Basement was once used to print newspapers, now is a fiber-optic interchange

An old, crumbling basement in Portland, OR, which was once the building in which The Orgeonian was printing and is now a major fiber-optic exchange. The basement is a beautiful mix of peeling pinups, faded WWII campaign maps, forgotten graffiti, and super-modern pipes filled with pulsing fiber, neatly pushed right through those old walls.

http://cabel.me/2012/12/19/the-basement/

‘Tubes’ by Andrew Blum

The "cloud", an increasingly vogue word, seems an apt if inaccurate description of the internet. Beyond the screens of their smartphones and laptops, most people have only the foggiest idea what it is. Andrew Blum was among them until his internet connection stopped working one day and he was strangely compelled to find out more. Tubes is his account of the journey that followed.

What happens to an email when it leaves your computer? Where do websites reside? To answer those questions, Blum takes to the road, visiting what he calls the internet's "monuments", the most important bits of its infrastructure, in America and Europe.