unequivocally physical process.

Ta povezava je zatrdno fizična.

It's about the router of one network, a Facebook or

Gre za usmerjevalnik enega omrežja, naj bo to Facebook ali Google,

a Google or a B.T. or a Comcast or a Time Warner, whatever it is,

B.T., Comcast ali Time Warner, karkoli,

connecting with usually a yellow fiber optic cable up into

ki je ponavadi povezan z rumenim kablom iz optičnih vlaken

the ceiling and down into the router of another network,

skozi strop v nek drug usmerjevalnik nekega drugega omrežja.

and that's unequivocally physical, and it's surprisingly intimate.

To je nedvomno fizična povezava

in je presenetljivo podrobna.

A building like 60 Hudson, and a dozen or so others,

Stavba na Hudsonovi cesti in približno 12 ostalih stavb

has 10 times more networks connecting within it

je povezana z desetkrat več omrežji

than the next tier of buildings.

kot stavbe druge stopnje.

There's a very short list of these places.

Seznam takšnih krajev je zelo kratek.

And 60 Hudson in particular is interesting because it's home

Stavba na Hudsonovi cesti je še posebej zanimiva,

saj se tam nahaja približno šest zelo pomembnih omrežij.

to about a half a dozen very important networks,

which are the networks which serve the undersea cables

To so omrežja, ki služijo podmorskim kablom,

that travel underneath the ocean

napeljanimi pod oceanom.

that connect Europe and America and connect all of us.

Ti kabli povezujejo Evropo z Ameriko in povezujejo nas.

And it's those cables in particular that I want to focus on.

To so kabli, na katere se želim predvsem osredotočiti.

Če je internet globalen fenomen,

If the Internet is a global phenomenon, if we live

če živimo v globalni vasi,

in a global village, it's because there are cables underneath

je to zaradi kablov pod oceanom. Takšnih kablov.

the ocean, cables like this.

And in this dimension, they are incredibly small.

V tej dimenziji so neverjetno majhni.

You can you hold them in your hand. They're like a garden hose.

Lahko jih držimo v roki. So kot vrtna cev.

But in the other dimension they are incredibly expansive,

Toda v drugi dimenziji pa so neverjetno razsežni,

as expansive as you can imagine.

tako razsežni kot si lahko predstavljate. Raztezajo se preko oceana.

They stretch across the ocean. They're three or five

or eight thousand miles in length, and

Dolgi so pet, osem ali deset tisoč kilometrov.

if the material science and the computational technology

In čeprav sta znanost o materialih in računska tehnologija neverjetno zapleteni,

is incredibly complicated, the basic physical process

je osnovni fizični proces presenetljivo preprost.

is shockingly simple. Light goes in on one end of the ocean

Svetloba vstopi na enem koncu oceana

and comes out on the other, and it usually comes

in pride ven na drugem.

Ponavadi pride iz stavbe, ki se imenuje sprejemno-oddajna postaja

from a building called a landing station that's often

tucked away inconspicuously in a little seaside neighborhood,

in se pogosto skriva v manjši obmorski naselbini.

and there are amplifiers that sit on the ocean floor

Na dnu oceana pa so ojačevalci,

that look kind of like bluefin tuna, and every 50 miles

ki so podobni modroplavutemu tunu in vsakih 80 kilometrov ojačajo signal.

they amplify the signal, and since the rate of transmission

Ker je hitrost prenosa podatkov neverjetno hitra,

is incredibly fast, the basic unit is a 10-gigabit-per-second

je osnovna enota prenosa valovne dolžine svetlobe 10 gigabitov na sekundo,

wavelength of light, maybe a thousand times your own

kar je morda tisočkrat več kot vaša domača povezava,

connection, or capable of carrying 10,000 video streams,

in je zmožna prenosa 10.000 video posnetkov.

but not only that, but you'll put not just one wavelength of light

Toda to ni vse, saj ne bo potovala

samo ena valovna dolžina skozi eno izmed vlaken,

through one of the fibers, but you'll put maybe

ampak bo skozi potovalo 50, 60 ali 70 različnih valovnih dolžin

50 or 60 or 70 different wavelengths or colors of light

ali svetlobnih barv skozi eno samo vlakno.

through a single fiber, and then you'll have maybe

V enem kablu bo na primer osem vlaken, po štiri bodo usmerjene v vsako smer.

eight fibers in a cable, four going in each direction.

And they're tiny. They're the thickness of a hair.

In ta vlakna so zelo tanka, imajo debelino lasu.

In potem se povežejo nekje s kontinentom.

And then they connect to the continent somewhere.

Povežejo se v takšen jašek.

They connect in a manhole like this. Literally,

Dobesedno. To je dejanska lokacija, kjer je priključen 8.000 kilometrski kabel.

this is where the 5,000-mile cable plugs in.

This is in Halifax, a cable that stretches from Halifax to Ireland.

To je posnetek iz Halifaxa, kabla, ki povezuje Halifax ter Irsko.

And the landscape is changing. Three years ago,

Arhitektura se ves čas spreminja.

Pred tremi leti, ko sem se prvič osredotočil na to tematiko,

when I started thinking about this, there was one cable

down the Western coast of Africa, represented

je bil na zahodni obali Afrike en kabel,

kot je prikazan na zemljevidu Steva Songa s črno črto.

in this map by Steve Song as that thin black line.

Now there are six cables and more coming, three down each coast.

Zdaj je tam šest kablov in jih bo še več,

po trije ob vsaki obali.

Because once a country gets plugged in by one cable,

Ko se neka država priključi z enim kablom,

they realize that it's not enough. If they're going to build

se zave, da to ni dovolj.

an industry around it, they need to know that their connection

Če želi okrog tega razviti industrijo, se mora zavedati,

isn't tenuous but permanent, because if a cable breaks,

da njihova povezava ni šibka, ampak je dolgotrajna.

you have to send a ship out into the water, throw

Če se pretrga kabel, je potrebno na vodo poslati ladjo,

a grappling hook over the side, pick it up, find the other end,

čez krov vreči kavelj, kabel dvigniti, poiskati drugi konec,

and then fuse the two ends back together and then dump it over.

oba konca je potrebno zopet spojiti in kabel spustiti nazaj na morsko dno.

It's an intensely, intensely physical process.

To je zelo, zelo fizično naporen postopek.

So this is my friend Simon Cooper, who until very recently

Torej, to je moj prijatelj, Simon Cooper,

ki je do nedavnega delal za Tata Communications,

worked for Tata Communications, the communications wing

ki je komunikacijski oddelek podjetja Tata, velikega Indijskega industrijskega konglomerata.

of Tata, the big Indian industrial conglomerate.

And I've never met him. We've only communicated

Nisva se še nikoli srečala.

Pogovarjala sva se le skozi teleprisotnostni sistem.

via this telepresence system, which always makes me

Zaradi tega nanj vedno pomislim kot moža znotraj interneta.

think of him as the man inside the Internet. (Laughter)

(Smeh)

And he is English. The undersea cable industry

Je Anglež.

Znotraj industrije podmorskih kablov prevladujejo Angleži.

is dominated by Englishmen, and they all seem to be 42.

In vsi so stari okrog 42 let. (Smeh)

(Laughter) Because they all started at the same time

Ker so vsi z delom začeli ob istem času,

with the boom about 20 years ago.

ko je trg doživel razcvet pred 20 leti.

And Tata had gotten its start as a communications business

Podjetje Tata je zagnalo komunikacijsko poslovanje,

when they bought two cables, one across the Atlantic

z nakupom dveh kablov.

and one across the Pacific, and proceeded to add pieces

Eden se je raztezal čez Atlantski in drugi čez Tihi ocean.

Nadaljevali so z dodajanjem delov,

onto them, until they had built a belt around the world,

dokler niso zgradili pasu okrog sveta.

which means they will send your bits to the East or the West.

Kar pomeni, da vaše bitne podatke pošiljajo na vzhod ali na zahod.

They have -- this is literally a beam of light around the world,

Dobesedno imajo ta svetlobni žarek, ki obkroža ves svet.

and if a cable breaks in the Pacific, it'll send it around

Če se okvari kabel v Tihem oceanu, bo poslal žarek v drugo smer.

the other direction. And then having done that,

Ko so s tem zaključili, je podjetje začelo iskati nove kraje

they started to look for places to wire next.

do katerih se lahko poveže.

They looked for the unwired places, and that's meant

Iskali so kraje brez povezave. Zato so se osredotočili na sever in jug.

North and South, primarily these cables to Africa.

V glavnem so to bili ti kabli do Afrike.

But what amazes me is Simon's incredible geographic imagination.

Najbolj pa me je presenetila Simonova geografska domišljija.

On vidi svet kot nekakšno neverjetno razsežnost.

He thinks about the world with this incredible expansiveness.

Predvsem mi je bilo to zanimivo,

And I was particularly interested because I wanted to see

ker sem želel osebno videti izgradnjo takšnega kabla.

one of these cables being built. See, you know, all the time

Skozi naš čas na spletu, izkusimo te bežne trenutke povezanosti.

online we experience these fleeting moments of connection,

these sort of brief adjacencies, a tweet or a Facebook post

To kratkočasno zbližanost. Sporočila na Twitterju, Facebooku

or an email, and it seemed like there was a physical corollary to that.

ali elektronski pošti.

In pričakoval sem neko fizično povezanost.

It seemed like there was a moment when the continent

Pričakoval sem takšen trenutek ob priključitvi kontinenta

was being plugged in, and I wanted to see that.

in sem ga želel izkusiti.

And Simon was working on a new cable,

In Simon je delal na novem kablu, WACS, Zahodnoafriški Kabelski Sistem,

WACS, the West Africa Cable System, that stretched

ki se je raztezal od Lizbone do zahodne obale Afrike,

from Lisbon down the west coast of Africa,

to Cote d'Ivoire, to Ghana, to Nigeria, to Cameroon.

do Slonokoščene obale, Gane, Nigerije, Kameruna.

Povedal mi je da bo gradnja kmalu,

And he said there was coming soon, depending

on the weather, but he'd let me know when,

odvisno od vremena, in mi bo sporočil kdaj.

and so with about four days notice, he said to go

Tako mi je približno štiri dni vnaprej povedal,

da naj grem na obalo na jugu Lizbone.

to this beach south of Lisbon, and a little after 9,

In se bo malo po deveti uri iz morja sprehodil ta mož.

this guy will walk out of the water. (Laughter)

(Smeh)

And he'll be carrying a green nylon line, a lightweight line,

In bo imel v roki zeleno vrv iz najlona,

lahko vrv, ki se imenuje kurirska vrv.

called a messenger line, and that was the first link

In to je bil prvi člen med morjem in kopnim

between sea and land, this link that would then be

leveraged into this 9,000-mile path of light.

Ta člen, ki se bo kasneje razvil v to 11.000 kilometrsko pot svetlobe.

Then a bulldozer began to pull the cable in from this

Potem je buldožer začel vleči kabel s te posebne desantne ladje za kable,

specialized cable landing ship, and it was floated

ki so ga potem zvlekli na te boje, dokler ni bil pravilno nameščen.

on these buoys until it was in the right place.

Then you can see the English engineers looking on.

Vidite lahko tudi angleške inženirje kako delo opazujejo.

And then, once it was in the right place, he got back

Ko je bil kabel nameščen,

in the water holding a big knife, and he cut each buoy off,

se je moški vrnil v vodo z velikim nožem

in je boje odrezal, ki so se dvignile na površje.

and the buoy popped up into the air, and the cable

Kabel pa se je spustil na morsko dno.

dropped to the sea floor, and he did that all the way out

S tem je nadaljeval, dokler ni prispel do ladje.

to the ship, and when he got there,

they gave him a glass of juice and a cookie,

In ko je prispel do nje, so ga postregli s kozarcem soka in piškotom.

and then he jumped back in, and he swam back to shore,

Potem je skočil nazaj v vodo in odplaval do obale,

and then he lit a cigarette. (Laughter)

kjer si je prižgal cigareto.

(Smeh)

And then once that cable was on shore,

Ko je kabel prispel na obalo,

they began to prepare to connect it to the other side,

so ga začeli pripravljati za priključitev z drugim koncem,

for the cable that had been brought down from the landing station.

s kablom, ki so ga napeljali s sprejemno-oddajne postaje.

And first they got it with a hacksaw, and then they start

Začeli so ga obdelovati z žago,

sort of shaving away at this plastic interior with a --

nato so nastrgali plastično notranjost z ...

nekakšno spretnostjo kuharjev.

sort of working like chefs, and then finally they're working

In potem so se končno dela lotili kot zlatarji,

like jewelers to get these hair-thin fibers to line up

da so lahko ta tanka vlakna,

with the cable that had come down,

poravnali s kablom, ki so ga napeljali s postaje,

and with this hole-punch machine they fuse it together.

in so ga spojili z luknjačem.

And when you see these guys going at this cable with a hacksaw,

Ko opazuješ, kako se ti možje kabla lotijo z žago,

you stop thinking about the Internet as a cloud.

interneta ne vidiš več, kot oblak.

It starts to seem like an incredibly physical thing.

Začne ti delovati kot nekaj izredno fizičnega.

And what surprised me as well was that as much as this

Presenetilo me je še nekaj.

Čeprav vse to temelji na zelo visoko razviti tehnologiji,

is based on the most sophisticated technology, as much

čeprav je to nekaj povsem novega,

as this is an incredibly new thing, the physical process

itself has been around for a long time, and the culture is the same.

je fizični proces že dolgo v obstoju.

Tudi kultura je enaka. Vidiš domačine pri delu.

You see the local laborers. You see the English engineer

giving directions in the background. And more importantly,

Vidiš angleške inženirje, ki dajejo napotke v ozadju.

the places are the same. These cables still connect

Najbolj pomembno pa je, da so kraji ostali enaki.

Ti kabli se še vedno povezujejo do ustaljenih obmorskih mest.

these classic port cities, places like Lisbon, Mombasa,

Kot so Lizbona, Mombasa, Mumbaj, Singapur, New York.

Mumbai, Singapore, New York.

And then the process on shore takes around three or four days,

Za postopek na obali je potrebnih tri do štiri dni.

and then, when it's done, they put the manhole cover

In ko je delo končano, luknjo pokrijejo s pokrovom

back on top, and they push the sand over that,

in ga prekrijejo s peskom in nanj vsi pozabimo.

and we all forget about it.

In zdi se mi, da veliko govorimo o oblaku,

And it seems to me that we talk a lot about the cloud,

but every time we put something on the cloud,

toda vsakič, ko na oblak nekaj odložimo,

we give up some responsibility for it.

se obenem tudi deloma odpovemo odgovornosti do te stvari.

We are less connected to it. We let other people worry about it.

Nismo več z njo tako povezani. Pustimo, da se z njo ukvarja nekdo drug.

And that doesn't seem right.

In to se mi ne zdi prav.

There's a great Neal Stephenson line where he says

Obstaja odlična izjava Neala Stephensona,

that wired people should know something about wires.

ki je dejal, da morajo ljudje, ki so povezani prek žic, o žicah tudi nekaj vedeti.

And we should know, I think, we should know

In morali bi vedeti, mislim, da moramo vedeti,

where our Internet comes from, and we should know

od kod prihaja naša internetna povezava.

In moramo se zavedati, kaj nas vse fizično, fizično povezuje.

what it is that physically, physically connects us all.

Thank you. (Applause)

Hvala.

(Aplavz)

(Applause)

Thanks. (Applause)