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

Cabel visited 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. And as Cabel points out, every time you load this webpage, the bits representing the photos of the basement course through those fibers, through the basement itself.

The Basement | cabel.me (via Making Light)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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tmburke

For anyone interested I have a set of photos shot in News International’s old Wapping (East London) campus when it was abandoned (and before it was sold). Printing presses were gone but a vast array of cool stuff left behind.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tburke/sets/72157627913716639/
Ian McLoud

Sitting and thinking… there has to be a Portlandia tie-in somewhere…
Patrick

It’s just tubes.
social_maladroit

The Oregonian has a story up about it. They say it wasn’t them using the basement as a print shop at the time…
Dallas McNally

Has everyone who likes this post read “Mother Earth, Motherboard” by Neal Stephenson? It’s lengthy (took up the whole mag BITD) but brilliant.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
Ashen Victor

Truly a wonderful thing!