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The Men Who Fix the Internet

Posted by kdawson on from the physical-side-of-things dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those undersea cables breaking? PopSci.com introduces John Rennie, who '... has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by UK-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie — a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman — patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables.' The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability."

6 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about satellites? by Shikaku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Latency is a huge problem with that idea buddy.

  2. Another underappreciated job by dwhitaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is yet another example of the jobs which we rely on everyday but don't give much thought to. Also, this make me really think there is a great job out there to fit everyone. (When the economy improves that is.)

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    Douglas Whitaker
  3. Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yes, but. TFA seemed to indicate this was a rather common occurrence. So all of these commercial boats are losing their engines and being driven to shore routinely? Maybe somebody ought to be doing some preventative maintenance.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  4. Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses by palegray.net · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry about that; I've been known to be ignorant of regional variations from time to time. I suck :).

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    512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
  5. Re:Is it worth it? by nawcom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Are you suggesting that chimpanzees on segways be sent to the ocean floor to repair cables? Do segways even work underwater? Also, you'd have to design a special SCUBA suit for the chimps.

    Only on Slashdot would such a comment be modded +5 Informative. Only on Slashdot.

  6. Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses by TheLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think SSBN crew would actually be better for long term space missions than the Air Force people NASA seem to like.

    What do you think?

    The NASA keep doing all those psychological experiments to test how people will cope with long term space missions. Seems a waste of time and resources to me. Don't the US Navy already know all that stuff?

    I think it's easier to train a nuclear submariner to be an astronaut, than to train an airforce guy how to cope well with being confined in a metal can for months.

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