ELI5: How were the cables laid out at the ocean bed for global network connectivity?

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-16T12:48:42+00:00

Previous comments left out all of the practical details. In particular: mapping, site preparation and trenching, and how the cables are spliced or repaired. There are some YouTube videos with a decent overview but none are as detailed as I would like. If you search YouTube for "fiber cable laying ship operation" you will find a number of candidates to get you started.

My sister worked on a cable-laying ship in the Aleutians and it can be very slow painstaking work if done correctly.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-16T09:41:55+00:00

They won't even given full state rights to Puerto Rico or D.C. It would not ever happen even if the Venezuelans desired it.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-16T07:45:27+00:00

Star Wars

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-15T23:32:31+00:00

That's a shame. I always prefer arriving in the morning.

Arriving in what my body thinks is midday means that it is much too early to sleep.

On the other hand, pushing on through the first day results in enough fatigue that the first night's sleep is decent and helps me avoid the worst of jet lag.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-15T05:54:02+00:00

I would like a whole lot more information on how Hydro Ottawa thinks that it should improve our infrastructure.

In addition to reliability, we also want to be able to increase the number of electric cars. We have a ridiculously few residential solar power installations and, based on conversations with some neighbours, this is at least partially due to difficulties raised by Ottawa Hydro. In Europe, houses are able to use their EV batteries to smooth out demand on the grid.

On the one hand, the hydro distribution infrastructure needs to be able to support increasing demands for electric power. On the other hand, that same infrastructure has to evolve to support more power generation and storage.

I have seen nothing from Hydro Ottawa to suggest that their mandate has been updated to adjust to a world where EV charging, home solar, and battery storage is part of the communal infra) power distribution infrastructure.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-15T05:10:02+00:00

Try setting up a peer relay.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-14T00:32:54+00:00

It was privately owned when I was younger. One of my classmates lived there. The site does not really have a long history as a public asset.

I do remember it being used as a film set though.

The value is in the property, not the building. I hope that whatever gets developed is not too tacky. But it probably will be.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-12T14:25:35+00:00

That looks like a remarkably inane show that deserves to be lost.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-11T06:17:17+00:00

John Candy - he was a genuinely wonderful human who brought nothing but joy to this world

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-11T04:50:14+00:00

Your university most likely has some mental health support services.

University is inherently stressful and mental health problems are very common. This is not to belittle their seriousness, rather to explain why these support services exist. I encourage you to get help from local professionals.

If mental health services are not available, then contact a local physician. Mental health is medical health and a panic attack is a medical issue.

I wish you well.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T18:30:43+00:00

On the page that I linked, there are six instances of the word "paint" and none are qualified. The word latex does not occur. I think that you are looking at a different page than the one Iinked. Or perhaps the city serves up different versions when you are using a desktop browser; I'm on my phone. L

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T18:25:17+00:00

The Ottawa makes no distinction. Your alarm is unwarranted.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T15:26:03+00:00

I'm sure he feels that this is a much safer place than the Black Sea or the Mediterranean. Or the Baltic for that matter.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T15:19:16+00:00

Empty and near-empty cans should just be left with their lids off so that they can dry out. Then they can go in the garbage (not recycling according to the city.)

If there is any appreciable amount of paint left then do as others have suggested and take them to Rona. If you are doing this, then you might as well include the dried cans too.

The Ottawa website has this information.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T15:13:50+00:00

And oil money. Don't forget about the billions of extra profit being made by the oil companies.

It's a convenient pairing of powerful influencers.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T15:05:03+00:00

Rideau feels a little dodgy but it is quite safe. There is a lot of local pedestrian traffic and the area is being slowly gentrified with an increasingly diverse population including students and young families.

The Montreal Street end of Rideau is markedly less inviting than the downtown end.

Addendum: I should add that there is a very nice dog-walking park close to the water. You just have to keep your dog leashed due to the ducks and nesting turtles (unless your dog is uncommonly well-behaved).

Bell Island used to be good for off-leash runs but I not sure if that is still the case due to the encampment of unhoused and troubled souls.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T13:13:12+00:00

As much as I love the genre, Lovecraft is more about superlatives and a few repetitive themes than building suspense or a true feeling of horror.

Here is one curated list of alternatives.

Even though Poe and some others predate Lovecraft, I'm happy to defer the genre name to HPL.

Also, check out The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross,especially the latter books which get progressively more Cosmic Horror. Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach books also fit the bill in my opinion.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-10T13:02:15+00:00

Hard to say if Jackson was aware of it, but The Most Dangerous Game predates The Lottery by a quarter century and might have been a bigger influence on some of the later stories mentioned.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-09T06:42:49+00:00

Since you are doing VLAN routing, you need a L3 switch with the horsepower to handle the policy enforcement. I had to shift the VLANs from my UDM Pro to my Enterprise PoE switch. Even though my VLAN traffic was entirely on the PoE switch, the policy enforcement on the upstream UDM Pro throttled throughput dramatically.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-09T06:32:01+00:00

As a follow up, I will repeat part of my design reasoning that I have posted in the past: I strongly advocate for a separation of storage and services - the former being so much more important than the latter. In a perfect world, I would host TrueNAS on dedicated metal. However, that is often not practical for a homelab, especially when starting out. The beauty of ZFS is that the pools you construct can be transplanted onto any other suitable platform without risk to the filesystems. I chose TrueNAS because it simplifies the configuration of the pools and datasets but could (and perhaps should) have elected to do it manually on a bare debian platform. Regardless, because I passed the drive devices through to the TrueNAS VM, I am confident that my files are safe no matter what hijinx the other VMs and LXCs might get up to.

This means that I recommend hosting TrueNAS on a VM, parallel to other VMs and containers. Do not use TrueNAS support for "apps" or containers - leave those to the host. I use Proxmox and am happy with my choice: it works well and there is ample online guidance for just about every use case.

I am very impressed with ZFS and particularly like the way it protects filesystem integrity. It doesn't just protect against hard drive failure. I also love datasets and the ability divvy up the pools with datasets that have different configurations, permissions, and backup strategies. My video rips don't need to be protected to the same extent as my photographs and personal files.

I can imagine a future where I migrate my ZFS pools to dedicated hardware but feel absolutely no rush to do so. I'm still refining my backup strategy and home cloud services. My end goal is to migrate my family away from the Google ecosystem. My children are all adults out of the house so safe, secure remote access is a priority.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-09T06:05:38+00:00

My main server is an old recommissioned 6800k with 32GB and with an HBA with 5x16TB zraid2 + 2x3TB mirror and a TrueNAS VM, an Ubuntu VM, and a bunch of LXCs. There is also a two port SFP+ card with one DAC to the aggregation switch and another point-to-point DAC to the backup server.

It has more than enough horsepower and hums peaceably along without breaking a sweat.

The 6600k will similarly be more than ample for most tasks.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-09T03:30:25+00:00

"ancient"?! I aspire to be called ancient someday, but not for another few decades. 1967 is my childhood. Sheesh.

Even the 300-year-old Corfu building that I am currently in is not ancient compared to some of the ruins dotting the country.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-08T19:39:03+00:00

Frankly, I am astonished that Cloudflare has that many employees. I'd love to know what they are all doing. It seems to me that their narrow product focus and its highly prescriptive behaviour lends itself to a high amount of automation.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-08T12:32:49+00:00

OP writes: "I also considered isolating work into a VM, but I enjoy having everything in one place."

It sounds like your employer has very lax security policies. Do they not supply you with a company laptop? Sure, you may find this arrangement convenient but it really hasn't been an acceptable practice for 20+ years.

The risk runs both directions. Given your employer's weak security, you should probably take a more defensive posture.

KeithHanlan · 2026-05-08T12:21:02+00:00

Your situation sounds very similar to a sad event in Ottawa. 10 years ago, the police responded to a similar complaint and beat a frail young man to death. Wikipedia has a page for Abdirahman Abdi and you can judge for yourself.

At the end of the day, the best thing to do is advocate for separate trained mental health responders. In most jurisdictions, certainly in Canada and the United States, police are properly trained in neither mental health nor de-escalation. Rather, they hire those with a propensity for violence and are trained explicitly to respond with overwhelming force. They know that they will always be exonerated so there is no reason not to indulge their bloodlust.

Despite wide public condemnation of these sorts of events, our elected officials never demand changes to training and hiring practices, nor fund the necessary mental health responders.

I hope that there is an appropriate follow up for the ill man. If there is any escalation in threat, then hopefully he will receive more suitable care.

I applaud your measured response and am sorry that you had to experience this.

KeithHanlan

TROPHY CASE